Interview sheds light on Israeli prison-colonial complex

29 August 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

Conversations are strange over here. When you are told a horrible story by somebody, or you hear yet another example of the brutality Palestinians experience as part of their daily lives, you find yourself eerily laughing along with them. It’s as if the spectrum of human emotions has buckled under strain and flipped back on itself, making up become downward and left turn into right. Perhaps this was just a coping mechanism.

Such was the atmosphere when we interviewed Bardran Jabbal , a geography and sociology lecturer at Hebron Polytechnic University. We went to interview him following the arrest of four people on his street, along with roughly 120 others from Hebron that same night of Saturday 20th of August in one of the biggest mass arrests the area has seen in years.

We ended up chatting with him for two hours, along with one of his sons, and the topic trailed far away from the arrests into interesting territories–or what was left of them.

We were keen to know about what kind of treatment the recent detainees could expect, and he seemed to be the perfect person to speak to, considering he has spent 20 years in Israeli prisons over the course of his life as have each of his sons., under the British mandate laws that allow people to be arrested without any evidence or charge for up to six months, a sentence which can be renewed at any time.

When one of his sons was 11, he was walking down the road with his pet bird between his hands. Israeli soldiers ran after him, causing him to let the bird out of his grip. They imprisoned him for two weeks for “throwing stones.”

Each of his sons have spent sentences (ranging from 3 months to seven years) for either being members of a Palestinian political party or nothing at all . These prisoners are held separately from the likes of rapists and drug dealers who are held in “civil prisons,” all political prisoners are detained in “security prisons.”

Badran himself has spent 20 years in Israeli security prisons over the course of his life, in separate sentences between 1967 and 2007. Three of his children were born while he was in prison. He never saw one of his sons until he was five years old, who refused to believe for sometime that he was his actual father, and tried to attack him to get him out of the house considering the only father he knew was a picture on the wall.

Discussing what conditions the prisoners could expect to face, he told us that human rights organizations pressuring since the 80s, the torture has shifted more to psychological methods.

One example he provided was when they produced a fake document from the International Red Cross Society saying that his wife had died and that his five children were now living on their own. They wanted him to sign it to “hand custody over to their grandparents.” Second-guessing them, he told them that his wife had died willingly as he had met another woman three months previously, and she had sacrificed herself to make way for their relationship.

Later when he was being driven to court in a police vehicle, he saw his wife walking down the street through a tiny window in the armed car.

However a shift to psychological torture in no means should suggest that the prisoners are treated well, he warned. Where in the West we are arrested by means of a warrant, the army here uses sound bombs, teargas and live ammo in the houses they raid, whether they soldiers are met with resistance or not. Once arrested, their eyes are blindfolded and their hands are cuffed to their legs, and they can expect to stay in this position in the transit van for up to four days without food or water before even reaching prison.

Badran estimates that he spent roughly 100 days in the course of his 20 years as an inmate in this position staring at a wall for days on end without food or water. In prison, inmates are expected to pay for their own food at Israeli market prices, and if they don’t ,they don’t get enough to survive. Another way that inmates are tested physiologically is by being held in “fake prisons” full of Israeli informants. This is particularly difficult considering the sense of solidarity Badran tells us that the inmates have with one another in order to survive.

On top of jail sentences, Badran told us that he feels that arrests are run like a business. If somebody is released without charge (which is more often than not the case) they still have to pay a fine at the officer’s discretion. All of his sons have paid up to 15,000 shekels along with their prison sentences. Soldiers routinely loot the houses of the people they are about to arrest or simply destroy them.

One of his friends managed to get his stolen goods back from a soldier, as he managed to take a picture of him in the act. This is a rare case however, considering the soldiers wear face masks, and obviously don’t give away their identities willingly.

Badran was even sceptical about the amount that of influence that the Israeli government has over the IDF. He says that settlement plans, ruled out as illegal by the High courts, are often carried out in spite of this. Another example he gave, was when the High Court ordered his release from prison. He was released and re-arrested on the doorstep for another year.

Palestinians also need to get permission from military officers to plant their crops.

We asked him about the attack on an Israeli coach last Thursday in Eilat , and asked him what the connection this had to the arrests made in Hebron. He was aware that there was no connection, and the shootings were just an excuse to arrest anybody they could.

We proposed the idea that it may have been Israel themselves who carried out the shootings, considering nobody, including Hamas had claimed responsibility for them. He said he wouldn’t put it past them, and used the example of Ben Gurion bombing a ship full of Jews in the 40’s in the Mediterranean, to gain sympathy for the state of Israel.

“Generally when a resistance group carries out such attacks, they are keen to claim responsibility. They have served as an excuse to bomb Gaza from the air without mercy ever since,” he said.

He also drew a connection between the recent protests from within Israel against their governments economic policies, which seemed apt considering many marches in the likes of Tel Aviv  were called off in light of the attacks.

The conversation ended with Badran comparing the sentences of Nelson Mandela, who spent 27 years in prison for resisting the apartheid system under which he and his people lived. He compared it to the Palestinian political prisoners (including two of his brothers) who have spent 34 years in jail.

Over 400 political prisoners have spent over 25 years in prison without release.

