Palestinian media outlets and social networks are celebrating: according to reports, security prisoner Basel Abd al-Rahman Ahmad al-Asmar, one of those involved in the murder of Minister Rehavam Ze’evi in Jerusalem, became the father of twins on Friday, Ali and Watar, using sperm that he smuggled out of the Israeli prison by an unspecified method.
His wife, Sanabel al-Ra’i from Qalqilya, gave birth to the twins following an in vitro fertilization procedure. The two met during her visits to four of her brothers, who were also serving prison sentences for security offenses. During one of her visits to her brothers, she met prisoner Basel al-Asmar in the prison visiting room. He was her brother’s cellmate, and the encounter eventually led to their engagement and marriage from a distance.
Palestinian reports portray the birth as “defiance against the occupation” and as proof that life continues despite imprisonment. The birth is being presented as both a personal and a national achievement. The phenomenon of Palestinian security prisoners smuggling sperm for fertility treatments began in 2012 and has become widespread. In Palestinian public discourse, it is referred to as the “sperm of freedom” and viewed as a symbol of resistance.
Who Is Basel al-Asmar and What Was His Role in the Murder of Rehavam Ze’evi in Jerusalem?
Al-Asmar, born in 1976 and a resident of the town of Beit Rima in the Ramallah district, belonged to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine cell that murdered Tourism Minister Rehavam Ze’evi, known as “Gandhi,” in Jerusalem on October 17, 2001. He has been serving a life sentence plus 20 years since his arrest in February 2002 and has so far spent more than 24 years behind bars.
Ze’evi, a retired major general and the only Israeli minister murdered by Palestinian terrorists, was shot dead near the entrance to his room at the Hyatt Hotel, now the Dan Hotel, in Jerusalem’s French Hill neighborhood. The main gunman was Hamdi Quran; al-Asmar served as the secondary assassin, secured the operation and was supposed to shoot the minister’s bodyguard if necessary.
The cell was recruited and dispatched by Majdi Rahima Rimawi as an act of revenge for the killing of the organization’s secretary-general, Abu Ali Mustafa. The operation was approved and directed by PFLP Secretary-General Ahmad Sa’adat, who succeeded Mustafa and remains imprisoned in Israel to this day.
Al-Asmar and his accomplices were arrested, convicted and sentenced. He received a life sentence for the murder and an additional 20 years for other terrorism offenses, including planting explosive devices and car bombs. The assassination was one of the most prominent attacks of the Second Intifada and struck at a symbol of the Israeli state.
