Fears for Khaled El Qaisi’s wellbeing after his release in Israel

The Palestinian Italian researcher has been released from Israeli custody but still isn’t allowed to return to his wife and child in Italy.

Khaled El Qaisi, 28, has not been heard from since he was released by Israeli authorities on October 1 and told to speak to nobody until October 8.

The Palestinian Italian researcher who founded a Palestinian Documentation Centre in Rome had spent a month in arbitrary Israeli detention after being arrested as he was crossing from Palestine into Jordan at the Allenby Bridge.

He endured five hearings without knowing what the charges against him were. Four of the hearings had ended with him remanded into custody.

At the fifth hearing, he was released under strict conditions.

All his family knows about him now is that he was released in Ramallah, was picked up by an uncle and taken to Bethlehem, and is not allowed to speak to anyone for a week, at the end of which he may finally learn his fate.

El Qaisi’s parents have not seen him since his release, according to a relative of his who spoke to Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity.

“Even his mother. He’s not allowed to speak to his mother!” his relative said.

archive: archive.ph/6zrzn