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Salama’s wife clings to fading hope

I had one-hour break at university so I grabbed the chance to visit the Palestinian detainees’ solidarity tent by the Red Cross. Every day I go, I see the same people, whom I’ve started to feel are a part of me. When one of them is not there, I miss them, as I recently have spent more time with them than my family.

As I arrived at the tent, I felt that there was something strange going on. I asked a friend what had happened earlier. She answered while pointing, “That woman, Najiyya, just fainted when she learned that her husband is not included in the swap deal.” I kept sympathetically following her with my eyes wherever she went. She lifted my spirits up as she walked toward me and sat in an empty chair next to me. She smiled at me, despite her sorrow. I wish she knew how much people like her give me indescribable spiritual power with their incredible strength and steadfastness. Seeing her smile again, while knowing that she was broken inside, brought life to me.  I couldn’t help but smile back with a look of admiration and appreciation.

“I waited long enough for him to come back to me; 19 years of forced separation between us. I’ve always fantasized about our unborn child, as the imprisonment of my husband after less than one year of our marriage prevented me from ever having one.” She said after I asked her whether she feels better. “They broke into our house in October of 1993 and kidnapped him very late at night from inside our home in an excessively violent way.” She continued while tears are struggling to fall from her eyes. She looked in a different direction and fell in silence trying to hide that feminine character inside her.

I learned that her husband was sentenced for 99 years inside the Israeli prisons. I was amazed at her ability to stay strong and optimistic for a day that would come when she would be united with her husband in a warm house full of love and harmony and bring up their first child. My sympathy got even deeper for her as I knew that she was very close to deliver a child. She was 2-months pregnant when the Israeli army attacked her house and turned everything upside down and kidnapped her husband. Her experience was too much to tolerate. The Israeli army didn’t only take her husband away but also killed the fetus who was growing inside her. If she didn’t go through all these horrific circumstances, maybe this fetus would have turned to be 18 year-old man by now and take care of her while she is bravely fighting her harsh destiny.

My affection for her has been increasing as I knew more of her stories. She is on a hunger strike for the sixth day trying to share with her husband and other Palestinian Detainees their battle of empty stomachs. She has refused to break her fast despite of all the attempts which people did to persuade her to, especially after she fainted. However, she insisted on going on demonstrating: “Salama, my husband, suffers from more than merely hunger. Let me at least feel like I’m living some of his pains even though I know that I’m not even close!”

I suddenly realized that I ran out of time and it was the time to go back to my lecture at university. I had to go there only for the attendance check and be in the class only in body but I knew that my mind would stay with the prisoners and their families. I couldn’t wait till the lecture ended to return to the Red Cross.

I thought that I would go back and see the usual sight of people sitting in the tent chatting while songs for freedom for our detainees are playing. But that wasn’t the case. There was like an emergency; people were running inside the Red Cross; the alarm ambulance was very loud and its red light was flashing all around the place. My heart skipped a beat as I realized I had missed something during the hour I was at university. My fear of the unknown overcame me.

I was trying to pass through the crowd to discover that the same woman Najiyya lost consciousness again. She couldn’t bear the psychological conflict she had inside her: whether her husband is going to be released or not. At first, she heard that her spouse is included and then discovered that he was not. She was swinging between facts and illusions to realize later the fact that her husband will stay jailed inside the dark cells. I learned that she was walking around while talking to herself unconsciously and she suddenly stopped and looked at a big banner that includes the picture of her husband, and then fell down.

I know no matter how strong and how much of a fighter she is, she is a human at the end of the day. Besides, the fact that her husband is not going to be free is very hard for her to accept especially that she was lingering with hope which the swap deal brought her.

This is only an example of the Palestinian women who have no equivalent in any other part of the world. The Palestinian woman will be always an example of strength, faithfulness, challenge and steadfastness.

 

Shahd Abusalama lives in Gaza and blogs at Palestine From My Eyes.

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It is wonderful to get these Gaza views but what a sad story.
“If you had any heart you’d be crying for the Palestinians.”
As Camus almost said, Zionist government, by definition , has no conscience.

Then as farce

“Senior Palestinian security source says it’s just a matter of time before another Israeli soldier is abducted in an effort to negotiate the release of the remaining prisoners.”

It’s a fascinating game. Cows are worth one thousand sheep in the community over the wall. What shepherd wouldn’t kidnap a cow?

What shepherd wouldn’t kidnap a cow?

it is a demographic race. i have read so many times about palestinian husbands being kidnapped in their first year of marriage. an israeli form of birth control for the occupier mentality.

If your husband is a murderer, it is likely he will stay in jail for a long time. If he got 99 years, that usually means he got several life sentences. You don’t get that for selling cookies.

If your husband is a murderer, it is likely he will stay in jail for a long time.

Unless of course he’s a Jewish Israeli who killed 7 Arab civilians at random. Then he gets conjugal visits, repeated furloughs and the chance to kill his children and wife, gained during your “imprisonment”, by driving recklessly during his 124th furlough.

Sarah Popper (42) and Shimshon Popper (6), the wife and son of life prisoner Ami Popper, who murdered Arab workers in May of 1990, were killed Wednesday night when their private vehicle veered off course and crashed into oncoming traffic near Kibbutz Grufit some 50 km north of Eilat.

Popper himself was moderately injured in the accident. Two helicopters were alerted to the scene and rescue workers evacuated the wounded to the Soroka hospital in Be’er Sheva.

…..

Popper was on a 48 hour furlough from prison and was expected back in prison on Thursday. He was sentenced to seven life sentences, though that was cut back to 40 years imprisonment. After serving a quarter of that Popper was allowed furloughs and has already left and returned to the prison 124 times. During his incarceration Popper married and serves his time in the religious wing of the Masiyahu prison.

Ami Popper was convicted of murdering seven Arab workers and the attempted murder of ten additional workers on May 20th of 1990. Popper was 21 years old at the time. At approximately 7:00 am he arrived at the Rose Garden junction between Rishon Lezion and Nes Ziona, with a Glilon assault rifle and five ammunition clips, which he had stolen from his brother, who was a soldier.

Popper demanded of the Arab workers waiting at the junction to line up and asked to see their ID cards. When a car with West Bank license plates drove by Popper stopped it and forced the passengers to join the lineup at gunpoint. Afterwards Popper opened fire at the line, killing seven of the workers.

The murder created a storm in Israel and the territories, where riots broke out and rioters were killed by IDF fire. Popper was immediately arrested after the murder and first claimed his motive had been his girlfriend’s departure. Later he changed his story, claiming to have been raped by an Arab when he was 13 years old and was now seeking revenge.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3354022,00.html