30 December 2008: The Hamdan family

30 December 2011 | Palestinian Center for Human Rights

“When I wake in the morning the first thing I do is remember my children.  I come and sit outside and picture them where they used to play. I don’t want to go out and interact with other people anymore. I largely stay inside the home”

Iman and Talal Hamdan standing in front of a picture of their killed children Hiya, Lama and Ismail (Photo: Palestinian Center for Human Rights)

Talal Hamdan, 47, and Iman Hamdan, 46, are quietly contemplative about life since the loss of their three children Haya, Lama, and Ismail. The children were aged 12, 10, and 5 respectively, when on the morning of 30 December 2008 an Israeli F-16 dropped a bomb in the area they were walking in Beit Hanoun, killing all three. The children were walking with their father to a nearby rubbish site to drop off household waste when Israeli forces targeted the area. The children were the youngest of the couple’s children, and they have not had any other children since the attack.

Though none of the previous three years have been easy on the couple, for Iman the hardest period was directly after the attack, when she found herself in deep shock. “After the death of my children I could not cry, I did not have the space to properly mourn them,” says Iman, “but when I finally became alone. I couldn’t stop my tears.” Iman believes the shock of the incident has greatly increased her physical health problems, which include severe back and leg pain. “I barely sleep at night, maybe two hours during the day,” says Iman. Her grief is compounded by the experience of losing her father, brother and two cousins all on the same day during the first intifada.

Talal’s life has also been completely changed since the death of his children. “When I wake in the morning the first thing I do is remember my children. I come and sit outside and picture them where they used to play,” says Talal. “I don’t want to go out and interact with other people anymore. I largely stay inside the home.” Talal had a very close relationship with Ismail, “he would beg me to take him everywhere with me and so I would take him, we were always together.” Relating how the memory of his children is so painful, he gives an example of the time he was sick and needed to go to the hospital, “this particular hospital was the one the children were transferred to before they died. When I walked in the memory of my three children lying dead next to each other came back to me and I started to cry. The doctors first thought I was afraid of injections, my family had to explain to them what had taken place, and why I was so upset. In the end I couldn’t stay in the hospital for the treatment.”

Contemplating the approach of the upcoming anniversary, the couple speak about how they will face it. “On the day of the anniversary I will try to keep myself busy to avoid thinking about it too much” says Iman, “but I don’t visit the graves, I couldn’t bear it”. The couple now have young grandchildren living with them, one of whom is named Ismail after their killed son. “We try our best to make up for our loss with Ismail, we go up and see him and spend time with him every morning,” says Talal.

Before the attack Talal had worked in construction. He tried to return to work after the attack, but nerve damage in his legs and arms as a result of the attack have left him unable to continue working. The family now survive on UN food aid and help from their two sons.

Regarding the future the family has hopes and apprehensions. “We are always afraid that an attack will take place again resulting in more deaths in the family. I am always calling my daughters to tell them to take care of themselves and the children” says Talal. “I hope that peace will prevail and that we will return to calm eventually. Most of all I hope that other children are not killed in similar incidents. I can understand when adults are killed during war but I cannot understand when children are killed.” Regarding the family’s legal complaint following the death of their children, Talal is positive. “I expect it to be successful, my children were not militant and there were no military targets in the proximity.”

PCHR submitted a criminal complaint to the Israeli authorities on behalf of the Hamdan Family on 21 July 2009. To-date, no response has been received.

The series of narratives:

29 December 2008: Balousha family
28 December 2008: The Abu Taima family
27 December 2008: The Al Ashi family

International Women’s Peace Service meet with prisoner released in Shalit deal

26 December 2011 | International Women’s Peace Service

The 18th of December was a day of reunion and celebration for many in Palestine. Following a tense wait, several delays and tear-gas attacks by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) on their waiting families, 550 Palestinian prisoners were released from Israeli jails to be reunited with their families and friends. SH was one of these lucky few exchanged for the IOF soldier Gilad Shalit – many thousands of Palestinian political prisoners remain imprisoned.

Eight years previously, during the Second Intifada, SH – a 27 year old villager of Kifl Haris – had been imprisoned for his political activities against the occupation. He was a member of the Fateh political party and was involved in organising resistance. We spoke to him on 26thDecember, 8 days after his release, in a room full of his family and friends, who were still gathering to celebrate. The house was festooned in flags, bunting and the celebratory poster published by Fateh on his release.

He told us that in 2002, a warrant was put out for his arrest. Whilst he managed to evade the Israeli authorities for a year and a half by moving around regularly, in November 2003 they caught up with him, arresting him at the house of a friend. He told us how he was taken to an Israeli interrogation centre and held for questioning for two months – here he said that the physical and psychological torture began from the first moment he arrived.

