Palestinians wait for prisoners’ releasepublished at 14:06 Greenwich Mean Time 30 January
Wyre Davies
Reporting from Ramallah
Raghad Hussain and Hedaya Hussain
At the municipal centre in Ramallah, among the many families awaiting the release and return of their loved ones from Israeli jails were sisters Raghad Hussain and Hedaya Hussain.
“I’m so tired with being disappointed,” said 21-year-old Raghad.
“This is the second time I’ve prepared myself and got dressed especially for my father’s release.”
Last week, she was told to get ready only to find out her dad wasn’t, after all, among the first wave of prisoners to be released under the fragile ceasefire agreement.
The two sisters, who look like twins, were dressed in traditional Palestinian clothing from the Nablus area of the occupied West Bank, where the family still lives – although as they waited here in Ramallah they learned the family home had reportedly been raided by Israeli settlers who live nearby.
Raghad wasn’t even born when her father, Hussain Nassar, was detained and jailed in 2003. He’s now 47 years old.
“You don’t know what it’s like to live for so long without your dad,” she told me.
“I’ve never touched him before as my mum was pregnant with me when he was taken. This is the first time I will know what it’s like to have a father.”
Their father was detained, they said, for being an active fighter during the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising.
But the sisters, like other family members are patient.
As few hours’ delay won’t matter, they say – as long as it happens sometime today.
