By Ola Attallah, IOL Correspondent
GAZA CITY, May 10, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) – “My mother is dying and I cannot be at her sickbed,” said Iriana Hictor, an Ukrainian women married to a Palestinian.
“I’m really in an unviable situation, because If I leave Gaza , they [Israeli authorities] will not allow me back in to my husband and children,” she told IslamOnline.net.
Hundreds of foreigners living with their Palestinian husbands also share the same fate.
Israeli occupation authorities are reluctant to give them identities or travel permits.
They, thus, are either to remain inside the occupied Palestinian territories, with no chance of traveling to their homeland to visit relatives and loved ones, or take a one-way ticket and never return.
Heartbreaking
Natanya Seliev, a Russian, is also overwhelmed by a deepening sense of homesickness.
“It is really breaking my heart as I don’t want to leave my husband and children, but I’m also dying for my family back home.”
“Why don’t they treat us just like the Americans, the Britons and the French who enjoy freedom of movement?” Seliev asked angrily, putting at some 500 the number of Russian wives in Gaza .
She complained that her fervent appeals to human rights organizations and the International Committee of the Red Cross have fallen on deaf ears.
Ahmed Zein, a psychiatrist, also has a moving story.
“My Ukrainian wife Ilina Kurctina and I were leading a happy life with our lovely baby girl,” he told IOL.
He continued: “But my life turned to a nightmare when my wife went back to Ukraine in April 2000 to see her family with our baby. Israeli occupation authorities have since then been refusing to give her a visa.”
The Palestinian doctor had visited Ukraine one time in 2003 to visit his wife and child.
“My daughter didn’t recognize me,” he said fighting back the tears.
Media Attention
Darin Al-Sheikh, a Palestinian human rights activist, said that media should give due attention to the distress of those wives.
“I know one of them who has not seen her husband for five years now and lodged in vain a lawsuit with the Israeli Supreme Court,” she told IOL.
Carolina Sinic urged the Palestinian Authority to do something.
“I have already contacted the Ukrainian embassy and they promised to look into the issue,” she said.
“It’s hard to feel that you are being stripped of your rights for no reason.”
Last week, dozens of forefingers married to Palestinians staged a symbolic sit-in outside the Palestinian Legislative Council (parliament) to protest the Israeli measures.
MP Kamal Al-Sharafi said a parliamentary delegation met with the protesters and promised them that the issues would be on the agenda President Mahmoud Abbas’s forthcoming meeting with Israeli Premier Ariel Sharon.
Israel has frequently banned Palestinians, including ministers and officials, from leaving the occupied Palestinians territories.
In 2003, Israel banned Palestinian officials from attending a Middle East conference hosted by British Prime Minister Tony Blair.