By Bassam Abu al-Rob
NABLUS, September 11, 2017 (WAFA) - Nusra Abu Wahdan, 57, woke up at five in the morning on Sunday to prepare herself for the monthly visit to her son, Mahmoud, who is serving time at the Israeli Nafha prison in the Naqab desert in the south of the county.
While Abu Wahdan is anxious, as has been the case for the past 15 years, to see her son, she was apprehensive about the long and arduous trip and what surprises it may hold for her and the rest of the mothers travelling in the same bus also to visit their imprisoned sons.
The first part of this ordeal started with gathering at a location in Nablus at 6:30 in the morning, where a bus hired by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) awaited the mothers and other family members who were “lucky” enough to obtain an Israeli army-issued permit to visit their sons held inside Israel in defiance of international law that bans transfer of people under occupation from their homeland to another country.
When all the families who have registered to join this visit have arrived at the rendezvous point, the bus got on the road toward its first hurdle, an Israeli army-manned checkpoint near Tulkarm, known as Taybeh checkpoint since it is closest to the Arab city of Taybeh in northern Israel.
At the checkpoint, the soldiers refused to let the bus through saying the ICRC did not coordinate its passage and told the families to go back. But the families, who had to go through a lot to get there and were looking forward to seeing their sons, whom they get a chance to visit only once a month, insisted on waiting it out until this matter is resolved.
Finally, at 8:15 in the morning, and following contacts between the Red Cross and the army, the bus was allowed to continue on its way to Nafha prison, according to Faten Abu Wahdan, Mahmoud’s sister, who was accompanying her ailing mother, Nusra, on this trip.
Describing this visit as “trip to hell,” Faten said that the bus, which was old and run down, broke down several times on the road and the driver had to stop and fix the problem before they were able to continue to Nafha.
Finally, the families arrived at Nafha prison in the Naqab desert at noon. Everyone was exhausted, said Faten, and temperature was a scorching 38 degrees Celsius.
The one-hour visit with their sons was the only relief the families have had out of this ordeal because the trip back was even more difficult than the trip to the prison.
The visit finished in the early afternoon and the families had to leave that area and return to the West Bank. But the run-down bus they came on would not start and the families had to wait in the heat until 7:!5 in the evening when the bus company agreed to send them another one to take them home. It was late at night before they got home, exhausted and angry, but happy to have seen their sons.
The Abu Wahdan family has been visiting Mahmoud for 15 years straight. They still have many more years to go because Mahmoud was sentenced to three life terms plus 30 years for resisting the Israeli occupation.
M.K.
