Appealing to the Waves: Children of Gaza Prisoners Make Their Case to the Mediterranean
It is one thing for Israel to punish Palestinian prisoners for resisting the military occupation and apartheid. But why punish the children of those prisoners?
For Israel, the denial of family visitations to Palestinian prisoners is a tactic used to break the will of some of these prisoners. The most disaffected by this strategy are Gaza prisoners, some of whom are denied the right to see their own children for years at a time.
Appealing to the Sea
And for years, these families have appealed to the international community, to the Red Cross, to the United Nations, to no avail. So, a group of Palestinian children decided to write to their imprisoned fathers and mothers through the waves.
‘Letters through the Waves’ was the name of the campaign, whose organizers hoped will send a symbolic message to the world, and will also serve as a form of therapy for those children, all of whom were born after the imposition of the Israeli siege.
The Palestine Chronicle visited the children during the letter-writing event at the beach and read some of their notes.
One child wrote,
“I love you, baba, and I miss you a lot. I hope you will be successful in your life and you will finish your studies. Holidays do not make me happy because you are away from me.”
Another child started her letter with: “I am prevented from visiting my baba, the prisoner in Israel ..”
The children then placed their notes in bottles and threw them into the Gaza Sea.
Israel Must Be Pressured
“Israel continues preventing hundreds of children from visiting their parents in the occupation prisons,” Abdullah Qandil, director of the Wa’ed Association for Prisoners and Ex-Prisoners, told The Palestine Chronicle.
“Time has come for international institutions to pressure it to allow these children to visit their families.”
Qandil explained that he hopes such events will put pressure on Israel through international institutions.
Thanks to the Palestine Chronicle for the article and photo. For more photos go here. All photos by Mahmoud Aijour, the Palestine Chronicle.
