It was so different this time around.
It had gotten much worse.
There was not one occupation bulldozer but four; the whole hilltop to the East of the Palestinian village of Kufr ad-Dik (Salfit governorate) had been flattened, huge rocks stacked to the side to make way for a new illegal Israeli colony intended to fill the gap between the illegal colony of Ariel and others in the area.
Only a week ago the village achieved a small yet meaningful victory, when an occupation bulldozer was made leave the hilltop without raping the land. However, it came back three days later accompanied by some 40 soldiers to protect the large number of illegal Israeli colonists who started drilling the land they do not own. Villagers estimate at least 600 dunam (600,000 sq m) of land is currently being stolen, in addition to the thousands already confiscated for Israeli settlement expansion.
At least 400 Palestinians from the neighbouring villages of Biddiya, Sarta, Bruqin, and Kufr ad-Dik itself gathered this morning to pray on their land in protest of Israel’s colonialist project of land theft. The villagers outnumbered the Israeli soldiers present by at least 10:1, yet it was the heavily armed military who attacked unarmed civilians with sound grenades and tear gas canisters. One person was hit in the stomach with a tear gas canister and had to be taken away for medical assistance; seven people were treated for tear gas inhalation.
However, the shebab [youth] claimed their own symbolic victories today. They staged sit-ins next to the machinery that razed their land and put up the Palestinian flag on top of one drilling vehicle; they managed to take off one Israeli flag and get rid of it; and, working quietly behind the soldiers who were busy aiming their rifles at children, they tore down a colonist tent where land thieves gather for their break with a Coca-Cola.
Today’s demonstration in Kufr ad-Dik will probably not change the course of events in the larger Israeli colonial project; yet by resisting it, the Palestinians reinforced their dignity, once again.
Photo by International Women’s Peace ServicePhoto by International Women’s Peace ServiceImprovised field hospital ward in which the injured were treated. Illegal Israeli colony of Bruchin in the background (photo by International Women’s Peace Service).Israeli army attacking unarmed civilians with sound grenades and tear gas (photo by International Women’s Peace Service).
Over seven families in Deir Istiya were rousted from their beds in the early morning today, some to the sounds of banging on their doors, others to fully armed soldiers in their bedrooms. Approximately 200 soldiers entered the village, closing off the main road and conducting raids until from 1:30 till 4:00am. The soldiers entered in various homes, in groups numbering from nine to over fifty, all heavily armed. These families believe that their houses were randomly selected for the raids, which they suspect serve a twofold purpose.
The primary reason for these raids, in the estimation of the villagers, was to train new soldiers; the military is well known for raiding houses, or closing checkpoints as training exercises. The families who were attacked thought the mannerisms of the soldiers, as well as the amount of soldiers present were evidence that this was not a serious raid. They were also suspicious since there were no arrests, meaning that the military did not have specific victims in mind.
Additionally, the raids are a form of psychological warfare, reminding the Palestinians that they are never safe, even in their own homes. House raids are a traumatic event for young children in particular, and often serve as a lifelong reminder of the power of the Israeli military.
All of the raids followed a similar approach: soldiers first surrounded the house in question, often coming over walls or onto the roof by ladders, before banging on the doors, and telling the residents to open up. If the family refused, the soldiers would break down the door. Often, the army brings dogs to intimidate the families. Once the soldiers were inside, the army corralled the family into one room, usually a bathroom or living room. If children, or even infants, were asleep in the house, the army insisted on waking them up and moving them into a different room – at this point the soldiers confiscated all personal belongings, including cell phones and medication, and took the IDs of the family members. In several of the homes in Deir Istiya, children were locked in a separate room from their parents for the duration of the raids, which varied from half an hour to two hours in length. At this point the soldiers were at liberty to search the house, or question family members individually. Often they gave the excuse that they were looking for guns and ammunition – emptying out cupboards, refrigerators, women’s purses and turning over furniture in their ‘search’. No such weapons were found; however, in one house, the soldiers made a point of warning the family that their carpentry saw could be used as a fatal weapon.
