Published On 5/7/2026
Occupied Jerusalem- Palestinian activist Maher Abdel Latif Younis (68 years old) died at dawn today, Sunday, as a result of a severe health illness that befell him, three and a half years after his liberation from the Israeli occupation prisons in which he was held for 40 years, where the Israeli occupation arrested him for the first time in 1983 when he was 15 years old.
All prisoner institutions, in the name of the prisoners in the occupation prisons and those released in the homeland and the diaspora, mourned “the former prisoner and one of the symbols of the captive Palestinian movement, Maher Younis,” and referred to his struggle history from the first moments of his arrest until his liberation in January 2023, after serving his entire sentence.
“A school of patience and perseverance”
The prisoner institutions said – in a press statement – that the departure of Maher Younis does not end the biography of an individual, “but rather our people bid farewell to one of the most prominent fighters who embodied the meaning of steadfastness in the face of captivity, and formulated from the long years of captivity a school of patience, dignity and will, and his presence in the prisoner movement was a witness to an entire generation of those who carried the Palestinian dream.”
The statement added, “In farewell to Younes, the institutions recall the biography of a man who was not just a name in the detention record, but rather an integrated struggle experience, in which pain was mixed with determination, until he became a symbol of the prisoner movement that did not break despite the long years of captivity.”
In the town of Ara inside Palestine occupied in 1948, Maher Younis was born in 1958, and grew up in a family that carried in its memory the meaning of struggle. He was the brother of 5 sisters and one brother. Before his arrest, he received basic education in the schools of his village, then in the industrial school in the city of Hadera. During the years of his captivity, he was able to extract his right to education, so he obtained a bachelor’s degree in political science from behind the walls.
Younis was arrested – according to a statement by the prisoner institutions – on January 18, 1983 on the grounds of his affiliation to the National Liberation Movement (Fatah) and his resistance to the occupation, a short period after the arrest of his cousin, Commander Karim Younis, along with their comrade Sami Younis, who was liberated in the “Loyalty to the Free” deal in 2011, before he left after years of freedom.
His companion mourns him
Maher Younis was subjected to a harsh investigation following his arrest, and a death sentence was issued against him, before it was later converted to a life sentence. Then the term of his sentence was set in 2012 to be a full 40 years.
During 4 decades of captivity, Maher Younis remained a symbol of steadfastness, and participated in its various stations and battles, while he was deprived of saying goodbye to his father, who died in 2008, even though his father was a former prisoner who spent years in occupation prisons.
Prisoners’ institutions confirmed that Maher Younis will remain present in the national memory, “not as a bygone name, but as a complete story about the Palestinian human being, and about the sacrifice for the sake of freedom that is written with long patience.”
Social networking sites, media pages, and others were filled with news of the death of the prisoner Maher Younis, and his cousin and companion, the liberated prisoner Karim Younis, mourned him, saying: “A lifelong companion. A companion of shackles and forty years of steadfastness. You have passed away physically, and your biography remains a symbol that will never be extinguished. May God have mercy on you, my brother. May God bind our hearts, and may God have mercy on the deceased of free Palestine.”
According to media sources, his body is scheduled to be buried after noon prayers on Sunday from the mosque of the Al-Dhaharat neighborhood in the town of Arara, amid wide public participation.