For the first seventeen days, SH said that he was held in solitary confinement – seeing only one policeman and his interrogator. He only found out how long he had been held afterwards, as his cell had no windows, meaning he had no concept of night and day. The disorientation was compounded by enforced sleep deprivation – he would be woken by the guard every time he managed to fall asleep, or he would be tied to a chair, the discomfort making sleep almost impossible. He recalled occasions when he had not been allowed to sleep for 5 days or more and how he came to consider one or two hours hours of sleep a luxury. These tactics are internationally considered as torture, and are a well known method of exhausting and confusing prisoners to extract confessions.

He then told us how he was also beaten during his interrogations – hit, kicked and beaten with sticks. SH was unwilling to go a lot of detail, the memories must be painful, and his elderly mother was present. During this time he was asked many questions about his involvement with the Fateh movement, his friends and co-party members and his actions against the occupation. He was regularly asked to sign a document in Hebrew which he was told was a confirmation of the statements he had made under interrogation. Each time he refused – requesting a translation into Arabic – the mistreatment would continue. On the 18thday, he was removed from solitary confinement and allowed to socialise with some other prisoners. However, he told us that Palestinian collaborators with the Israeli forces are common in these interrogation centres and – unsure who was friend and who foe – this was the time when he felt most at risk. He said that he had known other prisoners to be killed by collaborators.

On the 20th day, the Red Cross were allowed to visit – although as SH was aware of the presence of so many collaborators, this made him suspect that they may not truly have been Red Cross representatives, but he cannot be sure. What he does know is that a letter to his family did not arrive for a further three months, during which time they had no idea whether he was in hiding and unable to contact them, or whether he had been arrested. When the Red Cross letter eventually arrived, they were naturally devastated- “it was catastrophic – nothing is more sad than this” said SH’s brother.

After the two months of interrogation, SH signed a document which had finally been translated into Arabic. Although the information written on the form was true, he alleged that this information was not in fact what he was eventually charged on in court. However, he had a long wait until he was to find this out – the 23rd of January 2004 was his initial court hearing date. This was delayed for three months, and then delayed a further 7 times – It was over two years later that his hearing actually went ahead.

When the trial eventually occurred, SH says it was a farce. When we asked whether he considered his trial to have been fair, the whole room laughed – “everyone knows they are not fair trials” he said, still laughing. His lawyer was assigned by the Israeli government and he was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment, for attempted murder and organising resistance to the occupation – “they didn’t listen to the evidence, they just decided from what was in their heads” claims SH. Palestinians are sentenced in Israeli military courts rather than civilian, which have been found to rarely comply with international standards of fair trials.

During his sentence he was moved regularly – he remembers maybe four or five different prisons and life was difficult. The fact that he was held in prisons within Israel proper is a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention which states that “Protected persons accused of offences shall be detained in the occupied country, and if convicted they shall serve their sentences therein” – SH was both detained and served his sentence outside of Occupied Palestine.

When asked about living conditions, SH commented darkly that if we wished to know what conditions were like in Israeli prisons, we need only spend a week there. He and his family stated that if he needed five new items of clothing, one would be permitted, and parcels of clothes from his family regularly did not arrive. The food was apparently neither healthy nor sufficient, and was not allowed to be supplemented by offerings from his family. The living space was shared with 10-12 men, all political prisoners. Because of this, SH says that the reputation that Israeli prisons have for being like a university for Palestinian prisoners is true – having not completed high school previously, SH did so during his time in prison, as well as completing two years of a Political Science degree. Without their freedom, the prisoners turned to books and political debate.

Communication with the outside world was very limited – whilst in theory, family visits were permitted every two weeks, they would regularly be delayed, cancelled or permission would not be granted – when they did go ahead, only one member of the family, SH’s mother, was allowed to visit, and even this was only once every two months at the most.

Tragically, SH’s older brother died whilst he was in prison, in a car accident with an Israeli settler. He told us he was permitted a five minute telephone call – making it impossible to speak to all of his thirteen brothers, four sisters, his parents and many other family members that he desperately wished to have contact with at such a hard time. Letters would take five months to reach his family, if at all, and then a return letter from them would take just as long. Eventually they gave up writing.

Life was also not easy for those who were left behind. Three of his brothers had previously found work within Israel. After SH’s arrest, they were denied the permits that they needed to do so, leaving them without work. This was apparently “for security reasons”, but is a clear form of collective punishment – illegal under international law.

His fiance, to whom he had been engaged before he was arrested, was left in limbo, unsure whether they would ever be able to start their lives together as they had planned. But she waited for his release, and happily their wedding is now planned for this summer.

