A baby boy was born by Cesarian section on Monday, the product of a successful smuggling attempt by a Palestinian prisoner who managed to sneak out a sperm sample to his wife.
Baby Muhannad was born in a Nablus hospital to Dallal Ziben, a 32-year-old mother-of-two from a village in the northern West Bank, whose husband Ammar is currently serving 32 life sentences in an Israeli prison.
Palestinians are not permitted to receive conjugal visits, and although Dallal Ziben has not set eyes on her husband for 15 years, she says she fell pregnant after being artificially inseminated by sperm her 37-year-old husband managed to sneak out of Hadarim prison in central Israel.
"Praise be to Allah who has blessed us after a long absence with my husband in prison," Ziben told AFP shortly before going in for an elective Cesarean.
"My husband and I, our two girls and the family have been waiting for this for such a long time," she said.
Ziben, who comes from Meithalun village between Nablus and Jenin, already had an 18-month-old daughter called Basha'er when her husband, who belongs to the Islamist Hamas movement, was arrested.
At the time, she was also five months pregnant with their second daughter, Bissan.
"I am very happy. This is the first genuine happiness in our house for more than 15 years," smiles Basha'er, now 16.
"When my mother told us she was going to get inseminated and give us a baby brother, we couldn't believe it," she said. "We have always wanted a brother and now the dream has come true."
After the expectant mother was wheeled into the operating theatre, a group of women from the family gathered outside to wait, breaking into celebratory ululation at the first sound of a baby crying.
Standing outside the operating theatre, the proud grandmother said her son-in-law had named the baby after one of his friends "who was a martyr."
Asked if the family objected to the way her daughter fell pregnant, she responded angrily.
"We are honourable people who are known for our good reputation and everyone supports us," she snapped.
For her son-in-law, who no longer has any immediate family living in the Palestinian territories, having a boy gives him a way of prolonging his line, she said, explaining that his mother, father and brother had died, and that a second brother was living overseas.
Details of how the sperm was smuggled out of the prison was kept a closely guarded secret, with the family refusing to give the slightest information.
A spokeswoman for the Israel Prisons Service said she was not aware of the pregnancy, and that security prisoners were not allowed conjugal visits, with the Palestinian Prisoners' Club confirming the same information.
"Visits by prisoners' wives are closely supervised by prison guards and there is no way a prisoner could get time alone with his wife," said a Nablus-based spokesman.
Dr Saalem Abu al-Kheizaran, head of the Razan fertility clinic in Nablus which carried out the insemination procedure, said the sperm had been subjected to a gender separation process to ensure the couple would have a son.
"We received a sample of sperm from the husband in a reliable and clinically secure way," he told AFP, without going into details.
"The couple wanted a baby boy, so we carried out a gender separation procedure. We tried the insemination process three times from the same sample, but the first two attempts failed," he said.
Abu al-Kheizaran said the right to have a baby was a universal human right.
"For us it is a humanitarian issue - everyone has the right to be a parent. Prison must not stand in the way of this right," he told AFP.
Samer Samaro from the Nablus branch of the prisoners' ministry agrees.
"Having the child is a prisoner's right. We hope to someday reach an agreement with the Israeli side about this issue," he said.
Samaro said that even Israelis were allowed that right, including Yigal Amir, the right-wing extremist who gunned down prime minister Yitzhak Rabin in November 1995.
Amir, who was caught trying to smuggle sperm out of prison in 2006, was later given permission to artificially inseminate his wife, who gave birth to a son in 2007.
Says Samaro: "Even Rabin's murderer had a baby while he was in prison, so why should Palestinians be deprived of that right?"
13-year-old beat his mother with hammer
Police say a 13-year-old South Texas boy has been accused of using a hammer to beat his mother.
Corpus Christi police said Monday that the child has been charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon-family violence.
Senior Officer Julie Garcia says the boy remains in juvenile custody. His name hasn't been released. Garcia says the mother suffered head, arm and facial injuries that are not believed to be life-threatening.
Investigators say the incident happened Saturday night when the boy and his 33-year-old mother apparently got into an argument.
Police say the boy fled after the attack, but later returned to the family's apartment and was found hiding under a bed.
Mom spanked 5-year old with bag of glass for playing video games
A 24-year old woman is behind bars accused of spanking her 5-year-old son with a bag of glass for playing video games.
Alicia Anne Croney was arrested shortly after taking the boy to the emergency room with a deep gash in his leg that required surgery.
The young mother told the doctor she hit the boy with what she thought was an empty bag of Doritos that she had pulled from the trash.
Turns out the bag contained shards of glass from a broken jar.
Tulsa County Sheriff's Office Major Shannon Clark says he finds the story difficult to believe.
"That someone would spank someone with a Doritos bag is highly unlikely".
"Not that it didn't happen, but it seems like of all things that you would have at your disposal in your home, a Doritos bagÂ…I'm just not finding the relevance as far as how that would discipline a child."
Croney is being held on $50,000 bail on child abuses charges.
Man kept woman locked in bedroom for years
Police searching the apartment of a reputed gang member for drugs made an unexpected discovery, a woman padlocked in a bedroom.
The 44-year-old woman was discovered at the home of 42-year-old Michael Mendez, believed to be a member of the Latin Kings street gang.
Investigators believe the woman was kept in the bedroom for extended periods of time for the last two years and possibly as long as a decade.
Investigators said the woman was sometimes let out of the room, but only when her boyfriend was home.
Some neighbors say they had caught glimpses of the woman, others told police they had no idea another person lived in the apartment.
Mendez is charged with kidnapping, false imprisonment and drug counts.
During the raid, state police seized 4,200 prescription pills, 190 grams of marijuana and $23,000 in cash inside his apartment.
(Home page image courtesy Shutterstock)
ALSO READ:
Traffic offenders with unpaid fines not allowed to leave country: Dubai Police
12 stranded Indian workers forced to sleep in a Dubai park
UAE weather: Temperatures forecast to drop for cooler Eid holidays
Follow Emirates 24|7 on Google News.
