Sama isn’t just one prisoner. She’s one of four Birzeit University students Israel grabbed that same night — Joulan Abu Awwad, Natalie Abu Diya, and Leila Nael Khalil. All four of them were taken before dawn, all four accused of “belonging to a student group,” because Israel doesn’t need real charges to disappear Palestinians. They threw them into Damon Prison, the place where they keep most Palestinian women they cage.
Damon has gotten even worse — there’s a scabies outbreak, at least ten women infected because the place is filthy and neglected. Sama also has Familial Mediterranean Fever — a disease that can cause organ failure if she doesn’t get her medication. Doctors warn she’s at risk of life‑threatening organ damage. Her condition has gotten worse in custody. She was briefly released for medical reasons, then thrown right back in on August 16, and since then she hasn’t been given her daily medication or seen medical staff.
Members of Congress like Chris Van Hollen and Rashida Tlaib have already called for her release, and now more than forty members of Congress plus six senators have demanded the State Department intervene. Her aunt, Leila Farsakh, has been speaking publicly, using Sama’s American passport to push pressure wherever she can. Sama represents other Palestinian student prisoners — her freedom is tied to theirs.
Before sunrise on June 2, soldiers smashed into the Safi family’s home in Ramallah. No warning. No explanation. Just the usual occupation terrorist routine: doors kicked in, rifles everywhere, shouting, chaos. Sama was asleep. She didn’t even get a chance to understand what was happening before strangers with guns were in her room, dragging her out of her bed like she was some kind of target they’d been waiting to grab.
Her family couldn’t do anything. You know how it goes in the West Bank — you don’t “argue” with soldiers. You don’t “ask questions.” You stand there and watch them take your daughter because the alternative is getting shot. Sama was hauled out of the house and shoved into a military vehicle. No charges. No explanation. Nothing.
Since then, she’s been swallowed by Israel’s detention system — the same system Palestinians have been warning the world about for decades. The same system the US government knows damn well is built on torture. She’s likely in one of the interrogation centers where they keep women in filthy rooms, subjected to the heat until people pass out, starve them, deny water, strip them, threaten them, sexually assault them, and break them down until they’re barely functioning.
And now we have even more details — documented by lawmakers themselves — about what she’s been subjected to: shackling and blindfolding, denial of food and water for the first 24 hours, stun grenades and gas canisters used in poorly ventilated cells, forced stress positions that caused severe chest pain, exposure to infectious skin disease, rat‑infested mattresses.
Women who come out of these places talk about rape. They talk about being kept in rooms so hot they hallucinate. They talk about guards who treat them like objects. They talk about being denied sleep for days. They talk about being left hungry, dizzy, sick, terrified. They talk about being screamed at for hours, shoved, slapped, tied, humiliated. Nothing about this has changed. It’s a system of torture Israel has perfected.
Israel doesn’t need charges. Evidence is non-existent. They certainly don’t need a farce trial. They can hold her indefinitely under “administrative detention,” which is just a sanitized phrase for “we can disappear you whenever we want.” And now they’re claiming she was connected to some student activism group — al‑Qutub — which they try to link to the PFLP. Her lawyer already said whatever “evidence” they’re waving around was likely extorted under pressure, and involvement in al‑Qutub isn’t even illegal.
And the United States — her country — has done absolutely shit for her.
The State Department is silent.
The White House is silent.
Congress is mostly silent, except for the few who actually give a damn. Even after embassy staff visited her twice — twice — and reported the conditions she’s in, nothing has changed. No intervention. No demands. No consequences.
They can’t shut up when an American is detained in Russia, China, Iran — but when it’s Israel? Suddenly they lose their voice. Suddenly they forget what “protecting American citizens” means. Suddenly they pretend they don’t see what’s happening.
And the US media? Barely a whisper. No headlines. No coverage. No interviews with her family. No investigative digging. Nothing. They’ve practically erased her. Because she’s Palestinian. Because Israel is the one holding her. Because American media is ran by a bunch of Zioshits.
So here we are:
A 20‑year‑old American woman is being held in a system known for torture, starvation, sexual violence, and psychological destruction — and her own government won’t lift a finger. The country that loves to brag about “protecting its citizens abroad” won’t even say her name.
