Kansas City, US, March 1, 2010 (Pal Telegraph) - In Gaza, a 1-year-old boy sees pictures of his daddy and says, "Baba."

In Kansas City, Baba toils away in his car-repair shop. He longs to embrace the son he has never met, whose wartime birth made the news, and to reunite with his wife. Texts and cell phone photos from the Middle East help Yaser Wishah only so much.

"He started calling me ‘Baba,' but I'm told he says that now to all of the male adults. They're all ‘Baba' to him," Wishah says with a pained chuckle.

In January 2009, as Israeli bombs rained on the Gaza Strip and Palestinian rockets whistled back, tiny Saed Wishah entered the world. Readers of The Kansas City Star followed along as his American father, from a split-level home in Olathe, fielded updates on his cell phone.

Mother and child came through despite bombs rattling their surroundings.

Now Wishah wants to know why they still haven't been allowed out of Gaza to join him in America.

U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback wants to know, too.

Citing Saed's first birthday in January, the Kansas Republican wrote in a letter to the U.S. Embassy in Cairo: "Given the tumultuous time into which he was born, this milestone is a joyous occasion; one year, however, also marks the time that his father has not held his son."

The senator sent his appeal to Egypt after the Israeli government withheld a pass to let Wishah's wife and child visit the embassy in Jerusalem and secure visas.

A native Palestinian, Wishah, 39, became a U.S. citizen after he completed his studies at a Texas college on a student visa. During a trip back home in 2007 to visit his ailing father, he married Rewaa Wishah, a TV journalist in Gaza.

He returned and filed immigration papers for his wife to move to Kansas City after the birth of their son.

She was nine months pregnant when the war erupted.

The Israeli shelling subsided days after the baby's arrival. But the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza continue to endure poor medical care and mostly impoverished conditions. The Israeli and Egyptian governments have restricted access to the strip of land since it came under the control of Hamas, a militant group seen as terrorist by the United States.

"We believe the baby is a U.S. citizen and he should get a passport," said Wishah's lawyer, Jeffrey Bell.

He expressed optimism that Brownback's intervention would help Rewaa and Saed Wishah cross into Egypt.

Yaser Wishah, while frustrated, is not surprised by the delays.

When he flew to his birthplace and got married, the planned two-month visit stretched into nine. Hamas had won control of the Palestinian National Authority from the more moderate Fatah faction, and Israel would take no chances permitting the travel of potentially dangerous natives of Gaza - not even one with a U.S. passport in hand.

Hundreds of Gazans eager to study abroad have faced similar trouble getting permission to leave. Authorities in Egypt, where some of their visa requests are transferred, are no friends of Hamas and are infamous for their slow-moving bureaucracy.

"Israel's policy of hindering movement in and out of Gaza is highly counterproductive," said Michael Brown of the Institute for Middle East Understanding, which advocates for Palestinian rights. "It creates ill will from people who are under tremendous economic and psychological pressure, enclosed as they are in an area 25 miles long by 6 miles wide."

In Washington, a group of 50 U.S. House members recently signed a letter to President Barack Obama, asking that he appeal to Israel to lift the blockade "into and out of Gaza" - "especially (for) students, the ill, aid workers, journalists and those with family concerns."

Wishah said his wife "is getting to the point where she's lost all hope" of a reunion anytime soon.

"I'm afraid it may be another six months to a year," he said.

The Star's account of Saed's birth in the war zone prompted one reader, Catherine Cazares of Overland Park, to buy a gift of baby clothes to present to Wishah for his son's arrival.

But as the year wore on with no news of a reunion, she gave the present to someone else.

"I knew the clothes wouldn't fit," she said.

This story was written by Rick Montgomery and first appeared in The Kansas City Star.