Dad, did you escape from prison?

During the reception of the released prisoner from the occupation prisons, Ghassan Zawahra, in Dheisheh camp, who spent more than 12 years in various periods, most of which were administrative detentions, his little daughter Mina, 4 years old, was sitting on his lap and close to him, never leaving him as if she did not want anyone to approach him. From her father, the child encircles her father, talks with him, and tells him stories he had not witnessed during his absence from the house. He belongs to her alone. She embraces him time after time, kisses him, holds his hands, and strokes his face and hair. She prevents him from standing, moving, or even shaking hands with well-wishers. The child occupied Mina is her father completely, as if she fears that if he moves, he will not return to her again.

Little Mina grew up in a house surrounded hundreds of times by the occupation soldiers. She wakes up in the morning and does not find her father in the house, and discovers that the brutal soldiers vandalized, destroyed and looted the contents of the house. They shouted, threatened and took her father shackled with iron to the unknown. The innocent girl wakes up and finds that her toys and beds have been destroyed. Her brothers and their safes were unearthed, and the belongings and belongings of the house were scattered, as if a bomb exploded in her innocent dream.

The child Mina began to realize that the refugee, as described by Mahmoud Darwish, is not to be a child from now on, to grow up quickly, to comprehend the meanings of the many pictures hanging on the walls, pictures of martyrs, headed by her martyr uncle Moataz. Blood all around, sounds of bullets and night raids in Dheisheh camp. Mina does not sleep. She hears the adults talking about a martyr who fell tonight and about the wounded and chased. She looks around her looking for her father and her brothers. Little Mina hides in her mother's bosom, overwhelmed with terror and questions.

The beautiful Mina hates the night, the night is heavy, the night of the camp is crowded with anticipation and the raids that have become almost daily, the whispers of the young men indicate the intrusions of the Israeli soldiers and death squads, the movements of the young men indicate that they are preparing for this night to watch and guard the entrances and the confrontation, they spread in the alleys of the camp, in its alleys and on the roofs of the houses. Did God give birth to us on the battlefield? Mina said as she watched a mass funeral passing from the courtyard of the house to the cemetery, where does the martyr go, father? Mina asks and looks at where her father pointed to the sky, but why don't the inhabitants of the sky return, father? Eid al-Fitr is approaching and my uncle, the martyr Moataz, is supposed to come back to buy me many gifts, dresses and sweets.

The little girl Mina is still embracing her father, clinging to him, preventing him from getting up, and he has to hear her because he has been away for a long time. Many stories took place in her life: her mother's stupor and constant sadness, visits to prisons since early dawn, Mina wants to cry and explain to her father the constant fear that inhabits her, trembling and trembling. When the door knocks at night or the soldiers suddenly blow it up, Mina closes the windows and buries her head under the covers. She wants to tell her father about the secret of the black nightmares that haunt her, about the colorful butterflies escaping from her notebooks. Santa Claus did not come to her this year, as people spent all their days in mourning. Convoys of martyrs everywhere in Palestine, no one laughs or smiles, my father, everyone is in pain, no one plays or has fun or lights a tree. I am alone, my father, so do not leave me again.

The child Mina receives well-wishers with her father after he spent two years in administrative detention, and almost prevents him from answering the questions of his friends and loved ones. Mina is the only loud voice in the reception hall, telling people: This is my father for me alone, I have waited for him for a long time, all the time is mine, he has been absent a lot And it's time for me to ask him about the next life. It's time for him to play with me and show me the sea behind the colonies. To sing to me and tell the wordless stories about chains, dungeons, ghosts, torture and the voices of monsters in the cellars of interrogation. Leave my father to me this evening. I need the warm peace in his hands. To a green bird and a rain cloud, I need it, but I am still afraid. Inside me, an echo echoes: my mother's tears, the door, tables, curtains, books, pens, paintings, and withered mint seedlings. Everyone is afraid. I do not walk in the street, as there is a speeding military car. A gun, I'm afraid I'm not in the garden, nor am I at home, my father is back, let the waiting be broken, time moves and silence dies.

