The birth of twins Muhammad and Khadija in October was welcomed by the family as an act of resistance. His father, Palestinian-Brazilian Islam Hamed, has been in prison for 18 years, between back and forth, without the right to intimate visits. According to relatives, he smuggled his semen to impregnate his wife.
The following month, however, the family received news that challenged optimism. An Israeli military court has handed down the final sentence on a charge that had loomed over Hamed for more than a decade. He was sentenced to 21 years in prison for shooting settlers, acquiring an M16-type assault rifle and serving in the Palestinian faction Hamas, which Israel classifies as a terrorist.
The two new ones – the birth of the twins and the conviction – gave impetus again to the campaign for Hamed’s release. Now 36 years old, the Brazilian-Palestinian has spent half his life between Israeli and Palestinian prisons. The family claims he is a victim of persecution from both sides.
Activists are drawing up plans, and one of the first steps will be to renew pressure on Brazilian authorities, including diplomatic representation in Ramallah and international congressional committees.
Hamed is the son of Nadia, 59. She was born in Catanduva, in the interior of São Paulo, to a Palestinian family. In 1980, he moved to Ramallah to learn Arabic and Islamic customs and to get married. It was getting.
Today, he lives in Silwad, where he lives off the land and sewing. The son Hamed was born in 1985, in the Palestinian territories, and has Brazilian nationality. The family plans to register the twins with the consular authorities so that they are Brazilian as well.
Nadia says Hamed was first arrested in 2002, at age 17, for throwing stones at Israeli forces. He spent five years in prison. But she hesitates to speak of those days. “I was defending the Palestinian cause.” When he was released in 2007, Hamed tried to get engaged, earning an electrician’s degree and a driver’s license. In 2008, however, he was arrested again by Israel and spent two years in administrative detention – a category in which formal charges are not required.
Israel released Hamed in 2010. A few months later, however, the Palestinian National Authority, which governs territories in the West Bank, arrested him. The charge this time was that Hamed had fired on a vehicle owned by Israeli settlers in the West Bank, injuring two.
The Brazilian spent five years in Palestinian prisons. For 101 days, he went on a hunger strike that, at the time, worried the Brazilian diplomatic representation. It was released. Three months later, Israel detained him again, on the same charge of having shot at the settlers’ vehicle in 2010. “The more they are arrested, the more they hate the Israelis, and that increases,” says Nadia.
In a note sent to leaf, the Israeli Army detailed the charges against Hamed. According to the text, the Brazilian and an accomplice fired a rifle at an Israeli vehicle in 2010. There were about 20 shots, in which two people were injured. The 41-page sentence states that shooting at cars is one of the biggest risks to the lives of settlers and therefore requires severe punishment. In addition to imprisonment, Hamed will have to pay the equivalent of more than R$100,000 in fines and compensation to the victims.
The mother describes Hamed as part of the Palestinian resistance to the Israeli occupation. The founding of Israel in 1948 involved the expulsion and flight of some 700,000 Palestinians. Since Israel took the West Bank in the Six-Day War in 1967, the country has administered this territory with its army.
Hamed lived in his childhood the First Intifada, a popular Palestinian uprising fought from 1987 to 1993. Then he also lived through the Second Intifada, from 2000 to 2005, marked by terrorist attacks and hundreds of deaths on both sides. “They grow up with the Army coming into town, bombs of all kinds. Horrible. Children grow up really angry.”
Nadia says her son at first resisted the idea of ​​smuggling the semen out of prison. This tactic has been around for a decade there. Those involved prefer not to give details, given the delicate nature of the operation. It usually involves secretly extracting semen from prison and taking it to a fertility clinic. Two members of each family must be witnesses. “There came a boy and a girl.”
Hamed’s case is one of many similar cases in the region after decades of conflict. The fact that he is Brazilian has attracted the attention of activists on the other side of the world, including Palestinian-Brazilian journalist Soraya Misleh, a family friend and part of the campaign.
Misleh has been advocating for Hamed for years. The campaign had cooled off, he says, but “the arrival of the twins can make people aware of the reality of a family experiencing a dramatic situation.” “It’s just that it’s difficult now, because we’re behind closed doors with this government.” The administration of Jair Bolsonaro has been little open to Palestinians – in 2018, the president, then candidate, even described them as terrorists, when he defended the closing of the embassy in Brasilia.
Asked about the allegations made against Hamed, Misleh says “nothing has ever been proven.” She also says that it is necessary to contrast his actions with the reality of his life. “Palestinians live in an apartheid regime where children are imprisoned for throwing rocks at tanks,” he says. “Resistance is legitimate. The Israeli occupation is committing the crimes.”
When consulted by the report, Brazilian diplomatic authorities said they were following the case and reinforced their willingness to help the family. As Hamed was tried as a Palestinian by a military court, there appears to be little room for release.
His mother says that if Hamed is ever released, she would prefer that he leave his homeland – despite the pain of living away from her son. “I wanted Hamed to go to another country. If he comes here, he will not be free. He will have problems with the Palestinian authorities and with the Israelis as well”, he says.
“But I want him to live free, like any human being.”
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