Category: Reports

Randa Adnan: The world must intervene to save my husband

by Joe Catron

13 February 2012 | Mondoweiss

Randa and Khader Adnan's daughter Ma'ali, age four

As Khader Adnan entered his 59th day on hunger strike, his wife Randa appealed for the international community to end his isolation and save his life.

“My husband is dying inside an Israeli jail. The world should make sure I am able to see him,” she said. “And it should pressure the Israeli government to release him before it’s too late.”

Khader, a 33-year-old baker, graduate Birzeit University economics student, and Islamic Jihad Movement activist, was detained in a 3:30 am raid on his home in Arraba, Jenin on December 17. Israel’s forces have arrested him eight times, and he has spent over six years in its prisons, mostly under administrative detention orders. He has been unable to complete his studies because of these repeated imprisonments.

He began a hunger strike the same day to protest Israel’s administrative detention policy and the brutality of his captors, and to demand his freedom. Israeli interrogators responded by continuing the beatings that began during his arrest, tying him into painful positions for hours, ripping hair from his beard, smearing dirt onto his face, throwing him into a “punishment cell” with bright lights and loud noises intended to prevent sleep, and denying him treatment for his gastric illness, the disc problems in his back, and the injuries their fellow soldiers had inflicted on him. After they graphically insulted members of his family, including his two young daughters and elderly mother – a form of psychological torture used by Israeli troops to extract information from Palestinian suspects – he launched a speech strike, refusing to talk with them as well.

On January 8, an Israeli military court sentenced Khader to administrative detention until May 8. Israel holds 310 Palestinians under this extrajudicial measure, which allows its military to detain prisoners indefinitely without presenting accusations or evidence against them. Like other Palestinian prisoners, administrative detainees have minimal access to their families, whom Israel denies basic information about their relatives’ cases and conditions.

“I didn’t know what had happened to him until December 30, when the court held his first hearing,” Randa said. “My security application was rejected, so the prisons administration wouldn’t allow me to see him until a human rights organization coordinated our family’s first visit to him in the hospital last Tuesday. They refused to allow us to stay with him for more than 15 minutes.”

By then, she said, her husband could barely move to greet her.  His shrunken, ulcerated body seemed like a shell, with its life already gone. She was shocked, and her daughters Ma’ali (four years old) and Bissan (one and a half) frightened, by the sight of his long nails and his beard and hair, which were overgrown, disheveled, and falling out in clumps. He told her that his captors had prevented him from bathing, grooming, or changing his clothes since his arrest, 52 days earlier.

“Israel has treated my husband without any humanity or compassion for his deteriorating health,” Randa said. “It’s obviously very bad, yet they’re not only preventing him from receiving any treatment, but also attacking his basic dignity as a human being.”

A letter from Khader’s cell in the Ramleh prison hospital Saturday seemed resigned to his likely fate. “The only thing I can do is offer my soul to God as I believe righteousness and justice will eventually triumph over tyranny and oppression,” he wrote. “I hereby assert that I am confronting the occupiers not for my own sake as an individual, but for the sake of thousands of prisoners who are being deprived of their simplest human rights while the world and international community look on.” On Monday, a military court rejected his appeal and approved his administrative detention.

Yet Randa seemed to hold onto a glimmer of hope, for her husband’s life and for the world.  “Israel denied Khader any fairness or decency,” she said. “But maybe the rest of humanity will show more mercy.”

Joe Catron is an international solidarity activist and Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) organizer in Gaza, Palestine. He blogs and tweets.

“It’s Hevron. It’s very dangerous” warn occupation forces in Al Buwayra

by Pascaline

12 February 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

On Sunday 12 February, about 200 settlers, mainly youth, gathered at the bottom of Assima settlement in Al Buwayra to cultivate and steal Palestinian land with accompaniment by the Israeli military.

They were carrying Israeli flags and posters. The military opened a gate leading these illegal and typically violent settlers onto Palestinian land and marched them to Hilltop 25. They remained there for a while and then moved to the other side of Road 60 leading to the illegal settlement of Kiryat Arba and planted trees.

The Israeli Occupation Forces and police were faciltating the planting, and they let the settlers play music loudly from a car equipped with amplifiers to disturb the peace while making their presence a loud infringement on Palestinian land.

As ISM and Ecumenical Accompaniment Program in Palestine and Israel members walked up to visit Palestinian families, they were stopped by Israeli police, who checked IDs. When they were asked why they were checking their passports, the answer police answered that, “This is not Israel, it’s Hevron. It’s very dangerous.”

The Palestinians families told internationals that the illegal settlers had thrown stones at the house and broken a window. The settlers left shortly after the internationals got there, but were heard saying they would come back the following day.

The land where they planted trees is meant to be used to build houses for the children of the Palestinian families.

Pascaline is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).

Meitar Checkpoint: Women demand an end to strip-searching by Israeli military and prison administration

12 February 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

A demonstration was held Sunday, February 12th at the Meitar checkpoint north of Beer Sheba in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners in the Naqab (Negev) region as well as their family members who must pass through this checkpoint to visit them. The demonstration was organised by the Al-Khalil (Hebron) chapter of the Palestinian Prisoners Society and was attended by affected families, along with Palestinian and International supporters.

