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.]
On the 26th of May, more than 500 people joined a demonstration in Nablus in solidarity with Palestinian political prisoners and hunger strikers. Starting from the city’s main square, they then marched through some of the main streets of Nablus.
On the 24th of April, over 100 Palestinian political prisoners, many of whom are held under administrative detention, started an open-ended hunger strike. Their hunger strike continues and is entering the 33rd day. More prisoners have joined the campaign, adding up to 125 Palestinian political prisoners currently in hunger strike. Palestinian prisoners are protesting in order to stop the practice of administrative detention, which involves detention orders that can range up to six months and renewed indefinitely. These orders are based on secret information that neither the detainee nor the lawyer have access to, and the widespread use of this practice is against international standards.
Protesters march handcuffed through the streets of Nablus. (Photo by ISM)Many children participated in the march, handcuffed and blindfolded to symbolize the brutality of Israeli authorities. (Photo by ISM)(Photo by ISM)(Photo by ISM)(Photo by ISM)Mothers, sisters and wives. Almost every Palestinian woman has or has had at least one relative in jail. (Photo by ISM)(Photo by ISM)(Photo by ISM)According to Addameer (Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association) there are currently over 5,200 political prisoners under Israeli custody, 186 of them are held under administrative detention. The hunger strike is a protest aimed at ending the use of administrative detention. (Photo by ISM)“Water and salt”. These are the essential elements necessary for prisoners to undergo a hunger strike. However the Israeli authorities refused to give salt to them for the first three weeks of the strike. (Photo by ISM)People carrying a coffin. As many prisoners said, they will lead their protest until the Israeli government ends the practice of administrative detention, even if this means death. According to Palestinian media, several detainees have already been taken to hospitals due to critical health conditions. (Photo by ISM)
In the city of Nablus, a tent was erected several weeks ago as a permanent sit-in protest in solidarity with Palestinian political prisoners and hunger strikers. Protests are held almost on a daily basis and provide a forum for both relatives and political parties to have their voices heard.
26th May 2014 |International Solidarity Movement, Nablus team | Kafr ad Dik, Occupied Palestine
Early yesterday morning, at approximately 05:00, two drilling machines were at work in Daher Sobeh, at the top of a mountain in the eastern part of Kafr ad Dik, an area where there are many water springs.
Together with the machines, there were a large number of settlers from nearby illegal settlements, a tent with Israeli flags, and four military jeeps, with approximately 40 soldiers. According to several witnesses, the land grab could sum up 600 dunums (60 hectares).
When the first farmer arrived on his land at 06:00, the area had already been declared a closed military zone. When he asked why there where machines at work, and why he was not allowed to access his land, he was told that the area was closed for “security reasons”. He was later handcuffed and detained for almost two hours when he attempted to access his land.
In the following hours, other villagers arrived at the area to protest, together with international activists and Palestinian media, documenting the construction. The Israeli military reportedly stated that if they continued to take photographs, local olive trees in the area would be burnt.
The villagers remained in the area for approximately three hours, but only the mayor of Kafr ad Dik was allowed to speak with the Israeli captain. The mayor stated that the soldiers claimed to operate under a military order, but no documents were ever shown. International witnesses reported that this military zone was arbitrary, allowing some people through but stopping others.
These events followed the previous Thursday; where there was a first attempt to take over the land. Thursday, 22nd, May, in the early morning, approximately 30 Israeli soldiers and border police officers, together with a dozen settlers and one bulldozer, entered the area. The villagers started to protest, involving around one hundred people from Kafr ad Dik and other villages in the area, Israeli forces left at approximately 15:00.
The Israeli captain working with the DCO [District Coordination Office] in the area (Salfit and Qalqilya) was present on Thursday. Before leaving he stated that they would come back. When Israeli forces returned on Sunday morning, they claimed to have governmental approval and that any complaints should be taken to the court.
Furthermore on Thursday night, undercover Israeli police arrested a 34-year-old man in the town. A villager in the town stated that Israeli border police stopped a Palestinian car and took the vehicle. With this car, and without uniforms, they entered in Kafr ad Dik and stopped in front of a supermarket, taking the owner, Wafee at Turc. No further information is available.
The first attempt to build in this area began in 1992, when the construction was stopped by a court decision. After this, there were a further two occasions when settlement expansion was attempted. Currently the municipality together with the owners of the land are trying to take this land seizure to the Bet’el court. This can take two or three years, and there are no guarantees of an impartial court.
The Kafr ad Dik area is actually the table plane of water of the West Bank, although, the people of Kafr ad Dik are only allowed to use 300 cubic meters of water per day, in a town populous of about 6,000. The governing body in the town has asked for an increase in water supply, to no avail.
As suggested by many sources, this attempt is made in order to increase the size of the already large illegal settlement of Ari’el, linking it with all present and future illegal settlements in the area. Kafr ad Dik is actually surrounded by four illegal settlements (Ale Zahav, Pedu’il, Bruchin, and Lesh’ev), while the only area fully available to the village is the one between the village itself and Ben Ghassan. Of the 16,500 dunums owned initially by the village, over the 80 % is under Area C [full Israeli civil and security control]. Some Palestinians have suggested, this is just one step to a further expansion of the Annexation Wall, made in this area in order to divide the West Bank into two parts.
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.
25th May 2014 |International Solidarity Movement, Khalil team | Al-Fwar, Occupied Palestine
On the 24th of May, approximately 40 protesters gathered at Al-Fwar refugee camp. The protest was to support the 5,000 political prisoners of whom more than a 180, are on their 30th day of hunger strike.
The protesters walk toward road 60 (photo by ISM).An Israeli soldier is about to throw a tear gas grenade at the feet of the protesters, to stop them from going further (photo by ISM).Protesters retreat after a tear gas grenade is thrown (Photo by ISM).(Photo by ISM)The demonstrators gathering behind the gate, continuing the protest (photo by ISM).Even after the protesters were following the soldiers’ instructions to stand behind the gate, the soldiers continued to throw tear gas and stun grenades at their feet. (Photo by ISM)(Photo by ISM)Protesters running away from a stun grenade. Standing too close to a stun grenade when it explodes, can result in hearing loss, concussion, and loss of balance. (Photo by ISM)(Photo by ISM)Throughout the protest the soldiers were firing tear gas canisters and throwing tear gas grenades, some of them aimed directly towards the protesters. Being hit by a tear gas canister in the head or other parts of the body, can be fatal. (Photo by ISM)One man was hit in the ankle by a tear gas canister, and treated at the scene. (Photo by ISM)
The protest was successful in the sense that their message was expressed strongly and non-violently, despite the extreme violence of the Israeli soldiers and border police.
A local resident of Al-Fwar refugee camp told ISM, that three teenagers aged 13-14 were arrested in the past week. Their parents haven’t been allowed to see them or speak with them since, although a lawyer had told the parents that they are in Ofer prison. According to the lawyer there have been eight child arrests recently.
