Mahmoud Mashayikh, Community Health Worker, Arrested
Israeli occupation forces arrested community health worker Mahmoud Mashayikh, 33 years old, from his home in the pre-dawn hours of Thursday, May 9, 2024. Mahmoud has been a member of the Lajee and 1for3 team since 2018, the inception of the community health program. He is also part of the environment unit, where he oversees the rooftop hydroponic garden that provides produce for patients in the community health program. His arrest is felt profoundly by Lajee Center staff, his patients, and the global teams of 1for3.org and Health for Palestine (H4P). It is part of a much broader violent campaign of Israeli mass incarceration in this time of genocide.
As a community health worker, Mahmoud is an excellent caregiver, and he has been committed to professional development. Aya Darwish, the coordinator of the health & environment unit at Lajee since 2019, recognized Mahmoud’s talent at treating people with diabetes and hypertension. “The passion of Mahmoud is practicing nursing,” she said. “He likes to do it, and he is good at it.” To this end, having already earned a two-year degree in nursing, she said, he had returned this year for a four-year program in nursing. His colleague Nida Abu Salem said, “Mahmoud is always supportive, whether the circumstances are sweet or difficult. He is ambitious and loves his work, and he does it with excellence.” Dr. Henry Louis, international medical director for Health for Palestine, also remarked on Mahmoud’s ambition, saying, “Mahmoud has excelled in growth, the ability to adapt and change in meaningful ways over years of hard work both for his community and himself.”
Dr. Bram Wispelwey, co-founder and chief strategist of health for Palestine, emphasized Mahmoud’s centrality to the program and his capacity for mentorship, commenting, “Mahmoud is the rock of our community health worker (CHW) program. Dedicated and empathetic, he’s been with H4P through every moment as a CHW from our original training cohort. He’s now a leader to whom new CHWs look for guidance.” Mahmoud was planning to travel to Armenia with other members of the 1for3 team in June 2024 to present the community health and psychosocial support programs as a new model there.
Mahmoud is well loved by his patients, especially because he always walks in with a smile. In an interview after Mahmoud’s arrest, his patient Jalila Al-Azraq, a community elder who lived through the Nakba, recited the poetry with which she routinely greets him when he comes to visit her. She recounted that they always joke with each other about classic Palestinian topics like marriage, and she loves telling him stories about days past.
Like many team members, Mahmoud dedicates himself not only to his immediate responsibilities but also to broader support for the organization and the community. Nidal Al-Azraq, executive director of 1for3, said, “You can find Mahmoud in all of the programs at Lajee Center. Whenever there is an activity, a summer camp, a festival, a community gathering, you will see Mahmoud is there.”
Israel has used widespread arrests in the last seven months for its political ends. One in every five Palestinians has been arrested and detained at some point in their lives, but Israeli arrest raids have caught thousands in their webs in the last seven months, when the number of prisoners has climbed to the largest number since at least 2008. The number of those being held without charge under administrative detention has almost tripled from 1,319 at the beginning of October to 3,661 in April 2024. The number of people from Aida in Israeli prisons has more than doubled in these months, with most being held under administrative detention.
Mahmoud’s family, friends, and colleagues now worry about the horrors he is experiencing. Conditions in prison have become increasingly dire in recent months. Prisoners face severe shortages of food, overcrowding, a lack of health care, and intensified beatings and other forms of torture. Nidal Al-Azraq emphasized this, saying, “What shocks and worries the community at Lajee Center is the treatment now for Palestinian prisoners. The starvation and humiliation are unbearable. This is why when people think of Mahmoud’s arrest, like those of others from Aida Camp, they think of the torture that he is going to go through.” Said Nida Abu Salem, in his absence, “I see him everywhere in the center,” but she knows, “he is able to face the challenges in front of him and God is with him.” Aya Darwish captured the feelings of many when she said, Mahmoud “is all the time laughing and smiling as he is working, and because of this we need him to be free.”