The child Mina receives her father's ship, which finally docked. The ship resisted the flood and did not sink in the heavy depths of the prison. The ship docks in its port, in the lap of the little girl. A solid ship that is not made of wood, but of flesh, bone and stubborn will. It crossed all the seas and oceans, but it did not get lost or lost. Knowing submissiveness and surrender, it is the ship of return from the claws of the occupation, the ship of love that spreads across the face of Mina, the love that the occupiers do not know, love is the great human force that seals its mark on the beginning and the end of a people who love life as much as they can.

Mina did not believe that her father had returned from prison, his continuous absence had become routine, administrative detention had become a sweeping rule affecting all groups of the Palestinian people, her intuition had trained her to understand the equation, he would not return after six months, they would renew his detention time after time, he would not return according to Israel's war laws And racism, his secret file says that he still poses a threat to the State of Israel. The judges of the military court fear that if Ghassan Zawahra is released, he will raise his little daughter to be patient so that hope does not tire. Therefore, the military court approved the extension of administrative detention indefinitely, and they thought that In prison, he will lose the ability to taste the taste of air, and his longing and memories will freeze, so he will not write to his daughter Mina about freedom, return, and the longing for space.

Mina began to understand the reasons for the escalation of administrative detention, which exceeded a thousand prisoners this year. The prisoners will not return to their families. They travel through the night of the prisons until their hearts and memories become rotten and corrupted. They forget their plight and their previous lives. The occupation state wants to keep the life of the one-year-old Mina incomplete. After a year, she calls out to him, Father, be faithful, Father, I miss you, I am afraid.

Administrative detention is a form of psychological and social torture. Ask the child Mina. Ask the bereaved families in the military courtrooms. No one is released from the court. The judges approve all orders and decisions of administrative detention. The life of the Palestinian people is scattered, life becomes faltering waiting stations, everything becomes postponed: appointments, occasions, visits, desires, education and travel, souls are filled with amazement, confusion and boredom, meanings evaporate, shocks multiply and pain overflows, who plows the hakoura, who plants trees, who brings the gas canister, who He celebrates Mina's birthday, lights candles for her, buys her the best gift, and takes her to school in the morning.

Administrative detention is a looting of ages, and it began since the era of British colonialism and its provisions were derived from the Nazi laws, but how does the child Mina understand all that? It is the permanent departure of souls and times. The prisoner becomes a mere painting, an image, or fleeting shadows. Who shakes the image and gives it life and identity?

The intimate meeting between the little girl Mina and her father, who was released from prison, drew everyone's attention. The men's tears flowed as they watched the little Farah flutter around her father. It is a far-reaching human and political joy. This little girl says: There is nothing more precious, richer, or holier than freedom. Mina hurts us all because she Attention is drawn to the thousands of children deprived of their parents, sitting under the moonless nights, sleeping on a desperate tear. It is a moment of freedom and liberation from chains and the darkness of darkness, a moment that is enough for the child Mina to live her whole life at once.

In the reception hall of the prisoner Ghassan Zawahra in the Dheisheh camp, I heard the child Mina asking her father: Did you escape from prison, Dad? No one returns from administrative detention, and if he does, he will soon be arrested again. The astonished child did not believe that her father was at home. Perhaps he dug a tunnel and escaped. Administrative detention is the permanent enemy that stalks the Palestinian people without mercy. Perhaps her father turned into a shadow overlooking the night. The camp out of nowhere, perhaps it is a dream of her dreams and disturbed obsessions, Mina encircling her father with her body, pressing his hands, smelling his breath and smell and looking at his face and eyes, Mina wants to make sure that he is with her, she looks around as if she is afraid that the soldiers will kidnap him and put him in those unjust prisons, Mina She sleeps in her father's lap, saying: This is my father, give me a moment to feel that my childhood is complete.