Abdallah Motan’s second message from the Israeli Prison

Abdallah Motan has spent 20 months in the Israeli prison under the administrative detention, he received another extension again in June 2026. Abdallah does not know the charges against him, and yet in the last message we received from him, he remained hopeful that he would be released soon.

During his time in prison, Motan was unaware that his uncle had passed away—after his factory was demolished by an Israeli order, he suffered a heart attack, having lost his lifetime project in Jabaa, near Ramallah. More recently, Motan also lost his grandmother, whom he loved deeply and asked about constantly.

Abdallah Motan and Momin Abuyacoub while bolting Silwad. April, 2024.

His Message on 2, September 2026

Amid all of this, Motan has continued to think about climbing—the sport he loves. In every visit, he sends a note expressing how much he misses it. In his last message, he shared:

‘ I often find myself thinking about how many new routes have been bolted, and how long it will take me to recover my strength and return to climbing once I am free. But I am certain of one thing: the first day I hold a rock again, I will reach the top’
He adds to one of his friend: ‘there are a lot of trees we will hug, there are a lot of stones and water springs we will explore.’

In June 2026, his mother spoke with Kate McMahon in an interview for the climbing magazine:
‘Speaking to her in Burqa Town, under the shade of a fig tree on a scorching June day, Motan's mother reminisced on her son's childhood:

Abdallah doesn't like to stay in one place; he likes to move and camp and sleep outside," she said. She gestured to a treehouse he built as a child in the backyard. The hammock he slept in as an adult swings between two trees, untouched since his arrest.
"He would never hurt anyone," she added.
"Everyone loved him. Life has been very hard since they took him, very hard.”

created image of Abdallah as a child using a camera for the first time

Abdallah and film making, The story

Abdallah's mother expressed her love for him and how much she misses him. She shared his passion story for photography and how he became a filmmaker today. As a child, she noticed him under the bed with a candle and an old camera, photographing the candle in the dark. He would later tell her how beautiful it was to capture a candle's light in darkness, she simply laughed, not understanding the magic in it—but it seems Abdallah had a different sensibility toward photography, a passion for the art around us that we didn't even notice.

We hope Abdallah will see the light after the darkness very soon.