Mahmoud Khalil describes pain of missing son’s birth in latest court filing

Palestinian graduate describes weeping as he crouched on detention center floor listening to wife give birth

Mahmoud Khalil, the detained Columbia University graduate and Palestinian activist, has said in a new court filing that the most immediate and visceral harms" he has experienced during his nearly three-month detention have been missing the birth of his son and being separated from his wife.

Instead of holding my wife's hand in the delivery room, I was crouched on a detention center floor, whispering through a crackling phone line as she labored alone," Khalil said. I listened to her pain, trying to comfort her while 70 other men slept around me. When I heard my son's first cries, I buried my face in my arms so no one would see me weep.