Issawi’s Mother to Obama: Intervene with Your Ally, Save Samer’s Life

Local Editor

The mother of the jailed Palestinian hunger striker, Samer Issawi, called on US President Barack Obama Tuesday to "immediately intervene" to save his life in an open letter posted to Facebook.

In the statement, which comes on the eve of Obama's visit to the Zionist entity and the West Bank, Layla Issawi urged the US president to cleanse his hands of her son's blood by pressuring "Israel" to free him.
"I ... call on you - the most important ally of "Israel", as you describe yourself, and the president of the most powerful country in the world, as others describe you - to immediately intervene to save my son's life," the letter read.
She further stated: "This is your chance to save Samer from the fangs of this brutal occupation, so as not to ask myself with millions of others around the world: why did you come to us?"

Family members of the prisoner, on day 241 without food, say he is near death. A February 21 hearing said he would be released on March 6, but he remains in detention.
He has been refusing food since last July to protest his detention without charge.
The letter continued:
"I am a Palestinian mother like thousands of other Palestinian mothers who ache and suffer. I am the mother of Fadi who was assassinated by "Israel" in 1994 ... and the mother of Midhat who is now in "Israeli" prisons and the mother of Rafat whose home "Israel" demolished, leaving his family homeless. I am the mother of Shireen, Firas and Shadi who could not avoid the repeated detention and torture. We are a family that "Israel" deprives of water, and would have deprived us of food and medicine if they could."
Issawi's siblings living in the occupied West Bank clarified more than once that "Israel" cuts their electricity and water as punishment for Samer's hunger strike, which helped draw international attention to the plight of Palestinian prisoners jailed in "Israel" without charge.

Issawi was first arrested in 2002 and sentenced to 30 years in prison over weapons possession and forming a military group. He was released in an October 2011 prisoner deal between "Israel" and Hamas in which the Zionist entity freed 1,027 prisoners in exchange for an "Israeli" soldier captured in 2006.
He was rearrested on 7 July 2012 and accused of violating the terms of his release by entering al-Quds.
Obama has described his commitment to "Israel" as "unshakeable," and staunchly defended "Israel's" recent aggression on Gaza in November 2012 that led to the martyrdom of over 170 Palestinians.

The United States is "Israel's" top financial backer, and in 2007 signed a deal to provide Tel Aviv with million in military aid over a 10 year period.
At least one other Palestinian prisoner, Younis al-Haroub, is on a long-term hunger strike according the Palestinian Prisoners Society.

Source: Al-Akhbar, Edited by moqawama.org