Tel Aviv - A Muslim woman living in the West Bank city of Bethlehem is fighting to regain custody of her three-year-old son who is being raised by an adoptive family in an Israeli settlement in the Gaza Strip, the Yediot Aharanot daily reported Tuesday.
The mother, identified only as R, is by court order supposed to have access to her son, S, three times a month. However, she says the foster family in the Gush Katif settlement block invent excuses to prevent her from seeing her son.
On Sunday R filed a plea with the Jerusalem district court demanding her son be returned to her. The court is due to hear the case soon, the Israeli daily said.
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Social workers took S from Jewish-born R shortly after he was born. R, 18-years-old at the time and with a history of drug abuse and trouble with the police, succeeded in winning him back after the courts intervened and she promised to stay with him in shelter.
'This is my child and I want him to know this' But after she left the shelter S was taken from her again and placed with a foster family in the Gush Katif settlement block.
R decided to fight for the return of her child, backed up by courts which ruled she was able to be a parent.
In the wake of a court ruling, S was separated from his foster family and returned once again to his biological mother, who had in the meantime converted to Islam and lived in Bethlehem with the child's Palestinian father.
He was unable to adapt to his new environment and was returned to his foster family.
"I know that they love him and are doing what they think is right for him," R said. "But S has a mother and that's me. This is my child and I want him to know this."
"S is growing up in a religious settlement. He will learn that the Palestinians are his enemies. Today I realise when he grows up he will not be able and will not want to be in touch with me," R said.
"He will not be able to accept that his mother lives in the Palestinian Authority. I have lots of thoughts of him growing up and being an Israeli soldier."
"S will grow up here with me and his brothers," R stated. "Even if at first he will have a hard time adjusting, he will receive all the love I have and will grow up to be a Palestinian and not a settler."
But, she added, "I will talk to him in Hebrew, so that it will be easier for him to adjust; it is important to me that he remember that he is Jewish". - Sapa-dpa
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