Israel allows mother to visit dying terrorist son
While the Palestinian Authority is obsessed with demonizing Israel and its treatment of the Palestinian terrorist prisoners, the truth paints a very different picture.
Terrorist Nasser Abu Hmeid was arrested in 2002. Following his conviction, inter alia, for the murder of 7 Israelis - Eliyahu Cohen, Binyamin and Talia Kahane, Gad Rejwan, Yosef Habi, Eli Dahan, and Salim Barakat - Abu Hmeid was sentenced to 7 life sentences. Recently, while still in prison, Abu Hmeid developed lung cancer.
According to many senior PA officials, Israel implements a system of intentional “medical neglect”. Others embellish the libel saying that in Israeli prisons there is “premeditated medical execution,” and that Israel is implementing a policy of “slow death” for the imprisoned terrorists.
In contrast to the distorted and libelous PA picture, the reality couldn’t be more different.
While in prison, Abu Hmeid’s cancer is being treated with the utmost professionalism, and his terror mother, accompanied by one of her other children, was even being allowed to enter Israel to visit him in the Israeli hospital where he is receiving treatment:
Latifa Abu Hmeid: “Honestly, Nasser’s situation is severe, severe. In other words, yesterday [Jan. 7, 2022] when I saw him I said that this isn’t Nasser… Nasser is in a coma and connected to 100 devices… [I said] let me see him and touch him so he will feel that I am his mother who is inside [the prison]. [The guards said] no, impossible, in other words, from a distance of two meters. After we talked a while and so forth they capitulated a bit. In other words, we confirmed that it was Nasser.” …
Basel Abu Hmeid, brother of Nasser Abu Hmeid: “My brother Nasser is currently in the Barzilai Hospital and is suffering from cancer. Of course, I saw him yesterday for 10 minutes. His situation was severe and even very severe.”
[Official PA TV News, Jan. 8, 2022]
Following the visit, PA TV broadcast a cartoon depicting Abu Hemid as a lion, lying in a hospital bed, covered in a Palestinian flag, with his mother looking at him:
[Official PA TV, Jan. 10, 2022]
Abu Hmeid was originally taken to hospital in October 2021 to undergo an operation for lung cancer but was returned to prison when he refused to accept the usual security restrictions imposed by the Israel Prison Service when it takes a convicted murderer for treatment in a civilian hospital. A statement issued by the PLO Commission of Prisoners and Released Prisoners’ Affairs recognized Abu Hmeid’s terror involvement and added:
“Nasser Abu Hmeid… was returned from the Israeli Barzilai Hospital to Ashkelon Prison on Wednesday [Sept. 29, 2021], after he refused to wait to have a surgery performed for him the next week, and this was in protest against the measures, restrictions, and stringencies that were implemented against him by the prison guards in the room… It should be noted that prisoner Abu Hmeid from the Al-Amari refugee camp in Ramallah has been imprisoned since 2002, and he was sentenced to 7 life sentences and 50 years.”
[Official PA TV News, Oct. 5, 2021]
Despite his refusal to accept the security precautions, Abu Hmeid underwent the operation he needed in November.
In December 2021, Abu Hmeid was again taken to Barzilai hospital. Refusing to acknowledge that lung cancer is often a fatal disease and that the post operation period is often fraught with complications, the PA-funded Prisoners’ Club claimed that the reason Abu Hmeid was taken back to hospital was because the surgeon who operated on Abu Hmeid was a “non-expert”:
Official PA TV newsreader: “The [PA-funded] Prisoners’ Club noted that prisoner Nasser Abu Hmeid was transferred to the Barzilai Hospital in severe health. The prisoner is suffering from the results of a surgery to remove a cancerous tumor from his lung, which was performed in November [2021]. In the surgery a tube to remove air was implanted, but afterwards it became clear that a non-expert doctor implanted the tube in the wrong place. It should be noted that prisoner Abu Hmeid is one of five brothers who the occupation sentenced to life, and they have an additional brother who is a Martyr”
[Official PA TV News, Dec. 5, 2021]
Abu Hmeid is not the only terrorist in his family. In fact, Abu Hmeid has 5 brothers who have all also murdered Israelis. In direct recognition of the terror contribution of the Abu Hmeid family, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas chose Latifa Abu Hmeid, the mother of the terrorists, to lead the PA request to receive “Member State” status in the United Nations. The PA has further honored her several times, and paraded Um Hmeid as an icon, symbol, and role model for the Palestinian public.
Ultimately, as a reward for having 6 terrorist murderers in the family, every month the PA pays the Abu Hmeids $13,223 (42,400 shekels) as part of its “Pay-for-Slay” terror reward policy.
Libel on medical abuse of Palestinian prisoners - The PA claims that Israel abuses Palestinian prisoners through medical neglect, medical experiments, and by intentionally infecting them with diseases. However, the International Red Cross regularly visits these prisoners and has not documented or accused Israel of any of these claims. Likewise, lists of demands occasionally issued by the prisoners during hunger strikes—such as during one in 2011—include no demands relating to these claims. PMW has documented prisoners talking about how they "lack nothing" in the prisons and that "the worst thing about Israeli prison" is riding in a prison vehicle that has no padding on the seat. When PMW contacted the Israeli Ministry of Health in 2007 regarding PA claims of medical experiments on prisoners, the ministry responded: "Clinical testing on prisoners in prison was never approved, never performed, and is most certainly not taking place at present."
Um Nasser Abu Hmeid (Um Yusuf Abu Hmeid/Latifa Abu Hmeid) – Palestinian woman famous and admired in the PA for being the mother of 5 terrorist prisoners serving life sentences (4 of them serving multiple life sentences), and another whom the PA refers to as a "Martyr." Abu Hmeid is also called Khansa of Palestine, which refers to Al-Khansa from the earliest period of Islam who sent her four sons to battle and rejoiced when they all died as Martyrs. Abu Hmeid was honored by the PA in 2010 and 2015, and was chosen in 2011 to launch the PA’s statehood campaign with the UN. Her terrorist sons: Islam Yusuf Abu Hmeid, murdered 1 on May 24, 2018, and is serving life in prison and an additional 8 months; Muhammad Abu Hmeid, serving 2 life sentences and 30 years for involvement in terror attacks; Nasser Abu Hmeid, serving 7 life sentences and 50 years for murdering 7 Israeli civilians and 12 attempted murders; Nasr Abu Hmeid, serving 5 life sentences for involvement in two terror attacks in which 4 were murdered, and arms dealing; Sharif Abu Hmeid, serving 4 life sentences for involvement in terror attacks in which 4 were murdered; Abd Al-Mun'im Muhammad Yusuf Naji Abu Hmeid, murdered 1 on Feb. 13, 1994, and was killed by Israel on May 31, 1994.