The formula varied slightly for one family, where two self-identified Shabaak [Israeli secret service] agents, who called themselves Sharif and Afiq, showed up looking for a young man, who they said had been causing problems for the military. When the father was asked to bring his son forward, the man began to laugh; he would call his son, but surely he was not a threat – the boy is only 10 years old. Unfortunately, this was the son the agents were looking for, and they questioned the boy for several minutes, accusing him of throwing stones at military vehicles – a charge which the child denies. While they did not arrest him, the Shabaak threatened the family with serious repercussions if they continued to suspect their son of throwing stones.
Around the corner, another drama was unfolding. A middle-aged woman had confronted the soldiers who broke the lock of her door with a simple request: her two-week-old grandchild was asleep upstairs, and she wanted the military to conduct its business as quietly as possible. The soldiers refused, not only yelling at the woman, but attempting to lock her in the bathroom as punishment for her intervention. When she resisted the attempt to lock her up, one soldier hit her with the butt of his gun. Eventually, the soldiers allowed her to go back upstairs, and detained her with her daughter, daughter-in-law, and the infant; however as soon as she reached the second floor the woman fainted. She was unconscious for the next two hours, as 20-30 soldiers ransacked her home. Neighbors were eventually able to call an ambulance, which arrived shortly, blocking the narrow road by the house, and, consequently, the military’s exit route. The soldiers were on their way out as the medics were carrying the unconscious woman, and were not happy about the delay. Neighbors reported that soldiers threatened to hit the ambulance with their jeep, or to blow it up if it did not move immediately. Eventually the medics were able to move their ambulance to an adjacent property, and the army left. The woman was treated at a hospital in Salfit, and returned home today to recover.
Other families faced an unique difficulty from the raids: not being able to go to work. Many men from the village of Deir Istiya can only find work across the Green Line, meaning that they have to cross a check point every morning – a process that takes hours. Some workers leave home as early as 2 in the morning, to be able to cross the checkpoint by 7am. For the men who were detained by the army until 4am, the delay could mean losing out on a day’s worth of work.
The families who were attacked have expressed mixed feelings: as in any Palestinian village, the raids are nothing new, and many are happy that nobody was arrested or seriously injured. Already, furniture has been rearranged, clothes put away, and broken glass swept up and thrown out. The most obvious signs of the raids have already been dealt with. However parents report that their children couldn’t sleep the rest of the night, and were crying for hours. One young girl was terrified when she heard her name spoken aloud – she was afraid that the soldiers might identify her, and use this as a basis for arrest. Some worried that their son’s or daughter’s first memory would be that of being pulled out of bed in the middle of the night.
One man reported that the street in front of his house last night looked ‘like a war zone’, to which his friend responded: ‘Yes, but this is normal.’
29th May 2014 | Operation Dove | At-Tuwani, Occupied Palestine
Photo by Operation Dove
On May 27th, four Palestinian 12-14 years old girls from the South Hebron hills villages of Tuba and Maghayir Al Abeed were arrested by the Israeli police on the charge of theft of cherries in a field in which Israeli settlers from Ma’on settlement are growing several cherry trees.
This grove is situated close to the place in which the children usually wait for an Israeli military escort, in order to go home. The escort was established in 2004 by the Children’s Rights Committee of the Knesset because of the ongoing attacks against the Palestinian children (coming from the nearby villages of Tuba and Maghayir Al Abeed to the school of At Tuwani) from Havat Ma’on and Ma’on settlers.
At 11.00 am, while the children were walking accompanied by the Israeli military, a car with a few settlers inside stopped in the middle of the street, avoiding the possibility for the children to continue the path. Israeli settlers stated that some children had stolen cherries from the grove.
So, the Israeli soldiers forced the children to sit down on the road under a hot sun without any access to water, preventing them from going home.
