Here in New York, protesters rallied in front of the U.N. headquarters Friday demanding the release of 62-year-old Palestinian political prisoner, writer and organizer Walid Daqqah, who has been in Israeli custody since 1986. Daqqah completed his time for the 1984 killing of Israeli soldier Moshe Tamam this year, but he was sentenced to two additional years in 2017 for smuggling phone devices into Ktzi’ot prison. This is organizer Munir Atalla speaking at Friday’s action.

Munir Atalla: “Walid has developed a rare form of bone marrow cancer, and he has essentially been dealt a death sentence by the Israeli courts, because — by the Israeli prison systems, because he’s being denied medical care for this life-threatening cancer. And his family has also been denied visitation to see him. So we call — he’s in a state of crisis, and we call on them to release him immediately. And we’re pushing the U.N. to push the Israeli regime to do so.”