Samer Issawi and his siblings Shireen and Medhat still detained – an interview

Pamela Olaizola from Argentina went to visit the Issawi family in the Occupied Jerusalem district town of Issawiya. Her report and interview was published on the Facebook page of the Free Shireen Issawi Campaign. Please read this and share it widely, to help draw attention to the case of these three brave siblings, who are still held in detention in violation of all international human rights treaties!  

It was possible to write a book, but it could be summarized in a sentence: “I want my children at home”. This is the story of a mother who concentrated the fight of the Palestinian masses against the occupation Zionist forces. What does it mean? Their house is attacked, in the demonstrations their children are killed by the invader forces, to live afraid that at night some of your children can be taken to prison, many years sufferings die to imprisonment… summering up not to see your children, growing up knowing that the land is being stolen, there is no jobs and make them live in real ghettos.

This is the story of Laila and Tareq al-Issawi. I would tell it from what they told me, what I have shared with them and their strength.

It was Sunday August 24 at midday. I was going to Issawiya neighborhood in East Jerusalem. This is one of the nearest neighborhoods close to the borders to go to Rammallah (West Bank). The bus driver said something in Arabic that I could not understand. I asked a passenger next to me because I noticed something strange among the other passengers. She answered me, the bus driver had announced that there would be some controls so all the ones with Palestinian passports should drop the bus.

In this way the bus driver prevents the ones who could be arrested. Many of them dropped off, and we were stopped by the murder army, two women. They asked our documents. Everyone had the blue ID (this is the Israeli ID). The problem is when you just have the green one (Palestinian). The Zionisit took one of the ID. They talked on their walky-talky and called the passenger whose ID belongs. A young Palestinian man. They gave back the ID and he was arrested. Why? Because he is Palestinian-men-young. This is “normal”; it is known that “it can happen”. This is the life of the Palestinian masses, in Jerusalem or in West Bank, or in Gaza or in any place of the occupied Palestinian.

There my visit to Issawiya neighborhood started. I arrived at Laila and Tareq’s house. They have a beautiful garden taken care every morning by Tareq, the father of the family, although the credit for such a beautiful garden is taken by Laila, the mother of the family. They welcomed me with their hearts opened. Not even the language barrier prevented me feeling that I was with part of my family.

We talked on the case of their children: Samer, Shireen and Medhat. Samer’s case is complicated. He is related with the famous case of exchange prisoners by the soldier Shadiat. Then he was re-arrested, as most of the 1000 Palestinians who were release with the exchange, and now they are all waiting their “freedom” which is part of the negotiation taking place in Cairo.

A friend who speaks Arabic translated me part of the video of the interview to Laila and explained me what is being told: “We went to see Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, everyone. First they opened their doors, then they gave us the back” and it came to my mind Tareq’s words, who told me dozens of stories about Laila and his children. Each story highlighted the strength and bravery they have to have day by day. Tareq told me: “She went to the Palestinian Authority, she went to see everyone, to the embassies, everywhere, and they asked her what she wants, how can we help and she just answered I want Samer”. Obviously nobody from the Palestinian Authority did something to set him free. Only the Palestinian masses have stood up asking for the freedom of the Palestinian prisoners.

The other two cases are under the labble well known as “administrative detention”. There is no cause –there is one but it is “super-super secret”, even the defer lawyer cannot know about it- and without saying anything the hearings came by every 6 month of 3 months, and more hearings until the “judge” set them free or condemned them. The case of Medhat is very sad. He was in jailed for 8 years. He was set free for a short period of time, at that moment his wife was pregnant and the he was arrested again. He was set free again for 4 months when her daughter was almost 1 year old, and again he was in jail until now. The girl is almost 2 years old and she enjoys playing with his grandfather in the afternoon at the hall of the house or walking around the neighborhood, while the town greets his granddad.