The Palestinian children asked the Israeli soldiers to show some evidence supporting the accusation that the settlers madeagainst them, they wanted to see videos and photos supporting, but the Israeli army didn’t give them any information. Some minutes later, also the Ma’on security coordinator arrived where the children were stopped, accusing them of theft, even though he wasn’t present at the moment the supposed event occurred.
At 11:50 am the Israeli Police arrived. The police officer asked one settler if he recognized the children that he saw in the cherry trees fields. The settlers identified four young girls. The girls were then forced to go in the Israeli police car.
The other students were accompanied along the path by the Israeli army.
The four young girls were detained in the police car for one hour. Then the girls were taken to the Israeli Police station of Kiryat Arba and brought for interrogation, without their parents being present.
According to +972 magazine the lawyer who is representing the minors spoke with the police on the phone and she was told that two girls were released once their parents were contacted (one is 12 years old, the other seems to have speech disabilities). The two others were being held for questioning and released later. According to Haggai Matar, “it would be illegal for the police to question them without the presence of their parents”.
At 4:00 pm the Israeli police sent them to the Palestinian police in Hebron, that didn’t want to release them until their family identified them. So, at around 7:00 pm, the girls were released.
Operation Dove has maintained an international presence in At-Tuwani and the South Hebron Hills since 2004.
[Note: According to the Fourth Geneva Convention, the Hague Regulations, the International Court of Justice, and several United Nations resolutions, all Israeli settlements and outposts in the Occupied Palestinian Territories are illegal. Most settlement outposts, including Havat Ma’on (Hill 833), are considered illegal also under Israeli law.]
Since 1967, Israel has detained around 20% of the Palestinian population and approximately 40% of Palestinian males. The majority of those arrested are transferred into Israel, where they are held and if charged will most likely serve their sentence. Although this is a clear violation of Article 76 in the Geneva Convention which states “all protected persons accused of an offense must be detained within the occupied country and if they are sentenced, they have to serve the sentence within it” Israel continues to transfer prisoners to its territory. As of April, 2014 approximately 5,021 Palestinians were being held by Israel. Of the aforementioned number, 22 Palestinian women are being held in Israeli jails.
Palestinian prisoners are subject to various levels of both physical as well as psychological torture. These tactics begin at the moment of the arrest and are carried out during the investigation where they continue until even after the prisoner is charged. Additionally, Palestinian women are subject to sexual harassment by Israeli jail guards as well as soldiers and police officers during their detention time. You can read more about Palestinian women held in Israeli jails here.
On April 11th, I was arrested in the village of Nabi Saleh and wrongfully charged with stone throwing as well as assaulting a soldier. The testimony of a 20 or so year old soldier was enough to push for indictment and send me to Hasharon jail held in Israel.
The below are excerpts from my jail journal diaries that I have written throughout my stay in Hasharon. These journals are written by me, but this is hardly about me. It’s about the harsh reality and the macabre these women have to face. This is a fraction of a fraction of the ugliness some of these women have endured for years, one of them for 11 years.
If one word describes these women, it’s endurance.
Entry one:
“After 12 hours from bus to bus, from one dark cold box, to an even
darker and colder box I was finally brought to Hasharon. I was placed
in room number 1 with five other women. I was dirty, afraid, tired,
hungry and distraught. I find an empty top bunk bed with Fulla
(barbie) bed covers and five sleeping women. At that moment, I was
greeted with a half awake Muna Qaadan.
I wanted nothing more than to climb into the bed, lay in the fetal
position and sleep. I wanted nothing more than to be a child again.
But the reality we live in wouldn’t allow it.
On the top bunk there were stickers of Tweetie, Mushroom houses,
Cinderella and other children cartoons. The reality is that they’re
probably there because they’re some of the few things Israeli forces
will allow inside the jail cell; In my head however, I couldn’t help
but think of them as stickers that resemble these women’s hijacked
innocence. Their hijacked childhood. So they make up for it, by
putting little toys and cartoon stickers around.
My first night, I pretended Fulla’s hand printed on the bed sheets was
mama’s hand extended from her bed in Ramallah to my bunk in Hasharon.
