On Thursday, May 30, Israeli occupation police arrested Palestinian activist, journalist, and widow of Palestinian prisoner Walid Daqqahh, Sana’ Salameh, commonly known as Sana’ Daqqah in the occupied capital of Palestine, Jerusalem.
The day after her arrest, an Israeli court extended Sana’s detention until Tuesday, June 3. However, on Tuesday, her detention was extended a second time until Thursday, June 5.
According to an Israeli police spokesperson, Daqqah was arrested over allegations of “incitement” against the Israeli occupation, because she praised Palestinian resistance leaders, considered “terrorists” by Israel, on social media. This includes her late husband Walid Daqqah, and the late Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.
The Israeli police also stated that Sana’ Daqqah was captured based on an arrest order issued by police commissioner, Danny Levi, upon a request from National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
Israel has, for many years, used the vague accusation of “incitement to violence” to crack down on Palestinians residing in the West Bank and Jerusalem, including Palestinians with de facto Israeli citizenship, who reside in areas that were occupied by Israel in 1948.
As per Military Order 1651, which was promulgated by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) in 2010, anyone who “attempts, orally or otherwise, to influence public opinion in the Area [the West Bank] in a manner which may harm public peace or public order” or “publishes words of praise, sympathy or support for a hostile organization, its actions or objectives,” which it defines as “incitement”, will face a 10-year prison sentence.
Daqqah’s detention exposes Israel’s relentless attempts to destroy Palestinian collective memory
Sana’ has been celebrated by Palestinians as a legendary figure of resistance to the Israeli occupation for dedicating her life to her late husband Walid who she married in 1999. At that point, Walid was already incarcerated, sentenced to life imprisonment, and denied conjugal visits.
The marriage of the revolutionary couple has been seen as an act of resistance in itself, a bold defiance of Israel’s colonial rule.
With extraordinary determination, the couple tried numerous times to have a child through a process innovated by the Palestinian Prisoners’ Movement, in which prisoners smuggle their sperm out of prisons, so that their wives can undergo in vitro fertilization. Babies born through this process are known as children of the “liberated semen”.
After a 12-year struggle, Sana’ and Walid, undeterred, welcomed their baby girl, Milad, in 2020. Walid was only allowed to see Milad once when she was two-years-old in October 2022, after an arduous legal battle with the Israeli occupation authorities. Walid had said that through her birth, he himself was partially liberated, defeating his jailers.
Walid spent his last couple of years in prison counting each and every second to embrace his daughter and wife. Although he was initially supposed to be released on March 24, 2023, an Israeli court extended his sentence for two more years for allegedly participating in the smuggling of cellphones to Palestinian prisoners. As a result, Walid’s final release date was set for March 24, 2025.
Nevertheless, Walid, who had been diagnosed with bone marrow cancer in December 2022 and also suffered from chronic lung disease, passed away April 7, 2024, after spending 38 years in Israeli prisons. His untimely death was widely blamed on intentional medical neglect, a commonly used practice by Israeli prison authorities,
Despite his death, Walid’s spirit of resistance apparently still haunts Israeli leaders, who insisted on keeping his body in custody until his sentence was complete. Later, the Israeli Supreme Court upheld a ruling to hold onto Walid’s body in order to use it in negotiations in the ceasefire and captives-for-prisoners swap deal with Hamas.
Sana’ Daqqah: “We produce life, while they produce death”
Despite the loss of her husband, Sana’ continues resisting the Israeli occupation.
Addressing The People’s Conference for Palestine – with Milad by her side – in May 2024, Sana’ said: “What allows for us to retain glory and honor is that we are on the side of humanity, that we are better than them morally because we are committed to our land and the freedom of our country.”
“They are the ones who are on the dark side of humanity, they are the human monsters of humanity. And as Walid once said…we do not fear this country, as we produce life, while they produce death,” she added.
Sana’s detention suggests that the resistance legacy of the Daqqah family has become an obsession for Ben-Gvir, who bluntly brags about his genocidal ambitions to ethnically cleanse all Palestinians.
The Israeli minister, who is known for adhering to a racist and supremacist ideology, may have found in Sana’ an inspiration and example that constitutes an existential threat to Israel.
