A video has circulated on social media showing the first moments of freedom for released prisoner Noorhan Awad at the Qalandiya checkpoint north of Jerusalem, following the second phase of the hostage exchange deal between Hamas and Israel. The prisoner Noorhan Awad, who was shot three times during her arrest, is now free after spending eight years in prison, awaiting the others.
**Who is Noorhan?**
According to the official website of the Prisoners’ Authority, "Released prisoner Noorhan Khedr Awad was with her cousin martyr Hadeel Awad (14 years old) carrying her school bag when the Israeli army opened fire on them. Hadeel was martyred, and Noorhan was injured by bullets and was arrested and taken to the hospital, where she was interrogated before she had fully healed, and she was transferred to Hasharon women's prison."
The prisoners’ media clarified that "the military prosecution insisted on charging Noorhan with attempted murder and premeditated plotting to commit stabbing along with her cousin martyr Hadeel, who had attacked a settler and a settler woman with scissors, injuring them in retaliation for her brother's martyrdom by Israeli forces in 2013, before one of the border guards shot and killed Hadeel, injuring Noorhan, who was 16 at the time of the incident." An Israeli court imposed a sentence of 13 and a half years on the injured girl Noorhan, along with a financial fine of 30,000 shekels.
Later, the Authority for Prisoners and Released Prisoners reported that it had obtained a decision from the Israeli Supreme Court to reduce Noorhan Awad's sentence from 13 and a half years to 10 years after an appeal filed by the authority two years ago.
According to the Palestinian Studies Center, one of the released female prisoners close to Noorhan said, "Noorhan is strange and wonderful. She is dear to the heart and enters it like a butterfly. Everyone loves her, and there is a great consensus on her; she brings a joyful atmosphere wherever she goes and continues to give."
She continued, “When Noorhan is released, I have prepared a gift for her, one of the things she dreamed of: a snow globe exactly like in the movies. That's how Noorhan is, with her overwhelming romanticism in her personality.”
During her years of imprisonment, Noorhan managed to gather her strength and goals after her sentence was issued, and decided to pursue her education to achieve dreams that she would not allow her captors to crush or extinguish. She took her high school exams inside her cell and excelled, achieving a score of 94 percent.
