Held Without Charge.. and Six Children Left Waiting

Six children in the village of Aboud, northwest of Ramallah, are counting the months until their mother comes home. Israeli forces detained Mona Ahmad Abu Hussein al-Barghouti, 46, on January 8, 2026, and she remains in administrative detention without charge or trial. Her captivity has become a recurring blow for her children, who learned the meaning of “administrative detention” far too young.

Adham, the youngest, is only six. He has already lived through two of his mother’s arrests. Two years of his childhood have passed with part of him behind the bars of Damon prison, and he has become one of dozens of Palestinian children growing up on waiting instead of in their mothers’ arms.

Before this arrest, Mona spent a full year in administrative detention. The occupation renewed her detention order four times, three months each time, before she was released in the “Flood of the Free” exchange deal.

That first detention left deep marks on the family. Each time her release drew near, the occupation blindsided them with a fresh renewal on the very same day. The scene repeated four times. Four times the wound reopened. Four holidays and the month of Ramadan passed without her.

Mona came out of that detention with a nose broken in an assault. Afterward she tried to rebuild her life. She went back to the work she loved as a kindergarten director, and picked up the master’s studies her arrest had interrupted. Life seemed to be finding its way back to normal.

The occupation did not leave her alone for long. On January 8, 2026, Israeli forces raided her home and arrested her again. She spent 24 days in the Moskobiya interrogation center before being moved to Damon prison, where she still faces administrative detention. The occupation’s courts have since renewed her detention order twice, six months each time, with no clear prospect of release or return to her children.

At Damon, the pain runs deeper than longing. During one of the repression raids, guards assaulted Mona and injured her back and feet. She can no longer move normally, and she now leans on other prisoners to manage her daily needs.

She also suffers from migraines, which demand quiet and dim light. Damon offers none of that. It provides none of the basic conditions for health or a livable space, amid repeated raids and the harsh psychological toll the women prisoners endure. She has a cyst on her kidney and a slipped disc. Her family was told she has lost a great deal of weight since her arrest. Again and again she has asked for a skirt to pray in. Her request has gone unanswered.

Who is there for Mona al-Barghouti as she faces all this pain behind bars? Who is there for Adham, whose childhood is being stolen, day after day? Who is there for her daughter, sitting her high school exams this year without her mother? Who is there for the six children who keep waiting? And who will answer the question Adham asks over and over: When is my mother coming home?