My first night, I cried. I hadn’t cried in ages and on April 12th at
4:00 am I finally cried.”
Shireen Issawi, sister of former hunger striker Samer Issawi was transferred from Maskubbiyeh in Jerusalem where she was in solitary to Hasharon earlier in April. Issawi suffers from back pain due to the awkward positions she was placed in whilst under interrogation and when being transferred from one jail to the other.
Shireen is being held unjustly in Israeli jails as she states that “Israel is targetting any lawyers that are active in the case of Palestinian prisoners especially those that are in contact with the families of prisoners.” Despite the pressure and harassment Issawi underwent, in jail she always held a smile and made jokes at almost everything. At one point, jokingly, Lena Jerboni jests and asks “why are you always talking, Shireen?”
“I was in solitary, I have to workout my tongue again! Let me laugh!”
Shireen is joy.
Shireen Issawi
Entry two:
‘Jail (Hasharon), is unpleasant, the situation, environment, treatment,
commodities, the are all organized around psychologically ruining the
individuals involved.The game of psychological manipulation begins way
before you enter the jail cell. It begins with the start of
colonialism.
But here, it’s different. It’s more tangible, less abstract and
definitely harsher. The buses (read 1×2 boxes) they put you in are
filled with trash, pests, and of course you’re cuffed by the feet and
hands. Even if one isn’t cuffed you still can’t move. All you hear
outside is Hebrew, yelling, police singing obnoxiously and of course
the occasional banging on your door.
The most humiliating part was the occasional “check up” where
different officers open the hole in the door for a few seconds, close
it, I hear laughter and then another does the same. It’s as though I’m
the latest specimen in their experiment with lives.
How are we so quiet with this not even in our backyard, but right
here, in our front yard?
Israel’s idea of democracy is interchangeable with the abuse of the “other.”
Lena Jerboni is currently the longest serving Palestinian female prisoner. She was sentenced to 17 years and has served 11. In jail, Lena is considered the dean of the prisoners. All of our affairs went through her first. Despite her young age, she acted as an older sister to all of us. Some prisoners, although older than her call her Khalto.
As I craved a cigarette and asked for one. Lena turns her head towards me and firmly says “no. We don’t have slaves here.”
Lena is one of the strongest women I met and the most fragile. Jail has become everything she knows. At one point during my incarceration we had a conversation in which myself and the other girls were trying to explain the style of skinny jeans and what they were.
We laughed. We laughed extremely hard. However, inside our souls wept. Wept for the reality of existing but not living, and we wept out of fear of jail becoming the only reality we knew.
Lena is wisdom.
Lena Jerboni
Entry three:
‘It’s day 5 of me being in prison. Half of the time I spent from one
bus (box) to the next. This strategy is designed to break you. To make
you dread going to court and to crave stability, even if it comes in
the form of an unjust jail.
It’s day 5 and I’m already accustomed to the cockroaches. They’ve
become the reminder of outside interaction. It’s only day 5 and I’ve
become so indifferent. So numb.
I know I did nothing wrong so let them do what they want. I’ve read
too many books, I know better, I know the conviction rate is 99.7% for
Palestinians, innocent or not. And we’re all innocent.
The court room in Ofer consists of a trailer and in it some chairs and
a bench. Military court consists of a judge that has already decided
you’re guilty and the only thing being negated is your punishment.
Saying it’s absurd is the understatement of the century.
Ironically, whenever I’m being moved from one bus to another one of
the police has to say “Israel is the only democracy in the world.”
well, at least they’ve upgraded from “the only democracy in the Middle
East.”‘
Palestinian prisoner Intisar Sayyad has been in Israeli jails for 2 and a half years and is scheduled to be released June 9th 2014. She spoke to me about the “bosta” which are are cells hidden inside buses that prisoners are transferred in. Israel uses these to break the prisoners and make them wish to be charged with anything at all, simply so that the dreadful journey will end.
