Mohammad al-Arida, one of the heroes of Operation Freedom Tunnel, has finally snatched his freedom after years in Israeli occupation prisons.

Al-Arida was freed Saturday by Israeli authorities in the second round of the first phase of the prisoner exchange deal between the Palestinian Resistance and "Israel", as part of the ceasefire agreement that ended the 15-month war on the Gaza Strip.

Freed #Palestinian prisoner Mohammad al-Arida expressed his gratitude to #AlMayadeen and its Chairman of the Board of Directors Mr. Ghassan Ben Jeddou for their support for the Palestinian prisoners' cause.

Al-Arida is one of the members of Operation Freedom Tunnel, during which… pic.twitter.com/wrYEFsnGOv

— Al Mayadeen English (@MayadeenEnglish) January 25, 2025

Born on September 3, 1982, in Arraba, south of Jenin in the occupied West Bank, al-Arida completed his elementary, middle, and high school education in local schools.

On May 16, 2002, Israeli forces detained him after besieging a building where he had taken shelter in the city of Ramallah.

He was subsequently sentenced to three life terms plus 20 years, accused of being a member of the al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) movement, and participating in operations against Israeli forces.

Al-Arida was serving his sentence in the Israeli Shatta Prison, located in the occupied Jordan Valley near Beit She'an in the central West Bank; however, in 2014, after prison authorities discovered a tunnel intended for escape, he was placed in solitary confinement for a year.

However, al-Arida's quest for freedom did not end there. On September 6, 2021, his name resurfaced after he successfully broke out of Gilboa Prison in an operation dubbed Operation Freedom Tunnel, alongside fellow prisoners Mahmoud al-Arida, Zakaria al-Zubaidi, Ya'qoub Qadri, Ayham Kamamji, and Munadel Nafi'at.

On September 11 of the same year, Israeli forces rearrested al-Arida, putting him in isolation and subjecting him to harsh treatment. An Israeli court also handed him an additional five-year sentence.

Despite his struggle in captivity, al-Arida authored several works, including Fiqh of Jihad, The Influence of Sheikh Al-Ghazali on the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine, and the novel al-Rawahel.

On January 25, 2025, al-Arida was liberated and returned to Jenin, after the Resistance in Gaza fulfilled its promise of releasing prisoners and detainees following Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.