A Jordanian soldier who served 20 years for the 1997 killing of seven Israeli schoolgirls was released from jail late Saturday night, but the overnight release did not stall "large celebrations and a hero's welcome," The Washington Post reported.
"I entered prison a soldier of the armed forces, and today I consider myself a member of the armed forces," said Ahmed Daqamseh, who was greeted by hundreds of supporters and relatives near the capital of Jordan, according to the Post.
"Don't believe the lie of normalization with the Zionist entity," he told Al Jazeera, per the report. "Don't believe the lie of the two-state solution; Palestine united is from the ocean to the river . . . there is no state called 'Israel.'"
Daqamseh trended on Twitter and he was heralded as a "hero" and a "model" on Jordanian social media, Albawaba.com reported.
"Israelis kill Palestinians by the hundreds every month, and no one is brought to justice," Mohammed Youssef told the Post. "Why do we punish a soldier?"
Director of the Al Quds Center for Political Studies, Oraib al-Rantawi, did not condone the killings, but understood the Jordanian support.
"It is not logic," al-Rantawi told the Post. "It is feeling — a sense of revenge, a kind of compensation, a way of dealing with Israelis the same way they deal with Palestinians — killing them outside the law without being punished.
"It is not shocking to see Jordanians supporting this guy, despite the fact what he did is not something you could feel honorable about."
Hila Levy, who was injured in the March 13, 1997 attack during a class field trip, lamented the soldier's release from his life sentence, per the Post.
"We knew he would be released sometime soon, but it still hurts," Levy, now 33, told Israel Army Radio on Sunday, per the report.
"A man like that does not deserve to be free."
© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.