Voice of Women
Issue no. 287
April 17th, 2008
In this issue:
Um Yasser: the occupation has deprived my daughter Wafaa
of her most basic rights
A family's dream of seeing their daughter again fades
Um Yasser: the occupation has deprived my daughter Wafaa
of her most basic rights
Fayez Abu Own, Gaza
"Ever since my daughter Wafaa was arrested, not a day goes by that I do not try to get a permit from the International Red Cross so that I can go to see her," Um Yasser Albs, a 45year-old mother from Jabalya refugee camp, tells Voice of Women. "I still have hope that God is going to get us out of this mess; that we will see her soon -- if not while she is still in prison then for sure when she gets out of prison." Um Yasser's daughter has been in an Israeli prison since May 2005.
Um Yasser Albs hugs a framed photo of her daughter, Wafaa, who is serving a sentence of 12 years and 14 days at Hashroon, an Israeli prison. "I miss her so much; I am dying to see her," she says, her eyes filling with tears. "She is on my mind all day and in my dreams at night. I dream of holding her and easing her pain: when she was arrested she was on her way to receive treatment for severe burns that she suffered during an accident."
"I have not seen my 22-year-old daughter, Wafaa, since she was arrested three years ago at the Biet Hanoun checkpoint -- also known as 'Arez'," says Um Yasser. "She was on her way to receive treatment at an Israeli hospital when she was accused of plotting a suicide bombing inside Israel." Her daughter was on her way to the hospital because of problems with her chest and one of her hands resulting from her burns.
Before Um Yasser can conceal her pain, tears begin to stream down her face; a testimony to the agony that she experiences being separated from her daughter. "I can't believe that all this time has passed without being able to see my sick daughter," she says. "I doubt that I'll still be alive in nine years when she finishes her sentence. I haven't been able to see her because Israel does not allow any family members to visit her while she is in prison despite the fact that we have asked the Red Cross to help us repeatedly."
Before Um Yasser can finish, her husband interrupts her and begins to talk about the effects that Israel's oppressive policies have had on them. They have been prevented from talking to their daughter or even receiving any news about her. Israel has not permitted them to send her any clothes or food through the Red Cross or through other prisoners. "I call upon the whole world, the Ministry of Prisoners' Affairs, the Red Cross and international and Israeli human rights organizations to intervene so that we will be allowed to visit to our daughter Wafaa, to see her and be sure that she is okay," says Abu Yasser. "I am sure that my daughter is having a difficult time because she suffers from complicated chronic illnesses. She has difficulty breathing and has cramps in her fingers, as well as other problems. But we have no way of knowing how she is doing except from fellow inmates of hers who have been released or through the parents of other prisoners from our district who are able to visit their daughters in the Israeli prisons."
"I always try to get news about her through the lawyers and by phoning other prisoners who are with her. We are also very anxious because we are waiting for Israel and the Palestinian Authority to agree on a prisoner exchange. We want to hold our daughter in our arms again and make up to her all the affection that she has been deprived of during her ordeal in the merciless prison."
"The more time that passes the more my pain as a father increases, knowing that she has been in constant need of medical follow-up for three years now," Abu Yasser says. "Every time the lawyers go to see her she complains to them about the conditions in prison. The prison administration continues to increase their punishment of her because she constantly rebels and protests. She is also constantly subjected to harassment by the prison administration because she continues to resist the measures that they are taking against her."
Wafaa's family participates regularly in the weekly protests every Monday morning in front of the Red Cross office in Gaza. They contact the local radio stations with the hope that their voices will reach their daughter in prison.
The conditions that Wafaa Albs is experiencing are no different than those faced by other prisoners from Gaza – including Fatima Younis Al Zark, a 39-year-old mother of eight children who was arrest with her 30-year-old niece, a mother of four, on 8 July last year at Biet Hanoun. Fatima Al Zark delivered her baby, Yousef, on 18 January this year at Ma'eer Kafar Saba, an Israeli hospital, under strict military supervision and while in handcuffs. She was arrested in her third month of pregnancy while she and her niece were on their way to a hospital in Ramallah so that her niece could receive treatment for her eyes. Israeli soldiers arrested them and took them to Ashkelon prison for interrogation. They were accused of plotting a suicide bombing. During the interrogation they were tortured and abused in an attempt to force them to confess to these accusations.
Al Zark is now at Hasharon prison for women, still awaiting sentencing. She is deprived of visitation rights for security reasons and because of the closure of Gaza. She is the fourth prisoner to deliver a baby while in an Israeli prison since the Al Aqsa Intifada began seven years ago. The others are Mirvet Taha, who delivered her baby, Wa'al, while in prison, Manal Ghanem, who delivered her baby, Nour, and Samar Sabih who delivered her baby, Bara', while in prison.
The Al Zark family receives news of their daughter through Mouna Al Amayra, a former prisoner from Dowar, a village south of Hebron, who has recently been released. According to Mouna, Fatima Al Zark has been subjected to abuse during interrogation and the Israeli intelligence attempted to kill her baby with medication. When this failed they tried to convince her to have an abortion, saying that she was too old to have children and that the pregnancy could threaten her life. Fatima saw through the attempts of the Shabak to make her lose her baby. They told her that she needed a procedure in which amniotic fluid from near the baby's head would be taken for testing and told her that she shouldn't be concerned if she felt tired after the operation or if she lost her baby. However, she refused to submit to any kind of procedure or to take any kind of medication that could threaten her health or the health of her baby.
