Week 13: Issa A Rabbo - Palestinian political prisoner

It is said that cometh the hour, cometh the man. Heroes are born in times of suffering in order to stand up against those who violate their dignity and occupy their land. Prisoner Issa Abed Rabbo is one such man. Regardless of the difficulties he has faced in Israeli prisons, Issa has refused to submit to the tyranny of his captors.

Issa Nemir Gabriel Abed Rabbo, 47, was born and raised in Dheisheh refugee camp. His family was displaced from the village of Walja in 1948, and he grew up in poverty amid the anger of refugees and their misery.

He was arrested on 20 October 1984 on charges of belonging to the Fatah movement and resisting the occupation, receiving a sentence of life imprisonment. Issa is the oldest Palestinian prisoner in the province of Bethlehem, and is now about to enter his 27th year behind bars as a member of the group of prisoners who have spent more than a quarter of a century in an Israeli jail. There are 126 such prisoners altogether.