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NEWSLETTER

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Bethlehem - Ma'an - A 21-year-old Palestinian from Deheisheh refugee camp in southern Bethlehem, in the south of the occupied West Bank, currently detained in an Israeli jail, has sent a letter to Ma'an News Agency addressed to the mother of the captured Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit. Ala' Abdul-Karim, 21, is serving a 14-year prison sentence on charges of being an intifada activist.

Abdul-Karim's letter shows an important humanitarian perspective despite the harshness of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. He invites Mrs. Shalit to visit him in his prison and hear the stories of the Palestinian prisoners who hope to be released in a proposed prisoner exchange deal. He also urges mothers of both Israeli and Palestinian prisoners to work together to call for their release.

Here is the text of the letter:

Greetings Mrs. Shalit,

I hope my message reaches you as quickly as possible and that you pay good attention to it. I am a Palestinian detainee who feels that my destiny has put me under the same circumstances as your son. Both of us are detained on the basis of the conflict between our peoples. None of us can abandon his role in this conflict since we are soldiers and messengers who comply with orders of our leaders and people.

Suffering, detention and pain, although for contradictory objectives, are common between me and your son. My mother feels the same suffering, worries and sadness you feel regardless of all the causes and conflicts that resulted in that. However, my mother's suffering preceded yours by three years and she knew she would not see me for another 14 years according to the Israeli verdict.

In this letter, I would like to ask you a few questions about hope and holidays without Gilad, and about the letter which told you that he is alive. I want to ask also about the nights you spend while your son is separated from you. I really appreciate your feelings and your sadness; however, I call your attention to the fact that my mother lives the same conditions of pain and bitterness. The only difference between us is that the whole universe knows your and your son's story while nobody knows about me and my mother in this tyrant universe.

I hope that you take into account my mother's feelings whose son was taken away when he was 18 and he is now 21. She has been counting the days and praying that she gets me back.

You have to know that Gilad feels the same as I feel and thinks of you just as I think, and expects that my mother will do everything she could for me. He sends you kisses and pushes you, my mother, and other women to work for the sake of preventing several other sons from living the same dire experience.

For that reason, I invite you to come and visit me in my prison and listen to my story, and all the prisoners' stories, whose release is the precondition for releasing your son. I also suggest that prisoners' mothers from both sides establish a joint committee to call for freeing the prisoners of both peoples. This will be more humanitarian and stronger than the antagonism which brought only bitterness for both peoples. I really hope that your son comes back safe, as much as I hope for my own return.

 

http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=20171