Shireen’s case was a tough hit for the family. It was a certain blow to end to break the entire family, which was not successful. She fought for the freedom of his brother, and together with her sister are the ones supporting the house and their parents, who are old and tired from the lived experience. The parents say that they are the most intelligent ones, and the ones they can count on for everything. Shireen was on the hearts of the house, as the other sister lives in a town nearby with her family. The mother told me that Shireen has been in isolation for a month. I have already known that, but I did not know why. Apparently in the middle of the Zionist forces attacking Gaza, late Ramadan, a soldier of the Zionist forces told her that it was time to feast and she replied “there is nothing to feast while my people is dying in Gaza”. I think the end of the story was more violent, but the Zionist invader told her that it was not the way to talk to him and was placed to isolation for indeterminate time. The boldness of Shireen shows that not even in prison the Palestinian masses are subordinated by the Zionist forces.

Laila has a clear message for all the workers, youth and poor peasants and mother of the world: to stand up with her, to stand up to prevent the occupation forces keep repressing the Palestinian masses making them live in real ghettos. She talks on behalf of all the Palestinian mothers. Because all of them want to see her children grow up freely, not being afraid, daily, if they are killed or arrested and they do not want to see their children growing up in real prisons at open sky which is Gaza and West Bank.

Tareq and Laila listened carefully the story of Las Heras. They saw in the world streets, as in Buenos Aires or Santiago, the prisoners of Las Heras, Paty’s workers as many others take in their hand and part of their demands the fight of the Palestinian nation, for the Palestinian prisoners and the world. After Laila and Terg read the resolutions, calls and statement issued by the Commission of Condemned Workers of Las Heras, Relatives and Friends (Worker Congress October 12, 2013), I read them the letter of Las Heras workers which calls to fight for the freedom of the prisoners of the world and the need to set up an International Net to fight for it. They did not dare it a minute. With a smile in their faces they told me that they would try to take the message to their children in jailed and I left them a copy. They thank me the help and support done at international level, specially coming from condemned workers. They thank me for the trip, as they know there are many risks and they told me: “what you do, with what many of you have done is much more that what the so called friends of the Arabic countries have done”.

They are clear on one question: that the fight is not just for their children. They know that each family lives a similar situation, as they have an arrested father, or a son killed, or their house was attacked, or a relative injured. But they also show how to fight against the Zionist forces looking for the unity and support of the world masses. And I have to go again to Laila’s words: “I want to be at home with my children and grandchildren; their freedom does not depend on UN or embassies which have shown they did nothing. It depends on all of us, of the Palestinian who are inside and outside of the occupied Palestinian, and the forces of hundred of youth in the world who have just stood up against genocide in Gaza”.

Today, while I am finishing to write these lines, the media shows that the situation in Gaza gets worse, that the killed people has increased badly and the life conditions have no world to describe them. The entire Gaza is destroyed and it can only be heard the buzz from the drones over the heads of the Palestinian. But there is something is highlighted in the existence of the Palestinian masses which is the strength to defend their land, to stand up and fight against the one who stole it. They know if they do not destroy this invader state, gendarme in the region, there would not be bread, work o freedom.

In the streets of West Bank and Jerusalem the generalize hate against the Palestinian Authority (PA) and its Israeli puppet president, Mahmoud Abbas is felt. This goes together with the hate against the local police which is there to repress the youth and workers who stand up against the occupation. It is also felt the rage and hate against the Zionist forces, which starve, slaughter and repress the Palestinian masses. For that reason, in each fight, the workers, youth and poor peasants with their women –mother, daughters and sister of the martyrs and prisoners- leave their lives in each fight. Today it is time from each fight of the barricade to emerge the revolution, as in 2000, which was done against the Palestinian Authority, getting over the police stations and taking the weapons which was used to fight against the invader forces.

Unfortunately, nobody does this call, not even Hamas, who has the authority to do it, and even less by the other political currents that are so called left and obviously “opposition” to the Palestinian Authority. Today what the masses need to stop the genocide in Gaza is to get more and more actions and support in the streets of the imperialist metropolis. However, it is very important that the masses of the entire Palestine stand up. For a single war against Zionism, who is commanded by Obama, in the entire Palestinian nation, from the sea to the Jordan River. In this way, we will get the best conditions to free all the Palestinian prisoners.