SPECIAL REPORT: Video/al jazeera world////walid daqqa a parallel life - What You Need To Know

Global News Insight World

Walid Daqqa: A Parallel Life

Walid Daqqa, the Palestinian prisoner who turned decades in Israeli jails into moments of thought, creativity and love.

This is the story of Walid Daqqa, one of the longest-serving Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, told by his immediate family and in voice recordings he made behind bars.

From a sharp-minded boy in 1948 Palestine to a clandestine PFLP organiser sentenced to life imprisonment, Daqqa turns his cell into a classroom, a think tank and, eventually, a wedding venue when he marries Sanaa Salama inside Ashkelon prison.

Through intimate testimonies from family, former prisoners and his lawyer, the film explores Walid’s idea of “parallel time” – living both under “tonnes of concrete” and beyond the walls. It recounts the smuggling of his sperm, the birth of his daughter, Milad, and his powerful message to her: hate oppression, not people. As cancer consumes him and Israel refuses his release, Milad’s final chant, “Freedom for our prisoners. For my father”, echoes a struggle that outlives Walid Daqqa’s life.