Author: ISM Media Group

The story of Sima – Female Political Prisoner

Sima is a 35 year old Palestinian woman who was released approximately four months ago following two and a half years in an underground Israeli jail. She has four young children who were left without any parents during her stay in prison, as the Israeli army had assassinated her husband a little while prior to her incarceration.

On the eve of Sima’s wedding, her brother and cousin were out buying some jewelry for her as a wedding gift. The shop was quite a distance from the house so they hitched a lift with a man who was unknown to them. Soon after they set off, the Israeli army blew up the car. The driver as it turned out, was apparently connected to a militant wing of the Fatah organization. The army had been targeting the driver even though they had no confirmation of who the other two men in the car were. As a result, Sima’s husband vowed to gain justice for the incident, but was assassinated as he was coming out of a mosque.

The Israeli army then invaded Sima’s house a number of times during the night to arrest and question members of the family. They arrested one of her brothers and came back a couple of times to look for the other brother who was only 15 years old at the time. The final time they took Sima and when the family questioned the soldiers about the fate of her children, one soldier replied that there were many orphanages the children could go to.

For the first two weeks, Sima was kept in solitary confinement in a room only 2 meters by 3 meters, in complete darkness. After two weeks of this, she was connected to a polygraph machine every day for one week from 8am-5pm with electrodes attached to her fingers and forced to sit with her hands spread out and body hunched over. As a result of this, she has now developed a type of arthritis in her neck. Interrogators told her she would not be able to wash or take a shower unless she admitted to helping her husband collaborate with militants. She was beaten a number of times, and eventually she was moved to a tiny cell with five other prisoners. The food was so terrible she couldn’t eat properly for two months after being released. Sometimes there were insects all over the food but they had no choice but to eat. At one time the prisoners staged an 11-day hunger strike.

Some of the prisoners became quite ill but medical attention was slow and sporadic, especially dental treatment during which the same instruments were used in many different patients mouths without being disinfected. One of the other prisoners who was just 18 years old had a serious gum infection and was refused dental treatment which resulted in her teeth falling out.

Another time, Sima witnessed one of the prisoners who had been bitten by a scorpion and was refused medical treatment even though she was in obvious pain. Another common occurrence, Sima told us, was money for the prisoners from their relatives being stolen by soldiers. Each time the money would be collected in a tin from relatives especially if visitation rights were withdrawn which they often were on a regular basis and being emptied by the soldiers before the empty box being presented to the prisoners.

The soldiers would also spray the prisoners with cold water if they felt their spirits were too high and then spray them with tear gas. As water causes teargas to stick to the skin, this served to heighten the gas’ effects. They would also make the prisoners crouch in a line and then proceed to play “leapfrog” over them.

In the cells in winter the soldiers would bring in air conditioners and in summer they would bring in heaters as a form of torture as well as making the prisoners climb up and down stairs in their already weakened condition.

Sima was moved twice to two different underground prisons during her incarceration. Her brother is currently in an underground prison, the location of which has never been made known to her for the last 13 years. She is overjoyed to be reunited with her family however it is evident to see the trauma and scars she has had to bear. During the interview she remained relatively stable but broke down into tears on a couple of occasions. She is now trying to raise her four children and to turn her experience into something positive and recently attended the recent meeting in Shufa with Combatants for Peace.

Gaza Residents Tell of Demeaning Questioning by Shin Bet

By Amira Hass

In the most recent Israel Defense Forces raids in the Gaza Strip, during which dozens of people were detained for interrogation by the Shin Bet, the security service adopted a procedure unknown in recent years: The detainees were forced to undress in the presence of another detainee and a soldier or a member of the Shin Bet and then be interrogated while wearing a disposable, blue paper overall. This emerged in cumulative testimony from the Strip. In the West Bank, apparently, the color of the overall is white.

According to a clarification by Haaretz with the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, this procedure has been implemented in the last three months with detainees from Beit Lahia, the Al Fuhari neighborhood in Khan Yunis and twice with detainees from the agricultural town of Shuka east of Rafah, on June 9 and on August 3.

