Israel is currently incarcerating 35 female Palestinian prisoners, 11 of whom are mothers

The Palestinian Prisoner Society (PPS) has said that the Israeli occupation authorities are currently incarcerating 35 female Palestinian prisoners, 11 of whom are mothers.

The PPS said in a statement on the occasion of the International Women’s Day, which coincides on March 8, that 26 of the female political prisoners in Israeli detention have been sentenced for varying periods, the longest of whom are Shurooq Dwayyat and Shatila Abu Ayyad, who are serving a jail sentence of 16 years each.

The PPS explained that three of the female prisoners are under administrative detention, without charge or trial. The three are Khatam Al-Sa`feen, Bushra Al-Tawil, and Shurouq Al-Badan,

The Society identified eleven Palestinian mothers in Israeli prisons: Israa Jaabees, Fadwa Hamadeh, Amani Al-Hashem, Helwa Hamamra, Nasreen Hassan, Inas Asafra, Khaleda Jarrar, Aya Al-Khatib, Iman Al-Awar, Khitam Al-Sa’afin, and Shurouq Al-Badan, according to WAFA News Agency.

The agency added that the Israeli occupation forces today prevented Palestinian women from holding an event in occupied East Jerusalem to celebrate International Women’s Day and detained some of the organizers, according to Sabreen Sayyad, one of the organizers of the event.

Sayyad declared that the occupation forces prevented the women from holding the event in al-Tur neighborhood of East Jerusalem and detained the head of al-Tur Women Center Ikhlas Sayyad and cloths designer Manal Abu Sbeitan after raiding a hall on the Mount of Olives where an exhibition of Palestinian traditional cloths and other material produced by women was being held.

The Israeli forces also seized the clothes and material that were on display at the exhibition.

Aysha Al-Kerd, who is responsible for Prisoners file in the Family Affairs Commission, said: ” The Israeli occupation forces arrested me at the beginning of Intifada in 1988 and I was pregnant then. I was tortured by the occupation forces and I was prevented from getting food, but I remained steadfast. I gave a birth one month after my arrest and I named my son Yaser.”

In 2014, her son Yaser was martyred during the Israeli aggression on Gaza strip.    

Since 1948, the Israeli occupation forces have arrested 16.000 female Palestinians.

Basma Qaddour