Sanabel al-Ra’i, the wife of Palestinian prisoner Basel al-Asmar, who is serving a lengthy prison sentence for his role in the assassination of former tourism minister Rehavam Ze’evi, gave birth to twins Saturday in Qalqilya in the West Bank.
According to the family, al-Ra’i became pregnant through fertility treatment using sperm from her imprisoned husband that had been smuggled out of prison and frozen. Family members said the process took more than two years and involved several attempts at fertilization before the latest attempt succeeded, resulting in a twin pregnancy.
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Sanabel al-Ra’i, the wife of Palestinian prisoner Basel al-Asmar, who is serving a lengthy prison sentence for his role in the assassination of former tourism minister Rehavam Ze’evi, gave birth to twins Saturday in Qalqilya in the West Bank
Palestinian photographer Mohammed Nazzal documented the birth. He said al-Ra’i, a former nurse, experienced a mixture of joy over the birth of her children and pain because their father remains in prison and could not be at her side.
After giving birth, al-Ra’i said she felt strong and had succeeded in “defeating the prison,” according to Nazzal.
A relationship that began through prison visits
Al-Ra’i’s relationship with al-Asmar began when she visited her brother, Shaher al-Ra’i, who had been imprisoned by Israel several times.
Her brother was placed in administrative detention — a measure Israel uses to hold suspects without filing criminal charges, generally on the basis of classified security evidence — in June 2015. His detention order was extended several times before he was released in 2017. He was arrested again this year and released in June.
During her prison visits, al-Ra’i met al-Asmar. The couple married in 2022 while he was still incarcerated. The marriage was conducted by proxy, with al-Asmar’s brother signing the marriage documents on his behalf.
Four years later, the couple’s twins have been born while al-Asmar remains behind bars.
Rehavam Ze’evi
(Photo: David Rubinger)
Al-Asmar was arrested in 2002 and is serving a life sentence plus an additional 20 years for his involvement in the assassination of Ze’evi, a right-wing Israeli politician who was tourism minister at the time of his death.
Ze’evi was shot and killed at Jerusalem’s Hyatt Hotel on Oct. 17, 2001.
According to details released in al-Asmar’s case, he served as a secondary gunman in the assassination squad. His role was to provide security for the killing and shoot Ze’evi’s bodyguards if they attempted to intervene.
Ze’evi was killed by members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, or PFLP, a Palestinian terrorist organization. The group said the assassination was retaliation for Israel’s killing of its leader, Abu Ali Mustafa, in an Israeli missile strike in the West Bank city of Ramallah earlier that year.
Sperm reportedly smuggled from Israeli prison
The al-Asmar case is the latest example of a phenomenon in which Palestinian prisoners serving lengthy sentences have, according to Palestinian reports, smuggled sperm out of Israeli prisons in an effort to have children while incarcerated.
Al-Asmar’s family said his sperm was smuggled out about two years ago and subsequently frozen.
An Israeli security official said the smuggling referred to in the reports occurred before the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel.
According to the official, Israel Prison Service policies have since changed, and the types of meetings that previously allowed Palestinian prisoners to transfer materials or have private visits with their spouses are no longer permitted.