By: Nanees Afify – October 26, 2025
After twenty-one years of imprisonment, Palestinian novelist Basem Khandaqji was released from Israeli prisons and transferred to Egypt under the recent Hamas–Israel prisoner exchange deal. From there, he begins his first steps toward freedom after more than two decades behind bars.
From Nablus to His Prison Cell
Born in Nablus in 1983, Khandaqji emerged as a young cultural voice, writing essays, poetry, and short stories. In November 2004, he was arrested by Israeli forces on charges of planning a bombing in Jerusalem, allegedly linked to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. After a lengthy military trial, he was sentenced to three consecutive life sentences — equivalent to spending three lifetimes in prison.
Inside his cell, Khandaqji endured harsh conditions: long years in solitary confinement, deprivation of visits and books, and repeated transfers between prisons. Yet despite the chains, he never stopped writing, turning words into his only weapon against isolation and pain.
Literature Born Behind Bars
Khandaqji began writing by hand on a few sheets of paper that were smuggled out of prison, transforming his small cell into a space of creation. His works include Narcissus of Solitude, The Musk of Sufficiency, and A Mask, the Color of the Sky.
In one of his letters, he wrote:
“I do not write about freedom; I practice it through words.”
It was this philosophy that guided his novel A Mask, the Color of the Sky, which won the 2024 International Prize for Arabic Fiction (Arabic Booker) — making him the first imprisoned writer to receive the award from inside Israeli prisons.
When Joy Turns into Pain
Imagine winning one of the Arab world’s most prestigious literary awards — yet instead of celebration, you are punished for it. That was Basem Khandaqji’s reality. The Israeli authorities could not bear his voice reaching the world from behind bars, turning his victory into a new form of suffering.
According to his sister Amena Khandaqji and the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club, the occupation authorities intensified his isolation and torture after his win, banning him from books and family visits — an attempt to silence his growing literary influence.
In his novel, he wrote:
“Prison is the cruelest of human experiences… a corroded exile made of iron.”
A sentence that captures his true meaning of imprisonment — not merely iron bars, but an endless attempt to extinguish the light within.
Freedom That Cannot Be Broken
After his release, Khandaqji said that writing had been his first weapon against imprisonment and torture, and that words could never be defeated, no matter how long the night.
Basem Khandaqji’s story is not only about a prisoner who was freed — it is about a man who turned chains into keys and a cell into a workshop of literature.
A living testament that creativity can survive anything, even the walls of occupation
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