Solidarity for prisoners at Meitar Checkpoint - Click here for more images

This morning at 9:30 AM a group of about 100 demonstrators arrived at Meitar carrying banners, flags and pictures of loved ones held in Israeli prisons. The protesters made speeches and chanted slogans calling for freedom for political prisoners and for Prisoner of War and political recognition from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which is charged with upholding International Human Rights Law in times of peace and war. From the beginning Israeli border police surrounded the peaceful demonstration, and as the group approach the border terminal, they began shoving. Despite this aggression, after one and a half hours the demonstration ended peacefully.

A young Palestinian woman named Fadwa told ISM that to visit her brother Jihad, who has been held in Israeli prison for a decade, she must make a 12-hour journey involving strip searches and extensive interrogation at Meitar only to be repeated again at the prison. She recalls that several times she has been forced to leave her shoes and jacket in the interrogation room and pass through the checkpoint barefoot, even in cold weather.

Ranna, whose husband Yasser has been held in Rimon prison in the Naqab for nine years, recounts a similar story of humiliation by Israeli border authorities. When arresting her husband, Israeli soldiers beat him so severely that he lost his right eye, and they refused to tell Ranna where he was to be held or what his charges were. Now she, along with her three children, must endure an ordeal like that of Fadwa, when visiting her husband in Rimon. Ranna says it is not only she that has been strip searched, but “women of all ages, even old women.”

Approximately 5,000 Palestinian prisoners are held in Israeli prisons, the vast majority in contravention of international law which prohibits the transfer of a people from occupied territory to the territory of the occupier (within Israel’s 1948 boundaries). Many of these were never formally charged or given access to legal defence. Palestinian prisoners and solidarity groups have been organising to protest Israel’s systematic abuse of Palestinian prisoners, which has been thoroughly documented by human rights organisations like B´Tselem, Adameer, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

Soldiers at the Meitar checkpoint, along with forcing hundreds of families to endure extensive delays, interrogations and intrusive searches, have recently begun strip searching female relatives also, which the women fear is being videotaped. That this humiliation follows mass hunger strikes and other prisoner organising, has led activists such as Amjad Najjar (media spokesperson for the Prisoner Society) to decry this harassment as “collective punishment,” not only of prisoners but also of their support network. The Prisoners Society plans to continue staging protests at Palestinian ICRC branches (including Khalil) until their demands for compliance with international law are met.

Kufr Qaddoum: Cut off road and electricity does not deter demonstrations

by Jonas Weber

10 February 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

Villagers and internationals assembled in Kufr Qaddoum after prayer time to demonstrate against the blocking of their main road to Nablus. The army cut off the electricity in the entire village as collective punishment  for the ongoing demonstrations in Kufr Qaddoum.

The villagers, including women  and many children, walked up to the top of the village, joined by internationals and press. They stopped about 100 meters from the occupation forces, where they held speeches and sang. The occupation forces started firing a huge amount of tear gas at the crowd as a couple of kids where throwing stones. Many people were affected by the tear gas, that was fired nearly constantly from then on.

Locals and supporters march in Kufr Qaddoum on February 10th, 2012

The occupation forces finally retreated into the illegal settlement, where they kept on taking pictures and filming the protesters. The crowd walked down closer, and gathered under an olive tree, to honour the memory of a man shot dead by a settler 20 years ago in that exact spot. The village was still without electricity as we left.

Jonas Weber is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).

Asira al Qibliiya: “The time for settler attacks is now”

by Amal

11 February 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

The season of settler violence – Click here for more photos

As warm days sneak into this cold month of February, illegal settlers begin their season of attacks early. Although there is no “off season” for settler attacks, the number of these criminal acts increases in the spring and summer. The residents of Asira al Qibliiya unfortunately have the experience to believe the attacks will only increase.

This was evident as a group of 20 settlers from Yitzhar illegal settlement descended on Asira on a beautiful Saturday afternoon on February 11, 2012. It was approximately 3:30 PM when the settlers gathered on top of a hill overlooking Asira and stood only a couple hundred meters from residential homes.

They were armed and dangerous as they drew closer and closer to one of the homes, but fortunately crowds of locals gathered near the home and the settlers retreated back up the hill. Within a few minutes Israeli Occupation soldiers joined the group of settlers with two army jeeps and at least four soldiers were on foot. Also joining in support were two settlement security jeeps.

This is the second settler attempt to attack Asira this year. The last attack on Asira was during the early hours of December 12, 2011. By the end of this act, three homes and a bus were damaged as reported by Ma’an News Agency.

The average weekly settler attacks have already increased in 2012. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has documented an increase to eight attacks the first week of February from five attacks the beginning of the year.

The belief that settlers attack more frequently during warmer weather is evident to many local residents. However, the peak time for settler attacks is not well documented. An activist from Asira, who has witnessed many of the attacks, confidently declared “that the time for settler attacks is here now.”

Amal is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).