Bethlehem -

The first experience of the mother of the captive, Ghazanfar Abu Atwan, was to cross the fence separating the West Bank and the occupied interior in 1948, to reach her captive son inside Kaplan Hospital after his health deteriorated as a result of his continuing hunger strike.

Umm al-Ghazanfar, 52, suffers from heart disease and needs special health care, but she influenced herself when she had the opportunity to reach her son, who has been on hunger strike for 57 days against administrative detention, and after the Military Occupation Prosecution announced recently the suspension of his administrative detention, without release. him while keeping him in the hospital, untangling him in his bed and removing the guards from him.

collapse moment

Umm al-Ghazanfar did not wait for the Israeli occupation authority to issue a permit for her to enter Israel and visit her son in the hospital in which he was detained. She carried her belongings from her home in Dura in Hebron (south of the West Bank), and with the help of some young men who know the gaps in the separation wall, she crossed it, saying about that, “I helped you.” God, the people of Palestine, for what you are going through.”

She almost collapsed when she saw her 28-year-old son on a hospital bed for the first time since his arrest in early October 2020;

He lost a lot of weight, and his health condition became very difficult, but she controlled herself, and began to raise his spirits to support him in his continuous hunger strike to achieve his freedom.

She says about this moment to Al-Jazeera Net, "My heart broke when I saw him, and I almost collapsed, but I wanted to support him in his strike so that he would achieve victory and be liberated."

The mother inspected her son's exhausted body, and began reading the Qur'an and praying for him at his head as he touched her hands.

I felt so hot inside the room;

Which she described as being far from a hospital room, more like a balcony with a window closed with a piece of plastic.

She moved in the ocean and found that there was a decision not to turn on the air conditioner in the room. This prompted her to use an iron key. She removed the plastic piece and opened the window of the high-temperature room to ventilate it.

Prisoner Ghazanfar Abu Atwan continues his hunger strike in the Israeli "Kaplan" prison (communication sites)

God's reckoning

Umm al-Ghazanfar stayed 12 hours on her first visit to her son, and her conversation with him was nothing but support for him in his strike, despite her knowledge that his health condition was getting worse, and that the continuation of the strike would affect his health in the future, but she decided from the beginning of his strike to count him to God Almighty, as she described.

The prisoner's mother, Ghazanfar, tells Al Jazeera Net that she initially refused her son's strike;

As she lived with him in a previous hunger strike that lasted 28 days, and she lived through the scourge of anxiety and tension throughout the hours of the strike, and she describes this by saying, "My heart was breaking every day, but after I was convinced that his hunger strike might end the administrative detention policy against him, and achieve a victory for the administrative detainees, I agreed on it."

Ghazanfar was arrested 4 times, for a total of 6 and a half years, the first of which was at the age of 19. The speech of the Israeli intelligence officer who arrested him the last time was provocative, when he told him at the time that he would transfer him to administrative detention for 6 months and increase it by 6 and 6 more;

Under the pretext that it is "a threat to the security of Israel."

But Ghazanfar, after renewing his last sentence for another 6 months, decided to enter the battle of empty intestines, and told the prison administration that either they would prove a charge against him, or they would release him, but they refused both options;

Which prompted him to declare his strike, which was accompanied by isolation inside the prison directly.

ghost and hit

His mother tells Al Jazeera Net that her son was severely beaten, ghosted and abused, and was transferred to several prisons and cells, something that did not happen with a prisoner on hunger strike, and he continued to strike every time, despite being placed in underground cells, which he described as not suitable for human life.

Ghazanfar used a lot of pressure.

His brother was injured in a traffic accident, and the intelligence officer entered him and told him, “Your brother is between life and death, and you must stop the strike.” But despite his great concern for his brother, he continued, so he provoked them, so they beat him.

A few days ago, the Occupation Court decided to suspend his administrative detention, but without releasing him or setting a date for that, and they transferred him to the Israeli Kaplan Hospital, but he wanted freedom.

When they allowed his family to visit him, they wanted him to collapse, and to pressure him to end his strike, but that did not happen.

Doctors at the Israeli "Kaplan" Hospital said in a brief statement 56 days after his strike, "Ghazanfar faces 3 medical options: either being paralyzed, facing a chronic health problem that is difficult to solve later, or the risk of sudden death."

His mother describes all of this by saying, “He who makes us patient is only faith in God and his victory; Those who are patient, because we have the reward.”