11-month-old Balqis Ghawadra just became the youngest prisoner in the world, when Israeli authorities jailed her after visiting her father in Eshel Israeli prison in occupied Beer Sheva. Balqis was arrested alongside her sister and mother on November 26, 2014, as they arrived for a long awaited visit with the children’s father.
As the International Middle East Media Center reports:
Nihal Ghannam Ghawadra from Bir Al-Basha village, near Jenin, waited passionately for the permission to visit her husband, Mu’ammar, only to be separated from her two little children, and to see her entire family become prisoners, Ahrar Center for Prisoners Studies and Human Rights reports.
According to the PNN, Nihal headed to the prison on Wednesday, with her daughter Balqis, 11 months, and son Baraa’, age 2. As soon as she arrived, the three were separated.
Nihal was imprisoned, along with her two children, under the pretext of sneaking a mobile phone to her husband. The entire family has now been imprisoned, as a result.
Local and international human rights agencies are now scrambling to support the family and push for their release.
Mu’ammar Ghawadra was one of many thousands of Palestinians released in 2011 under the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange between Israel and Palestinian resistance, only to be re-arrested without charge over the summer. He had already served 8 years of a life sentence.
More than 720,000 Palestinian men, women and children have been through the system since Israel began occupying the Palestinian Territories in 1967.