WEST BANK/ISRAEL: Palestinian prisoners' daughter asks Hezbollah's Nasrallah to help secure her mother's release

Record ID: 561877

  • Title: WEST BANK/ISRAEL: Palestinian prisoners' daughter asks Hezbollah's Nasrallah to help secure her mother's release
  • Date: 13th July 2008
  • Summary: PICTURES OF QAHERA ASSADI IN PHOTO ALBUM
  • Embargoed: 28th July 2008 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVA541ZEABJCDTVE93IWQ08K2NS7
  • Story Text: Fourteen-year-old Sandy Assadi, daughter of Qahera and Nasser Assadi, both Palestinian prisoners serving sentences in Israeli prisons, writes to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, asking him to include her mother in a prisoner exchange deal with the Israeli authorities.
    While families of a number of Lebanese prisoners being held in Israeli prisons have said they are happy with a Hezbollah-Israeli prisoner exchange deal, Palestinian relatives of prisoners are calling to include their prisoners in the swap.
    Fourteen-year-old Sandy Assadi, daughter of Qahera and Nasser Assadi, both of whom are Palestinian prisoners serving sentences in Israeli prisons, has written to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nassrallah, asking him to include her mother in the prisoner exchange deal with the Israeli authorities.

    "To Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah, the General Secretary of Hezbollah, peace be upon you," Sandy Assadi read from her letter.

    "I am Sandy Nasser Assadi, from the Jenin Refugee Camp, the daughter of Qahera Assadi. On behalf of myself and my sister and brothers -- Muhammad, Rafat and Dunia -- I beseech you to help release my mother from the Israeli jail of Hasharon, where she is serving three life sentences," she wrote.
    Qahera Assadi, who is serving three life sentences and 80 years, is a mother of four children. Qahera Assadi was convicted of transporting a suicide bomber in 2002. Sandy's father Nasser is serving 18 years in prison for membership in Islamic Jihad.
    Fourteen-year-old Sandy Assadi looks after her younger sister and two brothers.

    "I do not want to see her only in pictures, I want to see her, I want to hold her," Sandy Assadi said of her mother.

    "I wish that she could be released, I want to hold her. I miss her, her cooking, I miss everything about her. I want her to be beside us during the holidays," added Sandy.
    A U.N.-appointed German mediator has been mediating the Israel-Hezbollah swap deal under which Israel would recover the soldiers in exchange for releasing five Lebanese prisoners and the remains of eight Hezbollah fighters and 200 slain Arab infiltrators.
    Under the deal expected to take place this week, Israel will also release an undisclosed number of Palestinian prisoners. The two Israeli soldiers are believed dead but Hezbollah has refused to give information about their condition.
    The Lebanese prisoners include Samir Qantar, the most prominent held by Israel, and the three who were captured during the war in Lebanon. Qantar is serving a life sentence for killing a policeman as well as a man and his 4-year-old daughter during a 1979 raid on the northern coastal town of Nahariya.
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