Instisar recalls her trips in the bosta “at one point I begged my lawyer to have them charge me just so I don’t have to endure those humiliating and painful trips.”
Intisar had the warmest heart and kept reiterating her nostalgia for her kids and their hugs. She kept comparing me to her 19 year old son, saying “You’re almost as old as my son, I haven’t seen him in a long while, but you remind me of my son.”
My last night there at 3:00 am as I was being taken from Hasharon back to Ofer for my third trial in one week, a half awake Intisar looks at me, takes a gray sweater from her clothes and gives it to me. She has known me for a few days and the kindness she has showed me measures to that of an eternity. She says, “take this habibti, it’s going to be a cold one.”
Regardless of how little they have, the prisoners always managed to share everything. When one appears to be in pain another consoles and a third ensures that the room is sanitary and clean. Their togetherness is outstanding.
Intisar is warmth.
Intisar Sayyad
Entry four:
‘Jail, like colonisation is ugly. The girls here have developed such an
intense sense of humor that helps them cope with the shit around them.
We have glorified them for so long, like we do with most people coping
with their misery. We drape the ugliness and we should stop.
They are not superheroes. I see the hurt, their pain, the nostalgia,
the longing. Their hears are broken, their souls are jaded and that’s
okay to feel. We need to acknowledge the negatives rather than hide
them with a facade.
The girls are needle point organized, I think however that this ideal
is adopted throughout their time here to gain a sense of control on
what seems to be an uncontrollable situation..
Time passes by so slowly here, eternity’s definition should be Hasharon.
I tried to make games for the girls, even to get them to meditate or
try and change up the mood a little. It worked, for about 5 minutes
and then I realized, horrible things are meant to be horrible. There
is no bright side to unjust incarceration.’
Alaa Abu Zaytoon just 21 years old has served a year and 3 months since her arrest. She was sentenced to two years.
The entire time Abu Zaytoon kept recounting the time she has left of her sentence. Her dream is to have a baby girl and name her Nagham “so she can be my music” she used to say.
Alaa, had the patience to sit down with my stiff hands and teach me how to craft jewelery and to do my laundry with the supplies we were allowed.
She had such a whimsical voice and was constantly making fun of everyone.
Alaa is patience.
Alaa Abu Zaytoon
Entry 5:
‘I recall when I saw my lawyer after a weekend in jail I felt safe
again, and then he looked at me and said they’re looking for
indictment. I cried and I remember apologizing to my lawyer for
crying. Then I saw friends and family in the court and I wanted
nothing more than to cry in their arms.
I felt weak.
Weak and guilty.
Guilty, because I am showing my weak side out and publicly. We have an
indoctrinated dogma that we should always be strong. Never weak.
That’s what’s fucking us up. It’s okay to be weak, long as you don’t
allow it to control you and stop you from doing what you can. But it’s
okay to be weak and to acknowledge it.
We are not invincible superhumans and the world needs to fathom that.
Enough with the romanticism. Being here gave me the greatest reality
check of all time. Sharing a 4×3 room with Intisar, Muna, Lina, Alaa,
and of course Shireen put things into perspective.
In a few hours I’ll begin the box journey to Ofer again. Hopefully
it’s the last time and the final trip I have to make.
I hope to never see these women again, unless it’s when they’re free.’
Muna Qaadan, aged 42 with the spirit of a 20 year old was the first prisoner that I met. She’s from Jenin and her detention has been extended for the 14th time by Israeli forces. Muna got engaged in jail and looks forward to being free and married.
She was the one that always gently caresses our hair, or sternly commands us when things need to be done. She was commanding but gentle.
Muna is longing.
Muna Qaadan
These are the women I had the honor of meeting, and this is a fraction of their stories. Israel has indiscriminately tortured all women in Israeli jails at one point of their incarceration and continues to perform violent acts every now and then to exert their power.
It is those that seem least powerful that possess the most strength, and the powerful are the cowards.
