Israel releases 82-year-old Gaza woman with Alzheimer's who was jailed for being ‘unlawful combatant’

By Burak Dag

Israeli forces have released an 82-year-old Gaza woman suffering from Alzheimer's disease after detaining her because she was considered an "unlawful combatant," Israel’s Haaretz daily newspaper reported Thursday.

Fahamiya Khalidi was taken into custody by Israeli forces in early December at a school in Gaza, where she had sought refuge after evacuating her home in the Zeitoun neighborhood during Israeli shelling.

Khalidi was held at Damon Prison in northern Israel and was released on Jan. 19 along with five other women who were deemed "unlawful combatants," the report said.

A request for a meeting between Khalidi and a lawyer from the Israeli organization Physicians for Human Rights on Dec. 27 was initially refused by the prison authorities. However, following subsequent appeals, the elderly woman was released.

It was noted that the caretaker looking after Khalidi, whose children live abroad, was also detained and is currently being held in an Israeli prison.

According to a statement from another Gazan woman released from the same prison, Khalidi, who experiences difficulty walking and uses a wheelchair, was occasionally taken to the prison clinic in handcuffs.

Khalidi was not the only elderly and ill woman in the prison, according to one of the released Gazans.

The six Gazan women along with 18 male prisoners were driven to the vicinity of the Kerem Shalom Gaza border crossing, and when they began to walk away, Israeli soldiers reportedly opened fire on them.

Khalidi was sent to a hospital in the southern Gaza town of Rafah from a tent set up by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, or UNRWA, where released prisoners are accepted on the Palestinian side of the border crossing.

She has reportedly started receiving medical treatment there.