For over three weeks, Tamar Fleischman has been coming to Kaplan Hospital in Rehovot, Israel, with a small bouquet of flowers. Once there, she makes her way to Internal Medicine D, room 15, where Palestinian hunger striker Samer Issawi is lying on his deathbed. Fleischman wants to hand him the flowers and tell him that she and many other women like her identify with his situation and are worried about him, but she is blocked again and again by prison service guards. Still, she keeps trying.

Fleischman is a leading activist in Machsom (Checkpoint) Watch, an Israeli women’s group established in 2001 to oppose the occupation and the denial of freedom of movement to Palestinians. She volunteers there every day. Nevertheless, in an interview with Al-Monitor, she says that she is not acting on behalf of that group when she visits the hospital and tries to see Is sawi. She is acting as “a private individual and an Israeli citizen who is worried about him.”

So you just decided to buy flowers and visit him?

“Yes. I read in the newspaper that he was hospitalized at Kaplan, and I couldn’t just let that go by. I went with a friend. They didn’t expect us, and when the guards saw us, they jumped up and blocked our way. Still, we were able to relay the message that there are people here who are concerned about his well-being.''