In earlier raids where a large number of Palestinians who were not suspects nor wanted men were detained, they were not stripped and usually were questioned while wearing their own clothes. But the Shin Bet said in response that “an examination by the relevant security factors indicated there has been no change in the professional instructions for the manner of examination.”

Othman Hussein, a resident of Shuka who works in the research and planning department of Palestinian Authority Chair Mahmoud Abbas’ bureau, was detained with another 83 people during an August 3 raid, along with his 16-year-old son. All of them – except for an employee of the Gaza European Hospital – were released within 24 hours.

Hussein, 44, is a writer and a poet. He was held for interrogation a year ago as well. “At the time they maintained a certain attitude of respect,” said Hussein in a phone conversation with Haaretz. “I sat in detention for 22 hours, and I was interrogated for an hour, mainly regarding my opinion of current events. They didn’t strip me and they didn’t humiliate me. “This time, their method was particularly humiliating, embarrassing and disgusting. I’m convinced it’s a method designed to humiliate and weaken us in front of the interrogator.” Hussein said that all those questioned who were taken from their homes were Fatah members like him and known as such.

The raid on Shuka, which stands on the edge of Rafah airport, began at about 1 A.M. Friday morning and ended at 5 P.M. According to Hussein, the soldiers announced on loudspeakers that all men aged 15-45 should leave their homes and gather in the neighborhood square. At the same time, the soldiers conducted searches of about 50 houses, detaining men. Four children under the age of 15 and about 20 adults over the age of 45 were also detained, Hussein said. “I didn’t plan to leave the house, but when I saw that my 16-year-old son was on the way to detention, I joined him.” Hussein said it was about 6:30 A.M.

The 84 detainees gathered gradually in the square and eventually had their hands cuffed behind their backs. It was very hot, with no shelter from the sun. But the soldiers offered bread and water, said Hussein. Around 10 A.M. one group was told to get onto a truck, and a second group was taken at 12 noon. Hussein and his son were in the first group.

“We were about 10 meters from the truck. When we approached it, the soldiers blindfolded us. When they saw that we couldn’t get onto the truck with bound hands and blindfolded, they grabbed us, one by one, and tossed us into the truck, like sheep. Except that sheep are not handcuffed and blindfolded.”

After a short ride they arrived at an army camp in the Kerem Shalom area. There they were put two at a time into a wooden hut with only three walls. A man wearing civvies told them to undress completely in front of him and passed a metal detector over their naked bodies, including their behinds, according to Hussein’s testimony.

Hussein and his son were put together in the hut. According to additional testimony, men and women soldiers were walking near the open hut all the while. Afterward, everyone was told to don an overall and put his clothes in a separate black bag, and then the detainees were handcuffed and blindfolded again.

The detainees were moved to outside the interrogation rooms, where they waited, in groups of 10 at a time. Each was interrogated separately by a Shin Bet investigator. There appeared to be only two interrogators. At the entrance to the interrogation room, handcuffs and blindfolds were removed.

Hussein said he came before the interrogator angry and upset. The interrogator did not introduce himself and asked questions “whose answers he has in the computer in any case – how old I am, who my relatives are, how old they are, etc. Then he asked me about what had happened between Hamas and Fatah. I answered him: ‘You strip me next to my son, sit me in the sun for about four hours, and then you want me to tell you my opinion of Hamas and Fatah? I don’t want to tell you.”

The investigator nevertheless tried several times to get him to say something about his political opinions, but he refused, Hussein said.

At the conclusion of the questioning, at 2 P.M. they were once again handcuffed and blindfolded. At 10 P.M. they were allowed to look for their clothes in a pile of black bags and were taken by bus to the Sufa crossing, north of Kerem Shalom. From there, in the middle of the night, in a dangerous border area, they made their way on foot several kilometers to Rafah.

