Over $100,000 raised to free Israeli imprisoned in Arab country

An Israeli man has raised almost all of the $120,000 that he hopes will secure the release of his son from imprisonment in an Arab country where he is jailed over the murder of a taxi driver who he says threatened to expose him as a Jew.

Ben Hassin, 21, who also holds Canadian citizenship, has been imprisoned since June 2015 in an unnamed state with which Israel has no diplomatic relations, after he allegedly killed a cab driver who threatened to kill him upon discovering that he was Jewish.

Ilan Hassin, who on Tuesday urged the public to donate money to save Ben’s life, has managed to raise nearly the entire ransom, the ZAKA emergency response group said Wednesday.

The organization launched a crowdfunding effort on The Chesed Fund website to rescue Ben Hassin, a day after his father and Likud minister Ayoub Kara both implored the public to donate money to save his life.

The campaign had at the time of writing raised $114,000 of the required $120,000, with over 2,100 donors.

Hassin was apparently in the Arab country to visit his grandparents, but while there decided to enlist in the fight against the Islamic State group.

He now faces either 25 years in jail or the death penalty, his father said Tuesday, unless he can come up with $120,000 in blood money to the cab driver’s family. Hassin senior said he promised the taxi driver’s family that the “sulha” peacemaking payment would be delivered by Sunday, and that this could facilitate his son’s release. The sentencing decision is expected Sunday.

The military censor on Tuesday allowed some details of Hassin’s case to be published and his father appeared on Israeli television, pleading for help to raise the cash to free his son.

“I don’t have that money,” the elder Hassin said. “Help me.”

He played a recording of his son, speaking by phone to him from prison in English, in which he said he has been tortured. The younger Hassin is heard saying he was beaten, had his fingernails pulled out and was suspended from a ceiling.

Ilan Hassin is Israeli. Ben Hassin’s mother has reportedly lived in Canada for 30 years.

Some details of the story were first revealed in November by Kara, who posted a video of himself discussing specifics of the case on Facebook.

However, due to the sensitivity of the issue and to ensure the safety of both Hassin and his family, the military censor instructed Kara to remove the video. Kara said he had been trying to help the family and save Hassin’s life.

The decision to allow details of the case to be published was made after Ilan Hassin recently requested help from the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem in removing the gag order in order to help raise money for his son’s release, according to the Hebrew-language Israel Hayom daily.

Kara told Haaretz on Tuesday that the unnamed country would release Hassin in exchange for the $120,000 “ransom.” He said that he wanted the details of the case to be made public in order to “raise the money and save [his son].”

Speaking on Channel 2 later Tuesday, Kara asked the public to “donate money to help save a life.”

Deputy Foreign Ministry spokesman Eitan Weiss told Israel Hayom that further details of the case could not be made public as “we are worried that Islamic terrorists would discover that there is an Israeli in prison [in the unnamed country] and try to find him and harm him.”

He added: “We hope that [Hassin’s] father succeeds in obtaining the money he is meant to give as compensation, and that his son will return home as quickly as possible.”

Alexander Fulbright contributed to this report.