His mother said that her son’s release was more than the joy of many, many weddings (although naturally she is still looking forward to his!). She and the whole family were relieved and overjoyed when they saw his name on the list of prisoners to be released – published online 4 days before the fact. They had been disappointed in the first half of the Gilad Shalit deal, but had held onto hope. SH himself only discovered that he was to be released 3 days before he was taken to Ramallah and met by his family.

He says that he will continue to be involved in politics and the fight against Palestinian oppression and occupation by Israel.

Names removed for privacy of those involved. For further information please get in touch with International Women’s Peace Service (www.iwps.info) on palhouse@iwps-pal.org or 0597317193

29 December 2008: Balousha family

29 December 2011 | Palestinian Center for Human Rights

“I miss them all the time, sometimes I even go to look for one of them in the house in the split second before I remember they were killed”

Anwar Balousha and son Muhammed (Photo: Palestinian Center for Human Rights)

At around 00:00 on the 29 December 2008 an Israeli aircraft attacked the Imad Akel Mosque situated in Jabaliya refugee camp. The attack destroyed the home of Anwar and Samira Balousha, which was situated just three metres from the mosque. Five of the family’s eight daughters were killed as a result of the bombing, which caused the family home to collapse on top of them as they slept. Five others were injured in the incident and other homes in close proximity to the mosque were completely destroyed.

In the main room of the reconstructed Balousha family household stands a portrait of the family’s five deceased daughters Tahreer, Ikram, Samar, Dina and Jawaher who were 18, 15, 13, 8 and  4 respectively at the time an Israeli F-16 dropped a bomb on the Imad Akel Mosque, 3 metres from the family home. The family have since had one new comer to the home, Tahrir (named after her deceased sister); but for father Anwar “the home still feels empty, it is like there is gaping hole where my daughters once were, and despite feeling their presence with us all the time there is a huge sense there is something missing”.

While his face and composure gives little away in terms of the suffering his family has gone through, Anwar’s words are clear regarding the effect the incident had on himself and his family. “My wife has been badly affected, just yesterday there was an UNRWA crew demolishing the wreckage of one the neighbours’ homes destroyed in the war to make room for its reconstruction, it reminded Samira of the war and she started to cry”. Anwar himself says he spends a lot of time at the daughter’s graves talking to them about daily life’s small comings and goings, “I miss them all the time, sometimes I even go to look for one of them in the house in the split second before I remember they were killed”.

The families remaining children have been traumatised. Anwar describes how Iman, 20, who had a very close relationship with her older sister, Tahrir, and who watched her sister Dina die in her arms following the attack, seems often to be lost in her own thoughts; “sometimes I call her but she cannot even hear me” says Anwar. Despite being very intelligent Iman’s grades have suffered as a result. He also fears that his son, Muhammad, who was recently treated for a shrapnel wound in his foot, suffered during the attack, will grow up wracked by feelings of revenge for the death of his sisters. “He speaks of them constantly”, says Anwar, “he will not forget”. When asked by his father about his sisters, Muhammad says that “my sisters were murdered by the Israeli’s, they are in Paradise”.

The three years since the attack has been a period of constant flux and displacement for the family. They have had to move home seven times in the past three years, each time creating a greater sense of instability for the family’s remaining children. “The children find themselves friendless each time they move area”, says Anwar, “my son Muhammad wanders off back to the neighbourhood of his old homes or to the local UNRWA school in search of friends, we can’t find him for hours and when he eventually comes home he says he went to find friends to play with”.  They have only recently returned to their rebuilt home that was destroyed during the attack.

Regarding hopes and fears for the future Anwar has mixed feelings. He is hopeful for the family’s legal case in Israel but he says “if they bring me all the money in the world they could not compensate me, I want my daughters, not money”. He is ravaged by fear for his children every time there is bombing and fears that he will lose them in the future. “Though this is my home I am seeking a future outside Gaza, right now I want to leave to make a new life for me and my family”.

PCHR submitted a criminal complaint on behalf of the Balousha Family on 2 August 2009. To-date, no response has been received.

The series of narratives:

28 December 2008: The Abu Taima family
27 December 2008: The Al Ashi family

Israeli navy attacks international observers, injures Palestinian, on monitoring boat in Gaza waters

28 December 2011 | Civil Peace Service Gaza

Photo: Rosa Schiano, Civil Peace Service Gaza (CPSGAZA) – Click here for more images

At 10:55 am, an Israeli naval warship attacked the international observers and Palestinian captain of the Civil Peace Service Gaza (CPSGAZA) boat Oliva, injuring its captain in an apparent attempt to capsize it.

“The Israeli navy passed near us and the fishermen, and started to go around us, creating waves,” said Rosa Schiano, one of the international observers. “The fishermen escaped, but we couldn’t because of a problem with our engine. We couldn’t move, and they went around us very quickly. The Israelis saw that we couldn’t move, and that the captain was trying to fix the engine, but they didn’t stop. We told them, ‘Please stop! Please stop!’ But they didn’t.”