Since the beginning of the Palestinian people's experience with imprisonment, they have fought and protested, demanding their rights. They have used ongoing hunger strikes in an attempt to better their living conditions and to fight against the oppressive Israeli policies. In 1984, prisoners held a hunger strike which lasted 18 days; in 1992 a hunger strike lasted 15 days; in 1996 another hunger strike lasted 18 days; and in 1998 prisoners fasted for 10 days. They have also participated in numerous protests demanding improvement in the conditions in prison, such as the quality and quantity of their food, proper medical care, and access books, radios, newspapers, letters and visitation rights. Through their continuous struggle and determination they have had many achievements.
A family's dream of seeing their daughter again fades
Samer Khoyra, Nablus
Although three years have passed, Wafaa vividly remembers the day that her sister Ahlam was arrested while they were trying to cross Howara checkpoint together on Wednesday, 1 January 2008. She remembers everything clearly until the moment her sister Ahlam was forced to move back to Jordan.
Wafaa is a journalism student at Al Najah University in Nablus. "My sister was at Howara checkpoint on her way back to our house in the town of Howara," she says, remembering the terrible day. "When she got there the soldier that was checking IDs asked her to follow him to the interrogation room. I thought there was a problem because she was carrying a Jordanian ID since we do not have Palestinian IDs. So I followed her to the investigation room. One of the soldiers bodysearched us and then asked us to wait. It was a while before the soldier finally got back to us and told us that Ahlam was wanted by the Israeli intelligence."
The news came as a surprise to both the sisters, who each tried to stay calm for the sake of the other. "Ahlam let out a surprised laugh in reaction to what the soldier said," Wafaa said. "At that moment I felt like crying." But Ahlam looked at her and said, "What's wrong with you? Don't be silly -- this is nothing!" Wafaa said, "I then pretended to stay confident and strong as we awaited our unknown destiny." After waiting for about three hours in the cold, Wafaa received a phone call from an officer named Shab. He asked for some general information about her family and then told her that she could leave but that Ahlam was to stay; she was going to be arrested. Wafaa was forced to leave her sister and has not seen her since.
On her way home, Wafaa went through a range of emotions. She was anxious about what she had to tell her family. When she arrived home, her other sisters met her. "It took you long enough to get here," they said, teasing her in their usual manner. "Ahlam was arrested by Israeli soldiers," Wafaa told them. The family was shocked. "When I told my father, he seemed calm and collected," she said, "but after a while I realized that it was only because he was in a state of shock or perhaps because he had not yet realised the seriousness of what had happened. Later, when my mother came home and I told her what had happened, she had the same reaction as my father -- the same reaction that I had mistake for being calm and collected. Everyone we knew started to phone. I had to repeat the story several times for all those who called to console us and to make sure we were doing okay. We all thought that she would come home that night, and we waited patiently."
Ahlam's father also spoke about the pain that he experienced: "In the beginning I thought they would only keep her for a few more hours and then she would come home. I prayed every night for her and I would continuously ask God to protect her. It was so painful for me to know that my daughter was in danger and that I could not help her or ease her pain. No one from our family had ever been arrested before. That made things even more difficult because we had no idea what goes on in the prisons and what the prisoners go through. All we knew was that they usually get tortured, hit, and insulted and this is what we feared the most -- especially since she spent a lot of time at Petah Tikvah, which has a reputation for being one of the worst interrogation centres."
It is perhaps every mother's greatest fear: that her beloved daughter will be arrested by the occupying forces which are so merciless. "I used to always think about her when she was in prison," said Ahlam's mother. "I would wonder about the conditions under which she was living; especially at this time of year when the weather is very cold and snow is falling. I used to always wonder if she needed anything and whether she was warm." Her voice began to quaver. "I never stopped praying for her; I continuously asked God to protect her. Although she is no longer a child, in a mother's eyes her children will always be children in need of protection."
"I kept waiting for the day that I would see my daughter. Finally they set a court date. Her older sister and I went to her court hearing hoping that we would have a chance to see her and to make sure that she was alright. But it was a big disappointment and we left more worried that when we came, because they did not allow her come to court.
Then a decision came down from the so-called Court of Justice that Ahlam was to be deported to Jordan. She was not permitted to appeal the court's decision. She was also not permitted to say goodbye to her parents, gather her belongings, or even see her lawyer. Ahlam called us from the bridge to Jordan; at that point we hadn't even heard what the court's decision was. When she told me that she was leaving I was unable to control my emotions or my tears. I felt that I would never be able to embrace her again and that she would not be with us in the days to come, since I have a Palestinian ID and I doubt they will allow her to come back to Palestine again. Ahlam is not the first of my daughters who has been forced to leave to Jordan and whom I can no longer see: she is the third. After talking to her and making sure she was safe, I accepted that this was our fate from God. But it did not ease my longing to see her and to hear about what she had gone through while she was in prison."
This happened at the beginning of the new school semester. Nour, Ahlam's sister who is now in eleventh grade, had a difficult time losing her sister. She missed her very much. Ahlam had always introduced her to good books, but from this semester Nour will have to find someone else to recommend great books to her.
