The Jerusalemite prisoner Nasser Musa Abd Rabbo: Three decades of persecution and detention
On Wednesday, the occupation authorities released the Jerusalemite prisoner Nasser Musa Abd Rabbo (58 years old) from the town of Sur Baher in Jerusalem, after spending most of his life between arrest and persecution.
Abd Rabbo is one of the oldest prisoners from Jerusalem and one of those released in the 2011 Wafaa al-Ahrar (Shalit) prisoner exchange deal.
The Wadi Hilweh Information Center in Jerusalem explained that Abd Rabbo was first arrested in February 1988 and sentenced to three years in prison. Just two months before his sentence was due to end, the occupation authorities issued a new life sentence (37 years and 8 months) against him.
The center added that the prisoner spent 24 consecutive years in prison until his release as part of the Wafaa al-Ahrar deal. However, the occupation authorities re-arrested him in June 2014 and re-imposed his previous sentence at the end of 2015. The center noted that Abd Rabbo's name was put forward as part of a new prisoner exchange deal between Israel and Hamas (the seventh batch), in exchange for his deportation outside the Palestinian territories. However, he rejected the offer, especially since his sentence was nearing completion, and his name was later replaced by that of another prisoner.
While in prison, Abd Rabbo was shot with a rubber bullet on March 4, 2025, while in the Negev prison after refusing a deportation order. He was quoted as saying that a guard shot him from less than two meters away, wounding him in his foot.
The freed prisoner has two children: Amir (12 years old), who was only one-year-old when his father was arrested, and Ali (11 years old), whose mother was pregnant with him when Nasser was arrested.
