Feature: Freeing sons from Israeli jails still distant dream for Palestinian mother

Om Nasser Abu hmeid lives in al-Am'ari refugee camp near Ramallah in the West Bank. She has already been accustomed to wait for Monday of every week to visit her four sons, who are imprisoned in an Israeli jail in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon.

Israel usually allows families and relatives of prisoners to visit their imprisoned children on Mondays. Such kind of visits are coordinated between the families and Israel via the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

On every Monday, despite pains of old age, the woman wakes up very early and gets prepared for the weekly meeting she so desperately desires. Although the meeting would not last more than 45 minutes, but, for her, it is after all better than no chance of seeing her sons.

During the visit, the four sons would stand together in front of their mother. On the other side of the iron bars, she could not hug them, even though she wants very much.

As she sat on a chair at a hall in her simple house in the refugee camp and was surrounded by various pictures of her sons, and the handmade souvenirs she received from them, the 67-year-old mother said "I spent my whole life visiting them in jail, but this never relief my pain of missing them."

Nasser, Nassr, Sharif and Mohamed are in prison for life. The four were arrested 12 years ago, where an Israeli military court charged them for being members of al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the armed wing of Fatah movement and being involved in carrying our armed attacks that killed Israelis.

"Though it has been more than 12 years, I still feel they are around me," the mother said, adding that "I never lost the hope to see them one day coming out from jail and live with me a normal life."

Om Nasser has a long story missed with suffering and hard living situation. The woman had ten children; four of them are imprisoned in Israeli jails and a fifth one was shot dead by Israeli soldiers' gunfire in 1994, and one year later, her house in the refugee camp was demolished.

In 2002, when Israel waged the operation Defensive Shield in the West Bank cities, it was the worst moment Om Nasser had passed, when all her children were arrested. Israel punished the woman and prevented her from visiting her children for five years.

"After five years, I was allowed to visit my children. Every time I go to visit my sons, I feel suffocated because I look at their faces and I feel myself helpless because I can't do anything for them and get them out of prison," said Om Nasser.

From 2002 until 2012, she used to visit seven of her children in Israeli jails, but after that three of them got released and four were sentenced to five times life imprisonment. She said that one of her dreams "is to see them one day out of jail, but it seems that this dream is hard to become true."

"Four months ago, my husband died where he waited 12 years to see his children, but he missed the opportunity. He was sick because of deep sadness until he died and unfortunately he wasn't able to see all his children standing to his side or join the funeral and witness his burial," she said.

She went on saying that "every night I go to bed lonely, and I wake in the following day looking at the pictures of my children. All that I can do at the moment is to wait," adding "three of my children who are in jail haven't got married and I really want to attend their weddings."

Her eldest son Nasser was married when he was detained and now he has two children, one of the two children was born after Nasser was arrested. As she suffers the pain of missing her children, she blamed the official and popular bodies, who claimed that they care about the prisoners.

Since 1974, in April 17 of every year, the Palestinians mark the anniversary of the Palestinian Prisoner's Day. The day was decided by Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) during a prisoners' hunger strike in 1974, where two prisoners died.

Official figures say that there are 6,500 Palestinian prisoners in 22 Israeli jails, including 478 prisoners who serve life imprisonment. The number includes also 480 under administrative detention, 21 women and 205 children under the age of 18.

Eassa Qaraqea', head of the Palestinian corporation for prisoners' affairs told Xinhua the living condition of prisoners in Israeli jails and prisons "are difficult and too harsh." He accused the Israeli Prisons Services "of waging a war on the prisoners by escalating measures of repression against them. Enditem