From mothering a child to mourning one, three women share stories of steadfastness and resistance.
Lidia Rimawi wanted
a son. But her husband is a political prisoner, serving a 25-year sentence in an Israeli prison, and will be 50 before he's released.
So she did the only thing she could think of under the circumstances: She smuggled his sperm out of the prison.
Thirty-seven-year-old Lidia lives in Beit Rima outside the village of Nabih Saleh in the occupied West Bank. It is the site of regular Friday vigils and Lidia sometimes brings her son, a round-faced boy with a shock of black hair. For her family, the birth of Majd and his daily growth is an act of liberation. Despite the odds, Lidia's family continues to grow.
"Majd is our victory," she says of the 18-month-old who bounds around, his flush cheeks still thick with baby fat. "I did this to challenge the occupation."
He is clearly the crown jewel of the family.
We are in Lidia's home, where the curtains are drawn and dark shadows are cast across the furniture. Full glasses of Coca Cola sit on a wooden tray before her.
She knew that her husband was involved with the struggle when they met, she explains. That made her love him all the more.
They had been living together for just four months when he was imprisoned for his involvement in the second Intifada. Pregnant with their first child, she watched as he was taken away.
Many of Lidia's hopes for her future were dashed in that moment - including, she thought, her wish to have more children.
But, in that regard, things were not as hopeless as she then imagined.
"I remember when I got the [sperm] sample from my husband during our visit to him and our little daughter was with me and she said, 'Dad come on. Give us my brothers.' We were shocked, but happy and worried," Lidia explains as her 12-year-old daughter sits nearby, proudly cradling her baby brother in her lap.
After smuggling the sperm out of prison in a plastic container, Lidia took a taxi straight to the Razan Medical Center in Ramallah where she was inseminated.
It worked. When she shared the news with her husband during a prison visit, he screamed out in joy and disbelief.
Months later, Majd was born.
When Majd was an infant, Lidia took him to visit his father, but the guards refused to let him in and grew angry. She was sent away without so much as being allowed to show her husband their son through the glass partition.
"My husband was punished for smuggling the sperm to me," she explains, adding that the captain in charge of the prison demanded to see the results of DNA tests, showing who fathered the boy.
Her husband's sentence was extended by two months and he was fined 5,000 shekels (around $1,300) as punishment.
The Israeli prison authorities still refuse to allow Majd to visit his father and, to this day, the two have never met. Lidia has only been able to show him photographs of the boy.
"Majd is saying his first words and walking without his dad, and it is very hard to live without [a] father, but we can live. This is life. And I'm thinking of a new brother for Majd," she says, undeterred.
She has vowed to have another child with her still-imprisoned husband. "Inshallah [God-willing] we will try this again," she says.
Women like Lidia make up the backbone of the resistance movement in Palestine. As givers of life, keepers of family tradition, and culture bearers, they continue to resist in often under-reported and under-acknowledged ways.
Most people are familiar with the marches after Friday prayers, where the Israeli army meets protesters' rocks with tear gas, live ammunition, and skunk spray. But resistance to the Israeli occupation of lands that were once Palestine takes many additional forms.
From mothering a child to mourning one, three women share stories of steadfastness and resistance.
So she did the only thing she could think of under the circumstances: She smuggled his sperm out of the prison.
Thirty-seven-year-old Lidia lives in Beit Rima outside the village of Nabih Saleh in the occupied West Bank. It is the site of regular Friday vigils and Lidia sometimes brings her son, a round-faced boy with a shock of black hair. For her family, the birth of Majd and his daily growth is an act of liberation. Despite the odds, Lidia's family continues to grow.
"Majd is our victory," she says of the 18-month-old who bounds around, his flush cheeks still thick with baby fat. "I did this to challenge the occupation."
He is clearly the crown jewel of the family.
We are in Lidia's home, where the curtains are drawn and dark shadows are cast across the furniture. Full glasses of Coca Cola sit on a wooden tray before her.
She knew that her husband was involved with the struggle when they met, she explains. That made her love him all the more.
They had been living together for just four months when he was imprisoned for his involvement in the second Intifada. Pregnant with their first child, she watched as he was taken away.
Many of Lidia's hopes for her future were dashed in that moment - including, she thought, her wish to have more children.
But, in that regard, things were not as hopeless as she then imagined.
"I remember when I got the [sperm] sample from my husband during our visit to him and our little daughter was with me and she said, 'Dad come on. Give us my brothers.' We were shocked, but happy and worried," Lidia explains as her 12-year-old daughter sits nearby, proudly cradling her baby brother in her lap.
After smuggling the sperm out of prison in a plastic container, Lidia took a taxi straight to the Razan Medical Center in Ramallah where she was inseminated.
It worked. When she shared the news with her husband during a prison visit, he screamed out in joy and disbelief.
Months later, Majd was born.
When Majd was an infant, Lidia took him to visit his father, but the guards refused to let him in and grew angry. She was sent away without so much as being allowed to show her husband their son through the glass partition.
"My husband was punished for smuggling the sperm to me," she explains, adding that the captain in charge of the prison demanded to see the results of DNA tests, showing who fathered the boy.
Her husband's sentence was extended by two months and he was fined 5,000 shekels (around $1,300) as punishment.
The Israeli prison authorities still refuse to allow Majd to visit his father and, to this day, the two have never met. Lidia has only been able to show him photographs of the boy.
"Majd is saying his first words and walking without his dad, and it is very hard to live without [a] father, but we can live. This is life. And I'm thinking of a new brother for Majd," she says, undeterred.
She has vowed to have another child with her still-imprisoned husband. "Inshallah [God-willing] we will try this again," she says.
Women like Lidia make up the backbone of the resistance movement in Palestine. As givers of life, keepers of family tradition, and culture bearers, they continue to resist in often under-reported and under-acknowledged ways.
Most people are familiar with the marches after Friday prayers, where the Israeli army meets protesters' rocks with tear gas, live ammunition, and skunk spray. But resistance to the Israeli occupation of lands that were once Palestine takes many additional forms.
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