Raids continue in Hebron, 2 arrested

27 August 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

Like every Saturday, today  a guided Zionist tour passed through the divided old city in Hebron, also referred to as Al Khalil by Palestinians. The tour was escorted by 20 Israeli soldiers and led to a couple of Palestinian arrests without clear justification.

Around 4pm the tour went back to Shuhada street, which has been closed since 1997 to collectively punish Palestinians, and are also denied access the main market area that locals once frequented. The Israeli government and military support frequent incursions into the strictly Palestinian area of the city, commonly referred to as area H1.

As soon as the tour went into Shuhada street, the soldiers began to run to Bab el Baladiya. They then raided the house of the Mohtaseb family, claiming that they were throwing stones although no one witnessed this. The Israeli soldiers blocked access to the house and exited with 2 people arrested, Mohammed and Sheker Bahjat who were then brought to a police car and taken away.

The family lives adjacent to a family of illegal, Israeli settlers. According to Mohammed’s wife, Zuhur, the settlers were throwing stones and water at the house while also breaking windows. Incitement and harassment are not new for this family. Zuhur was detained just a month ago for 8 hours, and both her son and husband are often arrested without evidence or clear charges.

 

Snapshots of Al-Qawasmi home, ripped apart by Israeli military

22 August 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

Hussein Al-Qawasmi was arrested 10 days ago. Yesterday Qawasmi was escorted back to his home by Israeli soldiers, who claimed there were explosives as well as a memory stick and other forms of information. The family home was ransacked and a section of it was destroyed.

Two sons have been arrested, 2 have been killed, and one is exiled.

His brother Hassan is also held in jail while another family member, 16 year old Abdel Razaq was taken to the Russian Compound, an Israeli court, in West Jerusalem after he returned from his travels outside of the West Bank. He is currently in prison, but his location is unknown. None of the family members were able to reach him.

The mother of Hussein saw her son handcuffed, blindfolded, and beaten as she tried to approach him. The soldiers pushed her back. She suffers from heart conditions and was severely affected and needed medical attention. The soldiers would not allow an ambulance to come, and when she tried to walk down to the road to go to reach the ambulance they blocked her way. Only after the soldiers had left around twelve thirty she was taken to the hospital at that moment in an ambulance full of injured protesters.

She was taken to intensive care in Al Mazan hospital where she remains.

The explosion in the yard blew up all of the windows of the house and burned the grape vines. There was shrapnel found in the yard and the neighboring house was also damaged.

Pedestrian caught between H1, H2, and Israeli military

22 August 2011 | International Solidarity Movement

In Al Khalil, commonly referred to as Hebron, international observers received a call about a man being beaten by Israeli military between the H1 and H2 areas of Hebron. H1 is an area densely populated by about 120,000 Palestinians, while H2 has been taken over through military violence by illegal Israeli settlers.

Witnesses say the man had been detained for about an hour and was pushed against the wall repeatedly. When international observers showed up, the soldiers claimed that the man had refused to be searched although he carried no items on him except a small coin pouch and a cell phone.

The following is a video account of the soldier’s and man following the arrival of international observers.

Many injured in Hebron house demolition

22 August 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

At 10pm Sunday August 21st the Hasan Ali Darwish Al-Qawasmi house in the Abo Ktelah district was raided and later destroyed by Israeli soldiers. Around eight armored vehicles surrounded the house and at least 40 soldiers were blocking every entrance. The Israeli soldiers had arrived at the house at 8 pm. They told family members that it would take 20 minutes but three and a half hours later they remained in occupation of the house. A row of 14 soldiers blocked the main entrance to the house. Female family members stood in front of them and demanded that they be allowed back into their home.

A family member accounted that Israeli soldiers had already arrested their husbands and were also guilty of the imprisonment of seven brothers and the death of two other brothers of one particular woman. This woman arrived at the house with her baby in her arms to defy and stand up to the Israeli soldiers. After a while the army emerged from the house with a blindfolded and handcuffed man who looked as though he had been beaten.

The soldiers took him away in a jeep. The Israeli soldiers informed the family and other bystanders that a suspected “suspicious object” was in the home that needed to be disposed of, which coincidentally meant exploding a section of the house. Everyone was pushed aside in preparation for the explosion, which took place in the yard of the house. The massive explosion smashed all the windows and damaged a neighbor’s home.

During the raid clashes between Palestinians and the army started, leaving at least 30 injured with the possible rumor that of the injured, one was killed. Details have yet to be confirmed.

The army was shooting a large amount of tear gas directly at protesters and according to witnesses they probably also used rubber coated steel bullets. The Israeli soldiers fled at around midnight and the protestors went to inspect the damaged house. Once being allowed back into the home the family members found their home torn apart. Sofa chairs had been ripped open, picture frames had been smashed and glass lay everywhere. Their home had been destroyed.

Witnesses said that 10 days ago another member of the Al-Qawasmi family had been arrested. On the night of August 20th Israeli soldiers arrested 10 other people in this same neighborhood. This frightful scene concluded with an elderly female relative, who had been trapped in the house during the raid, being carried out on a stretcher by Palestinian ambulances. The ambulances also tended to severely injured protestors.