The response of the Shin Bet: “As a rule, the security check is determined according to the concrete level of risk of the person under interrogation, which is decided according to the circumstances of each individual case. This examination does not usually include stripping the interrogatee. However, in exceptional cases, the examination can include stripping in view of past instances in which terrorists harmed security personnel with whom they had contact. It should be emphasized that the examination is external only, and the dignity, privacy and modesty of the interrogatees are strictly maintained.”

Israeli Soldier: “All Arab women Want to Kill Jews”

On Sunday afternoon August 19th a Palestinian woman in her early thirties from the outskirts of Hebron was detained for 1 hour before being arrested at Tel Rumeida st. in the H2 district of the West Bank’s largest city. International human rights workers immediately intervened to prevent an aggressive colonial Jewish settler female from taking photographs of the woman. Settler children had quickly started to throw stones at the woman when she attempted to visit her friend in the area adjoining the illegal settlement.

The very restrictive conditions on movement for Palestinians in this heavily militarized zone prevents them from using vehicles and obliges them to go through a series of Israeli army checkpoints. Harrassment from soldiers, border police, police and settlers is frequent though reduced by internationals presence, monitoring and intervening to help the locals who are stopped for long periods due to so-called ‘security concerns.’

One of the soldiers detaining the woman commented to an international human rights worker that “all Arab women want to kill Jews.” When it was pointed out to him that the facts on the ground are to the contrary, he replied, “just go away.” Members of the Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH), sanctioned as a neutral observation force from 6 countries – Switzerland, Turkey, Italy, Norway, Denmark, Sweden – after the 1993 Oslo accords, followed the police vehicle which had detained the woman to the Givat Havi’lot in the Patriarch’s Hill region of the city.

Despite ISM, TIPH and Red Cross members’ attempts at attaining the woman’s name and family contact number we gave not been successful due ot the uncooperative attitude of the police force.

Hebron, a city of over 160,000 people, has 7,000 Jewish fundamentalist settlers on its outskirts, while over 500 live in the Tel Rumeida area alone, protected by a host of army checkpoints, military vehicles and de facto paramilitary settlers armed with M-16 rifles

ILA leasing Arab-owned land in Jerusalem to Ateret Cohanim

By Meron Rapoport, Haaretz Correspondent

The Israel Lands Administration (ILA) is working together with the Ateret Cohanim association to wrest from Palestinian landowners control of 30 dunams (7.5 acres) of land in East Jerusalem and to transfer it to the association without a tender. Such is the claim outlined in a petition submitted two weeks ago to the High Court of Justice, and appearing in documents which Haaretz has received.

Ateret Cohanim promotes settlement of Jews in and around the Old City, and at times takes over Palestinian assets in East Jerusalem so as to “Judaize” that area.

The land in question, an olive grove called Kerem Hamufti, is in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood. From the documents received, it emerges that the ILA has signed a contract with Ateret Cohanim for “the agricultural cultivation” of the land, even though the association has no experience in such work.

The documents indicate that the contract was signed even though the land that the ILA leased apparently does not belong to it and the Interior Ministry recognizes that the Palestinian landowners “have an interest” in it. A senior source at the ILA has said the contract was signed in order “to keep the territory in Jewish hands.”

In the petition it is claimed that an authorized official at the ILA “acted to advance the interests of Ateret Cohanim,” to prevent the Palestinians who claim ownership of the land from developing it. The petitioners define the ILA action as “corrupt” and are asking the attorney general to investigate “the involvement of Ateret Cohanim in governmental decision-making.”

In March, 40 years after declaring its intentions to do so, the state formally expropriated the land, at the request of the ILA. Former finance minister Abraham Hirchson signed on the plan to expropriate the property under the rubric of “acquisition for public needs.”

In its petition to the High Court, the Palestinian landowners, the Arab Hotels Company, asks for the expropriation to be prohibited because it was done “for an extraneous, illegitimate, racist and discriminatory purpose … An illegitimate and corrupt hand has worked hand in glove with the authorities or other elements to harm the petitioner’s rights, and to disinherit the petitioner for purposes of leasing the land to Ateret Cohanim.”

