A Palestinian Family Never Reunited for Twenty Years Due to Imprisonment
Twenty years ago and until this day, the mother has not seen her six children sitting together at one table in their house.
The sons Akram, Mahmoud, Kayed, Khaled, Hassan, and Hafez have been detained more than once, and they were also arrested together in Israeli prisons more than once. For example, in 2008, the mother was taken along with her six sons for interrogation and detention in the Israeli Ofer Prison, west of Ramallah, and in another time they lost their father.
“Our family is devastated,” says the Palestinian elderly woman. She points out that 4 of her sons are currently in detention, in addition to her other detained sons Kayed, Akram, Mahmoud and Hafez, who were arrested during Kayed’s strike.
Fawzia Al-Fasfous points out that her sons spent a sum of about 50 years in Israeli prisons: “Mahmoud 13, Kayed 7, Khaled 9, Hassan 11, Hafez 5, and Akram 5 years.”
On Saturday, September 18, Kayed, 32 years old, from Dura (south of the West Bank), completed 66 day of hunger strike, but his mother does not receive any of his news, and her filed to get news from lawyers or the International Committee of the Red Cross regarding his health conditions.
The Israeli occupation still detains 3 other sons; Mahmoud, Akram and Hafez, all of whom are under administrative detention, according to their mother.
Kaed’s mother says, “I wish I could go to see him). Kayed has been on strike for 66 days until now.” I don’t know anything about him. She adds – crying – “(His health scares me), he weighed 90 kilograms (grams) today, 60 kilos.” She says that she has not seen her son “Kayed” or been allowed to visit him since his arrest about a year ago, and she calls on all international institutions to enable her to visit him.
The last arrest of Kayed, was in October 2020, and he was transferred to administrative detention for 6 months, which was renewed for another 6 months in mid-2021. He decided to go on hunger strike, then his brother Mahmoud joined him, but Mahmoud’s health condition deteriorated severely and he could not continue the hunger strike.
