Making the Uneasy Transition From Prisoner to Celebrity

[oberliner]

GAZA CITY — Freshly barbered and wearing a shirt so new its creases still showed, Mohammed Musa Taqatqa arrived at the ceremony with his sister, greeted by countless handshakes while having to duck slightly as he stepped beneath the five plastic bouquets on the wedding-style arch.

Accepting a garland of white flowers, he draped it over the two scarves already tied neatly around his neck and walked to one of the seats in the large auditorium marked with the single Arabic word “Moharar,” meaning “Freed.”

There, Mr. Taqatqa sat down alongside hundreds of his fellow guests of honor — all similarly bedecked in scarves and flowers. Despite the nuptial trappings, though, this was not a wedding. It was a welcome ceremony at the Islamic University of Gaza for hundreds of the Palestinian prisoners released last week in an Israeli-Palestinian prisoner exchange deal.

Mr. Taqatqa, 38, was among the first group of 477 Palestinian prisoners freed in return for an Israeli tank soldier, Sgt. First Class Gilad Shalit, captured five years ago when Hamas militants crossed through a tunnel to raid an Israeli military base. Mr. Taqatqa had served 18 years of a life sentence in an Israeli prison, with a lot of time spent in solitary.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/28/world/middleeast/freed-palestinian-prisoners-adjust-to-life-as-celebrities.html