Kerem Hamufti is named for its former owner, Haj Amin al-Husseini, the mufti of Jerusalem. According to Israeli and Jordanian documents, in the 1960s it was purchased by the Arab Hotels Company of East Jerusalem.

After the area was annexed to Israel after the Six-Day War, the Finance Ministry stated its intention to expropriate the land “for public purposes,” but this was never carried out and the Palestinian owners continued to cultivate it. Several times over the years an Israeli court confirmed that the company is indeed owner of the property.

About seven years ago the Palestinian owners submitted to the planning authorities a request to build a hotel, a conference center and a cultural center on the land. Architect Moshe Margalit, who drew up the plan, relates that at the time the District Planning Commission confirmed that the East Jerusalem company has ownership rights to the land. The Interior Ministry confirmed to Haaretz that the company has been allowed to continue the planning as it has been proved that it “has an interest in the land.”

Municipal blessing

From the summaries of meetings concerning the property at the Interior Ministry, it emerges that representatives of the ILA were present, but did not mention they had leased the land to Ateret Cohanim or that it belongs to the ILA.

Margalit relates that the Palestinian landowners’ plan was presented “to the most senior people at the Jerusalem Municipality” and received their blessing. The petition also states that the mayor of Jerusalem at the time, Ehud Olmert, and his deputy, Yehuda Pollack, the chairman of the Local Planning and Building Committee, supported it.

However, at a certain stage, relates Margalit, it seemed that Ateret Cohanim also submitted a plan for this parcel of land: Two years beforehand, the ILA had granted permission to Irving Moskowitz, the American Jewish millionaire who supports Ateret Cohanim, to plan a neighborhood on Kerem Hamufti. A person close to the association aims to build 250 housing units there, and pressured ministers in former prime minister Ariel Sharon’s first government to approve it.

In June, 2000, immediately after the plan by Moskowitz and Ateret Cohanim was revealed, the landowners’ attorneys applied to Jerusalem’s Local Planning and Building Committee with a request to dismiss the scheme because “those who submitted it are not the owners of the land.”

The committee told the attorneys that the plan had been “shelved.”

A few months ago the Arab Hotels Company received notice from the Magistrates Court, allowing it to evict a Palestinian who was squatting on the land. However, on the day of the eviction, the Amidar company, on behalf of the ILA, filed a demand to stop it.

While the ILA and Amidar acknowledge this was indeed a matter of a squatter, a senior source at the ILA has told Haaretz that the Palestinian “was working with Ateret Cohanim.” The source explains his presence was necessary “to prevent theft of land by Palestinians.”

The current petition says the state owns about 20 percent of Kerem Hamufti under the Absentee Property Law, as it belonged to Al-Husseini, who collaborated with the Nazis during World War II. However, the Palestinian landowners’ lawyers insist that the law does not apply to the property because it was purchased from the Al-Husseini family before Israeli rule began in East Jerusalem in 1967.

Attorney Danny Kramer, the representative of the official guardian of absentee property, is also a signatory to the petition, which states that the guardian has no connection to the land, and also that the ILA has been leasing it to Ateret Cohanim “for some years now.”

In its petition, the Arab Hotels Company argues that the low lease being paid by Ateret Cohanim is proof that this is an “artificial contract.” The association is paying NIS 42.5 per dunam (which comes to NIS 1,278 for the entire parcel of land), although it is in a prestigious location.

The ILA’s official response to Haaretz states that the contract with the Jewish association was signed “more than five years ago”; a senior ILA source says the contract was signed “at the beginning of the 1990s.”

At the ILA they were not able to explain how the entire plot of land was leased to Ateret Cohanim, despite the fact that even the ILA itself says the state owns only 20 percent of it. The ILA explains the fact that they dealt with the association without a tender by saying “it was the only applicant.” Concerning Ateret Cohanim’s lack of experience in agriculture, the ILA says: “It is not stipulated anywhere that the minimal condition for submitting an application for cultivation is prior experience.”

