WEST BANK (Dispatches) – The Zionist regime’s Ofer Military Court has agreed to release nine-month pregnant Anhar al-Deek, issuing 40,000 shekel ($12,500) bail and releasing her on house arrest, the Prisoners and Ex-Prisoners’ Affairs Authority said on Friday.
Twenty-five-year-old al-Deek is from the Kafr Ni’ma town west of Ramallah and has been imprisoned for five months on charges of attempting to carry out an alleged stabbing attack near an illegal settlement outpost, however no verdict has yet been issued against her yet.
As her due date nears, an online campaign calling for her release has picked up pace, with a letter she sent her family adding to pleas for her release.
“What should I do if I give birth far from you? I am tied up, how can I give birth via caesarean section when I am alone in prison?” Anhar wrote in her letter to her family, adding: “I am exhausted, and I had severe pains in the pelvis and severe pain in my legs due to sleeping on the prison beds. I do not know how I want to sleep on it after my delivery operation.”
The Palestinian health minister also called on the international community and humanitarian organizations to force the occupying regime into releasing Anhar.
In a series of letters sent to the International Committee of the Red Cross, the World Health Organization, and the United Nations Population Fund, Mai al-Keila held regime authorities fully responsible for her safety and the health of her fetus, the official Palestinian Wafa news agency reported Thursday.
The minister stressed that the Zionist regime’s prisons lack the minimum health and preventive conditions, especially in light of the COVID-19 resurgence.
“Anhar is the mother of an 18-month-old baby. She needs to be next to her family and children, and this is a human right guaranteed by various international regulations, laws and norms,” said a-Keila.
Palestinian Minister of Women’s Affairs Amal Hamad earlier described Anhar’s detention as a blatant violation of international conventions and principles, particularly the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, International Humanitarian Law and the Geneva Conventions on the Protection of Civilians and Prisoners of War.
There are around 4,850 Palestinian detainees in the Zionist regime’s prisons, including 41 women, 225 children, and 540 administrative detainees – held without charge or trial, according to institutions concerned with prisoners’ affairs.