Shahd Abusalama’s blog

An administrative detainee, Khader Adnan, refuses to break his hunger strike that is continuing since December, 17 in protest for the unjust system of administrative detention that he and hundreds of his fellows behind Israeli bars are serving.

Being a Muslim, I never celebrated Christmas myself, but having lots of Christian friends inside and outside Palestine has connected me to this day. I’ve always shared it with them one way or another, since I believe that religion shouldn’t stand as a barrier between human beings. Here, I describe how I celebrated Christmas and how Christians in Gaza celebrate it. I recall some of my childhood memories from my only visit to the Church of Nativity since I was 9 years old.

More violence was exercised against Palestinian political prisoners by the savage Israeli jailers in Eichel Prison last Tuesday, 13 December.

A mother of two former prisoners who were deported from Hebron to the Gaza Strip arrived Gaza a week ago to celebrate her sons’ freedom. After ten years of long waiting attached with every emotion of worry, sadness, suffering, humiliation moving between check point trying to visit her imprisoned sons, she lived 6 days with them and then passed away leaving us real legend, a symbol of patience, challenge, motherhood.

Loai Odeh is a former prisoner who is forced to accept their fate to be deported far away from their land and families. It’s true that those former prisoners, including Loai, are now out of Israeli prisons, but still their freedom is conditional and incomplete.

A story of the amazing friendship of Chris Al-Bandak, the only Christian released in the prisoner swap, who was deported to Gaza. According to Chris, “Only one half of me is free, but the other half is still there, locked up behind Israeli bars.”

Many people in Palestine couldn’t feel the happiness of Eid at its fullest, especially the detainees’ families. Gomana is a ten-year-old girl whose mother died after she delivered her, and whose father has been imprisoned since she was less than two years old, leaving her uncle to look after her. She started calling him Dad till she once came back from her school to discover that he was killed by the IOF leaving her to her 70-year-old grandmother to take care of her.