“What do you want from me?” a 70-year-old lawyer and professor of economics asked the Israeli military when they arrested him last year. “You are very dangerous,” was the explanation. Recalling his reply, the man laughs, his kind face lighting up: “I am dangerous to one of the most powerful armies in the world?! I am a danger to the only nuclear power in the Middle East?! I only have my pen, my notebook, and my mind.”
Exactly.
Following his arrest, the professor spent 6 months in Israeli administrative detention, an illegal practice of indefinite incarceration without any legal process, no charges let alone trial, and under ‘secret evidence’ that is never revealed to the prisoner nor their lawyer, and may or may not exist. As of 1 March 2014, Israel was holding 183 Palestinians under administrative detention.
On Thursday 24 April this year over 100 Palestinian political detainees went on an open-end hunger strike demanding the end of administrative detention. That was four weeks ago today (21 May); more prisoners have joined the strike along the way, bringing the total number to over 140; and even more are expected to follow.
“No-one wants to be hungry,” says Raed Amer, Nablus chairperson of the Palestinian Prisoners Society, an organization that supports prisoners and their families. But what other methods do people held incommunicado in occupation dungeons have, to fight for their rights and their dignity?
In an attempt to break the hunger strike, the Israeli Prison Service (IPS) has tried a diversity of tactics except for one: meeting the strikers’ demands. The repressive measures include both physical and psychological violence and abuse: isolation; severe beatings (in some cases prisoners lost consciousness for several hours, during which no medical assistance was allowed); denial of water and salt which are essential for human survival; denial of lawyer and family visits; violent raids and searches during which prisoners are made wait in an overcrowded cage while handcuffed; mass transfers from one prison to another, designed to disrupt and isolate; and dehumanizing treatment and conditions – e.g. confiscation of all personal belongings, denial of basic hygiene products and change of underwear, filthy toilet facilities, and cells of a size that violates IPS’s own regulations.
Even IPS medical staff are collaborating with these increasingly repressive actions against the hunger strikers. The Palestinian Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, Addameer, reported recently that after Mahmoud Shabaneh fainted as a result of his hunger strike, prison staff waited for 3 hours until they finally transferred him to the prison clinic. Doctors there then tried to offer him food as a provocation, which is in direct violation of the World Medical Association’s Malta Declaration on Hunger Strikers, of which Israel is a signatory. The Malta Declaration specifically states that “physicians must try to prevent coercion or maltreatment of detainees and must protest if it occurs“.
Additionally, the Israeli Knesset (parliament) is currently debating a bill that would legalize force-feeding, a practice the World Medical Association considers “never ethically acceptable“. Force-feeding in Israeli dungeons already has a tragic precedent: in the early 1980s, after a lengthy hunger strike in Nafha prison, Ali Ja’fari and Rasem Halawi died after doctors inserted the tubes in the wrong place.
Nablus protest in solidarity with the hunger strikers. Currently 24 of the hunger strikers are from Nablus (photo by IWPS).
The current hunger strike is yet another attempt of Palestinian political prisoners to bring Themis to the place she has been absent for so long. In 2012, after a mass hunger strike that started on 17 April, Palestinian Prisoners Day, and involved around 2,000 prisoners, an agreement was signed between IPS and the Higher Committee for Prisoners in which Israel promised to limit its use of the illegal practice of administrative detention to exceptional circumstances. Two years later, administrative detention is still systematic. Fake promises?
Exactly.
Hunger strikes have played an important role in the struggle of Palestinians held prisoner by Israel. “Every achievement in prisons for simple, daily things such as sanitation, bed, or radio have been reached through hunger strikes,” says Saed Abu-Hijleh, an activist, poet, and lecturer at An-Najah National University in Nablus. During the Oslo Accords of the 1990s, Abu-Hijleh says, Palestinian people were expecting all political prisoners to be released from Israeli jails, since a ‘peace treaty’ was being signed between Israel and the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization). However, such hopes never materialized and Palestinian prisoners became a bargaining chip in political negotiations – the so-called “peace process” – ever since.
