When 35-year-old Dana Joudeh stepped into the entrance of Sharon Prison in Netanya, she could not have imagined that the next six months would be spent in a cell, shackled, and nursing a life growing inside her womb. Newly married and arrested without any formal charge, Joudeh was placed under administrative detention—an indefinite confinement measure that permits Israeli authorities to hold Palestinians without trial.
Within hours of her arrival, the woman collapsed in front of soldiers, was blindfolded, and rushed to a hospital where a routine pregnancy test returned a positive result. The news that she was pregnant arrived while her hands and feet were still bound in chains, marking the beginning of a harrowing journey that would keep her under guard until the moment her baby entered the world.
Life behind the prison walls: scarcity, violence, and denied care
Joudeh’s experience mirrors the broader pattern reported by Palestinian prisoners’ organisations since the wave of arrests that followed the October 7, 2023 events. Administrative detention currently affects more than 3,100 Palestinians, and women constitute a small yet increasingly visible segment of the incarcerated population. According to advocacy groups, around 90 female detainees and over 350 children are confined across Israel’s prison system, many of them enduring conditions that fall far short of international medical standards.
Inside the cell shared with thirteen other women, Joudeh survived on a diet that often consisted of a single slice of toast accompanied by lentils, chickpeas or hummus. Occasionally, a few olives were distributed, and fellow inmates would discreetly give portions of their meagre rations to the pregnant mother. The scarcity of nutritious food, coupled with the constant threat of sound grenades and forced face-down positions, intensified the physical strain of her pregnancy.
Legal advocate Hassan Abbadi, who volunteers his services for detained Palestinians, described a litany of abuses: strip searches, attacks by police dogs, and a chronic lack of basic undergarments. The prison’s medical unit offered little more than a token check when Joudeh complained of severe headaches; a request for acetaminophen (Acamol) was denied despite its general safety during pregnancy. In an act of silent solidarity, another inmate would feign a headache, obtain a painkiller, and surreptitiously pass it to Joudeh.
Delivery under fire: a premature birth in a guarded operating room
By the sixth month, Joudeh began suffering persistent bleeding and debilitating anemia (hemoglobin fell to 9 g/dL). A prison clinic dismissed the urgency, declaring her condition “stable” and refusing hospital transfer. When the bleeding persisted for two weeks, authorities finally escorted her—still blindfolded, still shackled—to Rambam Hospital in Haifa.
Medical staff, adhering to Israeli standards, decided on an emergency cesarean section. The operation unfolded under the watchful eyes of armed Israeli soldiers who stood guard in the operating theatre. According to her sister Maram, the doctor referred to the newborn as “the terrorist,” a dehumanising comment that underscored the hostile environment surrounding the delivery.
The premature infant, later named Lia, entered the world at roughly six months gestation and was immediately transferred to a neonatal intensive care unit. Palestinian nurses working at the hospital managed small acts of kindness: they slipped Lia a pink onesie to her mother’s view and pleaded with the soldiers to release Joudeh’s restraints so she could walk, a request that was denied.
Release, aftermath, and the larger picture
Officially, Joudeh’s release was scheduled for September 15. Yet, two days after the birth, on September 14, Israeli authorities reclaimed both mother and child from the hospital and escorted them back to detention for processing. An ambulance waiting outside carried her husband to the scene, and Lia was swiftly moved to the Hclinic Specialty Hospital in Ramallah, where she remains under intensive care.
When the family finally embraced Joudeh, they noted her emaciated state, lingering scabies infection, and profound psychological exhaustion. Despite the trauma, the mother expressed a desire to host a modest celebration once both she and Lia recover, already dreaming of the sweets and dishes that will mark the occasion.
The case of Dana Joudeh is only the second documented instance in nearly two decades of a Palestinian woman giving birth while under Israeli custody; the first was Fatima al-Zaq in 2008, whose son later perished in a 2025 drone strike. Human-rights monitors stress that many similar stories likely go unrecorded, hidden behind the opaque practices of the Israel Prison Service, which routinely denies individual case details and labels allegations as “false.”
Beyond the prison walls, the occupied West Bank faces an ever-growing maze of 925 Israeli checkpoints and roadblocks, severely limiting access to prenatal care for the broader population. In Gaza, the United Nations reports that nearly 50,000 women are pregnant, with one-in-three pregnancies classified as high-risk and almost 4,000 pregnancy losses recorded in the first half of 2026 alone.
Joudeh’s ordeal, therefore, is not an isolated tragedy but a stark illustration of how systemic restrictions on movement, medical neglect, and punitive detention policies converge to endanger the most vulnerable—pregnant women and newborns—across the occupied territories.
