West Bank mother’s fight to see her children

A West Bank mother who has been denied the right to see her two children for over seven years, says she is being punished by Hamas leaders for being a member of Fatah in her youth. Feda’a Dablan, a Jordanian national, married a Gaza native and had two sons. But following several failed attempts to reconcile the marriage, her husband sent her back to the West Bank without her children. She took the case to court and won custody rights back when Palestinian courts were under the Palestinian Authority. However, the Hamas takeover of Gaza in 2007 coincided with the implementation of the courts decision. In December 2007 she was finally granted a permit from Israel to go to Gaza to get her sons, accompanied by members of the Red Cross. However, her husband secured an order by the Hamas Interior Minister which suspended her custody rights. She was left in Gaza homeless and penniless for a year-and-a-half but kept fighting for the right to get her sons back. She experienced the Israeli war on Gaza in 2009 without once seeing her children. She has met with top officials but to no avail, and she says she is being punished for her politics. “I’m a mother and I want my children back. This does not have anything to do with politics. Hamas should differentiate between my case and its split with Fatah,” she said.