Tired but relieved, the teen is happy he can resume treatment to save his arm and pursue his dreams for the future again.
On his first morning of freedom after being released from Israeli prison, Ubai Youssef Abu Maria wandered around his home, checking in on his parents, as if to make sure everyone was there.
They had all gotten home at dawn that day, Friday, and while his body was tired, he was so happy to be home that he only managed two hours of sleep before he went to his parents’ room and woke them up.
Only half-joking, he asked his mother Fidaa, 38, to make him a breakfast he had been dreaming of since October 7 – qalayet banadora, a spicy skillet of fresh tomatoes simmered with hot Palestinian chilli peppers. It was served with the requisite fruity olive oil, special family-recipe zaatar and a cup of sweet tea.
As he ate, Ubai told his mother that he had eaten nothing that tasted anything but awful over the past two months. He missed being home and being taken care of.
Then, he headed out to the barber’s to trim his “wild” hair that had not been tended to for two months, returning groomed and feeling a bit more normal.
‘I saw the happiness in my father’s eyes’
Ubai Youssef Abu Maria is 18, lives north of Hebron and has already been arrested six times by Israeli forces. Sometimes he was held for days, sometimes for hours. The first time, he was 14 years old and was held for 15 days.
A year later, when he was only 15, he was arrested again and held for nine months. The last time he was taken was on October 8 and told he would be in administrative detention, a near-informal status that ostensibly lasts six months but is often renewed over and over with the detained person never being charged or tried.
Each time, his parents watched and waited, worrying about their son.
Then a “humanitarian pause” was declared between Israel and Hamas this month, with an exchange of captives for prisoners as part of the deal – hope reared its head and Ubai’s parents Fidaa and Youssef started to get ready, in case Ubai was released.
He eventually was, in the seventh and last batch of Palestinian prisoners released from Israeli detention on Thursday.
