Wife and daughter of martyred prisoner Walid Daqqah Mayza Yousef
Walid Daqqah was born on July 18, 1961, in Baqa Al-Gharbiyyeh, a village in Occupied Historic Palestine.
Daqqah lived a modest life for the most part, working as a gas station attendant until the Israeli facilitated massacre of Sabra and Shatila and the Lebanon war; from then on he began resisting against Israeli Occupation.
In March 1986, Daqqah was arrested for allegedly leading a group from the Popular Front For Liberating Palestine (PFLP) and carrying out an assassination attack on an Israeli soldier named Moshe Tamam.
Despite denying such allegations, Daqqah was sentenced to life (37 years) in prison at just 24-years-old.
Throughout the decades, Daqqah resisted Israeli occupation even while in prison.
In 1999, Daqqah had gotten married to Sana Salameh, a Palestinian journalist and activist. The two celebrated their wedding inside the Israeli jail with their closest family members, friends, as well as the other inmates.
Daqqah, often referred to as the intellectual prisoner, obtained his bachelor’s degree in 2010 from the Open University of Israel in democratic studies. In 2016, Daqqah received his master’s degree from Al-Quds University in regional studies.
Daqqah has penned many books while in jail, one of them in particular called, “The Tale Of The Oil’s Secret,” in which he talked about a boy called Jood, who was conceived from smuggled sperm from prison. The book was published in 2018, and Daqqah was punished by his jailers upon it being published.
In a similar situation, Daqqah and Salameh conceived their daughter, Milad, from smuggled sperm, and she was born in February 2020.
Daqqah was not allowed to be present for the birth of his daughter, and after she was born, they would only ever meet each other in the prison through a glass window.
In a published letter, Daqqah wrote, “I was always at a loss when she asked me on the phone: Daddy, where are you? I never used ‘prison’ with her, fearing she would get to know the word and the negative connotations it holds […] Through her visits, Milad realized this place meant prison, before she abstracted it in a word.”
In 2022, Daqqah was diagnosed with myelofibrosis, a rare case of bone marrow cancer, and has faced medical negligence at the hands of Israeli authorities.
Rather than be sent to a civilian hospital to receive cancer treatment, Daqqah would be sent to Ramle Prison Clinic, notoriously called “the slaughterhouse.”
In March 2023, Daqqah had completed his 37 year prison sentence, but was denied release due to a 2018 court hearing which sentenced him to an additional two years for allegedly “smuggling cell phones for prisoners.”
Daqqah’s family has been protesting and campaigning for his immediate release ever since and thus the Free Walid Daqqah Campaign was formed.
Protesters with the campaign would chant in Arabic, “We want him to go home, we want him to live, we won’t stop until he goes home…he wants to go home to Milad.”
It’s worth mentioning that since Oct. 7, 2023, like many other prisoners, Daqqah has been deprived of family visits from his wife and daughter as well as denied his basic human rights.
Daqqah, as the longest serving Palestinian prisoner in Israeli jails, unfortunately, has lost his battle with cancer and was martyred in jail on April 7.
Daqqah has followed the unfortunate fate of the Palestinian prisoner’s leader, Nasser Abu Hmeid, who rose to martyrdom in Shamir Medical Center, in December 2022, and whose body has not yet been returned to his family for a proper and dignified burial.
Sana Salameh and Milad Daqqah protesting for Walid’s freedom/Sana Salameh
Daqqah’s body will be held hostage until his prison sentence ends on March 25, 2025.
Milad Daqqah, who has spent her whole life only seeing her beloved father through a glass screen, will never know what it’s like to grow up with her father in her life. Moreover, she will not be able to properly bury her father and attend his funeral until 2025.
Sana Salameh will never be able to live with her beloved husband or know what life with him is like beyond prison walls. At the time of hearing of her husband’s death her heart broke, and upon receiving his body a year from now, her heart will break for the second time.
As for Walid, he will never be able to reunite with his family and live as a free man.
In one of his published writings, Daqqah wrote, “My dreams were simple, but they made them bigger, until the biggest of dreams became the embrace of my wife and Milad.”
Free Walid Daqqah. Free our prisoners. Free Palestine.
About Post Author
