Bashir is from Ramla in occupied Palestine ’48. He was arrested on 1 January 1988, amid the rise of the great popular intifada throughout occupied Palestine, and charged with membership in a prohibited organization, possession of weapons and explosives, and participating in the armed Palestinian resistance. He was sentenced to life imprisonment; in 2012, the term of his sentence was set to 35 years. Like other Palestinian prisoners from occupied Palestine ’48, he is targeted by the new Zionist law that aims to render Palestinian prisoners stateless after their release.

Life in Prison

He has been moved repeatedly between multiple prisons and subjected to various types of violations by the occupation prison administration. Like his fellow prisoners of occupied Palestine ’48, the occupation refused to include him in the prisoner exchanges, such as the Wafaa al-Ahrar exchange, claiming that his imprisonment is an “internal Israeli” matter.

During the long years of his captivity, Bashir lost all his teeth and could only eat with great difficulty.

When Al-Khatib was arrested, his five children were in their early years. They have grown up and married while he remains behind bars. He was only able to receive visits from his grandchildren after a lengthy legal battle; they had been denied on the pretext that they are not “relatives of the first degree.”

He was released in July 2023.