"We are sorry, Samer Issawi, we are sorry, my dear son Fahmi, Salah, my brother and my nephew, really sorry. Please forgive us all, for we are unable to help free you, but we have been protesting and campaigning for only the past year and half," said As'ad Abu Salah, a freed Palestinian prisoner in his late fifties, in a message to all Palestinian prisoners inside Israeli jails on the anniversary of Palestinian Prisoners Day, April 17, 2013.

Israeli troops arrested Asad and his two sons, Fahmi and Salah, near the border in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun back in 2008. In October 2011, Asad was released in a prisoner-swap deal between Hamas and Israel, in which more than 1,000 prisoners, including the now-hunger-striking Samer Issawi, were released.

"My husband was released before he was to serve a 25-year sentence, thank God. I am here along with Fahmi's wife and daughter as well as my freed husband Asad to send a message of solidarity and strength to my sons and all other Palestinian prisoners inside the jails," the wife of Asad Abu Salah told Al-Monitor on Tuesday, April 16, while carrying a poster of her sons in front of the International Committee of the Red Cross (IRC) in Gaza City.

Mai Abu Salah, the wife of the jailed Fahmi Abu Salah, spoke to Al-Monitor while holding her 5-year-old daughter.