When the warship was two meters away from the Oliva, one of the waves it had created nearly capsized the small boat, filling it with water and causing the Palestinian captain to fall out, injuring his left leg.

“Their intentions were to do something very bad,” said international observer Daniela Riva. “Coming so close to us was very dangerous, and they obviously knew that.”

After more than twenty minutes, the warship retreated, and the Oliva was rescued by a small Palestinian fishing boat, or hasaka, which threw it a line and towed it toward the shore.

Photos are available for free use with attribution to Rosa Schiano, Civil Peace Service Gaza (CPSGAZA): http://bit.ly/CPSGAZAphotos. Additional photos and video will be available upon request: email press@cpsgaza.org.

The incident followed similar attacks on the Oliva during previous missions. Video footage is available: http://bit.ly/CPSGAZAvideos.

Background

Restrictions on the fishing zone are of considerable significance to Palestinian livelihood. Initially 20 nautical miles, it is presently often enforced between 1.5 – 2 nautical miles (PCHR: 2010). The marine ‘buffer zone’ restricts Gazan fishermen from accessing 85% of Gaza’s fishing waters agreed to by Oslo.”

During the Oslo Accords, specifically under the Gaza-Jericho Agreement of 1994, representatives of Palestine agreed to 20 nautical miles for fishing access. In 2002 the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan empowered Catherine Bertini to negotiate with Israel on key issues regarding the humanitarian crisis in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and a 12 nautical mile fishing limit was agreed upon. In June 2006, following the capture of the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit near the crossing of Kerem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom), the navy imposed a complete sea blockade for several months. When the complete blockade was finally lifted, Palestinian fishermen found that a 6 nautical mile limit was being enforced. When Hamas gained political control of the Gaza Strip, the limit was reduced to 3 nautical miles. During the massive assault on the Strip in 2008-2009, a complete blockade was again declared. After Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli army began imposing a 1.5 – 2 nautical miles (PCHR: 2010).

The fishing community is often similarly targeted as the farmers in the ‘buffer zone’ and the fishing limit is enforced with comparable aggression, with boats shot at or rammed as near as 2nm to the Gazan coast by Israeli gunboats.

The fishermen have been devastated, directly affecting an estimated 65,000 people and reducing the catch by 90%. The coastal areas are now grossly over-fished and 2/3 of fishermen have left the industry since 2000 (PCHR: 2009). Recent statistics of the General Union of Fishing Workers indicate that the direct losses since the second Intifada in September 2000 were estimated at a million dollars and the indirect losses were estimated at 13.25 million dollars during the same period. The 2009 fishing catch amounted to a total of 1,525 metric tones, only 53 percent of the amount during 2008 (2,845 metric tones) and 41 percent of the amount in 1999 (3,650 metric tones), when the fishermen of Gaza could still fish up to ten nautical miles from the coast. Current figures indicate that during 2010 the decline in the fishing catch continues. This has caused an absurd arrangement to become standard practice. The fisherman sail out not to fish, but to buy fish off of Egyptian boats and then sell this fish in Gaza. According to the Fishermen’s Union, a monthly average of 105 tons of fish has been entering Gaza through the tunnels since the beginning of 2010 (PCHR 2009).

Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR). “The Buffer Zone in the Gaza Strip.” Oct. 2010.

Palestinian Centre for Human Rights. “A report on: Israeli Attacks on Palestinian Fishers in the Gaza Strip.” August 2009.

Demanding release of Yousef Abdul Haq, lawyer

28 December 2011 | Palestinian Cultural Enlightenment Forum

Dr. Yousef Abdul Haq

The lawyer Yousef Abdul Haq (Abu Shaddad), professor at the An Najah National University, and coordinator, former President of the Governing Council of the Tanweer Forum, was arrested Wednesday 7/12/2011 at three o’clock in the morning.

We in the Palestinian Cultural Enlightenment Forum consider the continued detention of our colleague Dr. Youssef a war crime against international law, and we demand his immediate release especially because he was suffering from physical illness and takes medication continuously, in addition to the difficult prison health conditions. The occupation government holds responsibility for any negative results reflected on his health.

We call upon all academic institutions, both cultural and scientific to demand his release.

We call on all parties and civil society groups and national figures, trade unions and the lawyers’ bar to form a committee to address the human rights of colleagues in the legal tribunals of the world to require the occupation to stop the indiscriminate arrest of the Palestinian people.

We also appeal to all people of conscience in Nablus, Palestine and the Arab nation and the world as a whole to stand firm against political and administrative detention.

 And, with the will of one united and of one voice we cry out to release all prisoners of freedom from Israel’s occupation prisons, including Dr. Yousef Abdul Haq.