Moreover, Jawad Boulus, chief lawyer of the Palestinian Prisoners Society, said in an interview with IWPS that the Israeli state is becoming more and more repressive: it places Palestinians in administrative detention simply because they resist the Israeli occupation. Some people have been held in prison without charges for 10-12 years; the list of administrative detainees includes highly educated people – doctors, lawyers, journalists, as well as political and community leaders. Boulus added that two administrative detainees started their hunger strike earlier and have now spent more than 80 days without food; the Israeli military court system rejected their appeal and ordered them to serve additional time.
According to Boulus, one of the most important achievements of Palestinian prisoners is that they’ve developed a prisoners movement with a code of conduct and a moral value system. “Officers and guards can see how detainees are engaged in a human struggle against injustice,” he says. Whether they choose to accept what they see or continue being complicit in the suppression of this struggle for human rights and dignity is another issue.
The current Palestinian hunger strike is to hit Day 30 on Friday 23 May. After 14 days on hunger strike, catabolysis – a biological process during which the body starts to break down muscle tissue and fat for survival – occurs. Physical implications are increasingly serious: people start having difficulty standing up and suffer from severe dizziness, weakness, loss of coordination, and shivers. After 3-4 weeks on hunger strike, or when more than 18% of body weight is lost, there is a risk of medical complications becoming permanent; among them – loss of hearing and vision, indifference to surroundings, and incoherence. This is when the body, having no other source of energy, starts consuming itself: first fat, then muscles, and finally vital organs.
It is generally considered that a healthy person who consumes water during their hunger strike would have an absolute limit of 60 days. However, many of the Palestinian ‘administrative detainees’ who entered the hunger strike were already in ill-health, due to Israel’s refusal to provide them with proper treatment while in prison.
What thoughts run in the mind of a person on hunger strike? “You don’t think about your body – rather, you think about your family, your loved ones, and what you can do for them,” says Amer from the Nablus branch of the Palestinian Prisoners Society, who himself went on a 20-day-long hunger strike during his time in Israeli occupation prison in the pre-Oslo period.
As if to echo his words, Boulous quotes from a poem: “I am ready to give half my life to somebody who can make a crying child laugh…” and adds that “every Palestinian prisoner case is a big issue”. Ending the occupation is a big issue. Helping families to visit their loved ones in prison is a big issue. National morality and resistance is a big issue. How to pass Qalandiya checkpoint without loss of dignity is a big issue. Israel’s crimes against human rights are a big issue. The fact that Israel tortures prisoners is a big issue.
“Prisoners on hunger strike cannot go back now,” Abu-Hijleh says. “It’s ‘Either I go home, or I go in a plastic bag’.”
“We don’t have an alternative. We cannot raise the white flag,” Amer adds.
Exactly.
“I am an administrative detainee…” – activists reading out stories of Palestinians held prisoners by Israel (photo by IWPS).
LATEST NEWS:
– The IPS has so far refused to take the hunger strike seriously and prefers to turn “a blind eye and a deaf ear” on the prisoners’ rightful, legal, and legitimate demands. Palestinian Minister of Detainee Affairs, Issa Qaraqe, said in a statement that “a state of alert is taking place inside of Israeli jails in anticipation of projected deaths among Palestinian hunger strikers. Instructions handed to all prisons and hospitals, where Palestinian hunger strikers are held, called for the complete shutdown of the strikers’ cells, including all gates and windows, and denial of any access out of or into cells, even for urgent medical check-ups, under any spur-of-the-moment pretext.”
– Waad Association for Detainees and Ex-Detainees warned of the serious deterioration of Palestinian administrative detainees’ health conditions after more than 3 weeks on hunger strike. Many of the striking prisoners are sick detainees denied medical treatment.
Tell the Israeli authorities and IPS in particular what you think of their crimes against Palestinian political prisoners. IPS general contact email is ips@mail.gov.il, telephone number +972 (0)89776666. Can also be contacted through the website.
