The BBC runs a story related to the Shalit kidnapping, focusing on a Palestinian man who claims his wife and 18-month old son are being held unjustly by Israel: Palestinians back prisoner release call.

For Walid al-Houdaly, 46, the capture of an Israeli soldier by Palestinian militants offers the opportunity that his wife and their 18-month-old child will be freed from prison.

The Palestinian militant factions who kidnapped Cpl Gilad Shalit on Sunday - including the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the ruling Hamas party - have called for the release of all Palestinian women and children held in Israeli prisons in return for news on the missing soldier. …

Like many Palestinians, Mr Houdaly believes that the world is focussing on the fate of one Israeli soldier when thousands of Palestinians have been imprisoned or detained in what they regard as their fight for independence. “There is one soldier, but there have been hundreds of Palestinians kidnapped from their houses,” says the writer, referring in part to his wife who he says was dragged from their Ramallah home by Israeli soldiers early one morning.

“If the world protests about the kidnapping of one soldier, why don’t they protest about the Palestinians that have been kidnapped in the last 10 years,” Mr Houdaly adds, sitting in his Ramallah office with books scattered across his desk.

Mr Houdaly says his wife, Ataf, 44, headed a women’s organisation dedicated to providing health services for poor Palestinians. But for the last seven months, Mr Houdaly says, she has been held in Israeli prison under administration detention - imprisonment without charge.

The mother went on a 16-day hunger strike before the Israeli prison authorities allowed her baby Aesha to be brought to stay with her, in the jail, Mr Houdaly says.

Notice that Mr. Houdaly doesn’t say—and the BBC apparently doesn’t care—why his wife is imprisoned. They don’t even tell us her full name.

You have to search Google’s cache to find out who his wife really is, and why she’s in an Israeli jail, but it’s very probable that this man’s wife is an Islamic Jihad terrorist who planned to execute a suicide bombing by detonating a car bomb in Jerusalem in 1987, and was jailed for 10 years.

Evidence:

From the IDF site: Inside the Circle of Terror- Palestinian Women as Terrorists:

The phenomenon of Palestinian Arab women involved in terror activities has existed for many years. One need only look into the past. One prominent example was an active senior terrorist in the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization, Ataf Alian, who planned to execute a suicide bombing by detonating a car bomb in Jerusalem in 1987. Ataf Ailan was imprisoned in Israel for 10 years and was released in 1997.

And two dead links only available in Google’s cache:

Palestinian Prisoner’s Day in Ramallah - April 19, 2004:

Mrs. Itaf Ilayan, an ex-detainee who served 10 years of a 15-year sentence gave a spine tingling testimony of her personal experience as a prisoner in Israeli prisons. She spoke of unimaginable methods of torture including 4 consecutive years of solitary confinement 34 days of which she was on a food strike, prolonged exposure to extreme temperatures, humiliating and degrading treatment and beatings. Currently, she is married to ex-detainee Mr. Waleed Hodali (see below). Her struggle and determination to survive despite the animalistic aggression and cruelty she faced enthralled the audience and moved many to tears.

AL-BUSHRA Archives: A Time to Make Peace:

Ataf Ilayan is a Palestinian woman who is a member of the Islamic Jihad. When Palestinian prisoners were released as part of the Oslo Accords, Ilayan also went home. She was free until one month ago when Israeli police boarded a bus in a Palestinian- controlled area and re-arrested her, placing her in “administrative detention” — arrest without trial. Ilayan declared a total hunger strike — no food or water — until Israel releases her.

But according to the BBC, she was only guilty of heading “a women’s organisation dedicated to providing health services for poor Palestinians.”

(Big hat tip to LGF reader Silhouette, who located this information.)

UPDATE at 6/29/06 8:04:08 am:

And it’s even worse than it appears, because the BBC also covered up the record of the whining husband. Biased BBC reports that Walid of the many spellings was also imprisoned by Israel—for attempting to kidnap an Israeli soldier.