Based on past High Court of Justice rulings saying that if the state does not implement an expropriation order for many years, it’s possible to annul it, the Palestinian landowners are asking the court to issue a show cause order, requiring the state to explain why it should not prohibit the expropriation in this case.

Sarra Residents Fight Settlements Through Non-Violent Roadblock Removal

Sarra, Nablus Region
08/20/07

Today at 8:30 in the morning, 16 ISM human rights workers joined over a hundred local Palestinian villagers and activists in an attempt to remove a roadblock. Normally a journey from Sarra to Nablus would take five minutes, but since five years ago a roadblock has been placed, effectively making it an Israeli only road for the military and settlers. This prevents villagers from using this road, extending the
journey to at least half an hour. There are also 500 dunums of villagers’ land that they are prevented from accessing due to the roadblock. Local villagers contacted members of ISM to join them in removing the roadblock.

The people marched down to the roadblock in high spirits. Once there, villagers used tractors and ropes to remove the cement blocks from the road. The strategy was not only this, however. In the past the roadblock had been removed, but afterwards the army entered the village, shot out the tires of the tractors, and arrested the tractor driver. The village was looking for an action in which
everyone took part, and in which everyone could share the responsibility for fighting against oppression. The idea was that with
such a large group of people, committed people, showing with their presence and their action that they would not ignore what was being done to them, they would be better able to negotiate with the local DCO.

The DCO then came, two men in a white jeep. The people from the village, including the mayor, talked to them about this roadblock. The DCO of course said they could take no action then and there but they would talk amongst themselves and see if another solution could be found. Afterwards the activists met in a local man’s house and decided the day’s action was a success. They had achieved what the villagers
had wanted, removed cement blocks from their road and helped them with their negotiations, all without violence. This did not prove to be the end of the day’s events.

Afterwards media came, and it was decided to remove another cement block still in the road to widen the path for cars. This time soldiers showed up in two vehicles and began provoking the people gathered there. An army jeep revved his engine and drove forward almost inside a group of people. Still there was no violence from the Palestinians, and people seemed more concerned with removing the block in spite of the provocations. Then the soldiers began throwing sound bombs. At this, the affront could not be contained by some, and local children began throwing stones. More soldiers came and began shooting tear gas into crowds, firing live ammunition into the air. Some
internationals went back with the fleeing villagers, while some stayed to document what was happening, and to witness in the event that the army tried to invade the village. The soldiers laughed into the cameras of the press after shooting live ammunition into the air.

The army kept coming, followed soon by the border police. The international activists went back to a local man’s house to find out what should be done next. Some then followed a group of Palestinians who returned to the roadblock, in the face of the violent aggression from the soldiers, in order to try to de-escalate the situation in a non-violent way. People held their hands up in the air, in order to show that they did not intend to throw rocks, and tried to speak to the border police who had arrived. They then spoke together, the local mayor telling how the rock throwing only began after the provocation from the soldiers. Bravely, after hearing live bullets shot into the air, the
villagers themselves brought the situation to an end. The army said they would back down if the villagers did, and the villagers said they didn’t want the violence in the first place.

Again the internationals met together, this time in a local boy’s school. It was a different meeting from before, with different things to speak about, but once again, due to the dedication of the Palestinians present, the day’s events were thought to be successful.

The villagers are waiting for a decision from the DCO about the fate of the roadblock preventing them from accessing their land and roads. But they do not trust the israeli army to work for their benefit. They believe there is a good chance that this roadblock will soon be replaced, and the DCO will decide it will be there to stay. They have called on international volunteers to come in this case, Friday, August 24th, around 1:00pm after the Friday prayer to protest the continuing presence of the roadblock, and they are ready to make weekly
demonstrations in the village until the roadblock is removed.