Israel prevents exiled Palestinian detainees from reuniting with their families
Each time the phone rings, Akram, aged five and two-year-old Julia dash to answer, longing to speak to their father, Amjad al-Najjar, who was recently
Each time the phone rings, Akram, aged five and two-year-old Julia dash to answer, longing to speak to their father, Amjad al-Najjar, who was recently deported to Egypt by Israel following his release from a lengthy prison sentence. Although the children have never met their father, they remain deeply attached to him and dream that one day they will be able to leave Ramallah to finally meet Amjad. Both were conceived from sperm smuggled out of an Israeli prison during Amjad’s 10-year detention. His release in January 2025, as part of a prisoner exchange with Hamas, saw him deported to Egypt along with 228 other Palestinians. The 48-year-old hoped his release would herald the start of a new life with his family, but due to Israeli travel restrictions he is unable to see his children. He remains stuck in exile in Egypt with his family trapped in the West Bank. “A significant part of this freedom remained incomplete because the first meeting with my family didn’t happen as I had imagined,” he told Al Jazeera. “That’s when I felt that the joy wasn’t complete and that the road to regaining a normal life was still long,” he added. Amjad, from the town of Silwad, east of Ramallah, was already a father of two when he was detained in 2015. Due to Israeli limitations on visitation rights, Amjad never met Akram and Julia during his imprisonment. Even now as a free man, Israeli travel restrictions mean there is little hope the family will be reunited. “One of the hardest things I went through was becoming a father during my imprisonment.
It’s an experience that carries immense joy mixed with profound pain, because I wasn’t present at the moment my children were born. I followed the news of their arrival into the world from behind the walls, without seeing them, holding them, or experiencing their first moments,” he told Al Jazeera. “We understand that the issue is not simple and that it transcends the legal framework to a complex political and security reality. But we believe that the real solution must guarantee family reunification as a fundamental right, not an exception,” Amjad concluded. A Pending Reunion Ten-year-old Bushra has also not met her father, but keeps in touch with Ahmed Hamed via regular phone calls after he was deported to Egypt by Israel last year following 22 years in an Israeli jail. His wife Inas has tried several times to travel to Cairo to see her husband since he was released, but permission has been repeatedly denied by Israeli authorities, allegedly due to security reasons. In March, Bushra, who was also conceived through sperm smuggled out of prison, was finally able to travel to Egypt with her aunt to meet her father, aged 51. Upon their return to the West Bank, they were both detained and interrogated by Israeli intelligence. “My son, Baraa, was just a few months old when his father was arrested,” Inas said. “Now he is 22 and we are preparing for his wedding, but his father is not with us and we cannot travel to see him.” Baraa has tried to see his father several times, but each time was turned back from the Karameh border crossing, between the West Bank and Jordan, by Israeli authorities.
The BriefWire