What Both Clijsters and Fatima Have In Common

In mid September when the 26-year old Belgian Kim Clijsters stunned the tennis world landing a stunning victory in the US Open Women Singles at Flushing Meadows, the world called her ‘mother of the week’, because she proved right her decision to stage a grand comeback despite being the caring mother of a toddler. I remembered Kim and her highly celebrated tale-telling photo with the trophy in one hand and her 18-month-old baby girl Jaeda in the other hand while I watched the touching Al Jazeera video clip of a mother and her two-year old child who were among the 20 Palestine women prisoners Israel was forced to release this week. Fatima al-Zeg, the 42-year-old prisoner, and her two-year-old child Yousef arrived in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip to a rousing welcome on Friday. Her mother, husband and her other three children were among the people gathered to receive Fatima, who was arrested in May 2007.

"I thank God for my release first and thank the Palestinian armed resistance who made this prisoners' exchange deal. I'm so glad to be release together with my son and my colleagues, but this happiness would remain incomplete until all the prisoners are released," al-Zeg said on her arrival. There are around 10,000 other Palestinian prisoners languished in various Israeli jails on cases arbitrarily framed by the Jewish government.

The release was part of a deal between Israel and the captors of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit through the Egyptian and German mediators for handling Israel a most recent one-minute videotape showing the soldier Shalit alive, sound and good. Further discussions are on to secure a prisoners' swap deal between the two sides.

Fatima Ziq, 41, was pregnant when she was captured on the allegation of collaborating in a foiled suicide bombing. Fatima said she was sad for not being able beside her husband and other kids when medical tests at the jail confirmed the pregnancy. “However, I took it as a great test of patience from Allah, an I overcame all hostile conditions and Israeli attempts to abort the fetus”, she said adding that the jail authorities were giving her medicines that were, as she knew later, related to pregnancy terminations. She named the kid Yusuf after the Prophet Yusuf whose story of jail life gave her strength during the imprisonment. She mentioned the kid was a time-pass in the jail and factor that relieved the pains of all fellow prisoners who were suffering both mental and physical pains

Sadly, among the released prisoners was a 45-yer old mother of eight, Zhour Hamdan, who was arrested in 2003 also for being an alleged accomplice in an aborted attack. She is coming back to see a remarried husband and helpless children.

Away from the pomp and show of the ever-enjoying west, and of course without having the glittering coverage the like of mother Kim Clijsters would get, Fatima, her child and other crossed the small-hole like guarded gates rarely located in the barbed wires dividing the rich and ever-imposing Israel and poverty-ridden devastated symbolic land of Palestine, in order to rejoin and continue the rightful struggle of her countrymen to secure a piece of free land from their own.