Tag: Hunger strike

Two days of clashes in al-Khalil in connection with prisoners’ hunger strike

30th April 2017 | International Solidarity Movement, Khalil Team | al-Khalil (Hebron), occupied Palestine

Heavy clashes broke out during two consecutive days as Israeli forces stormed the Bab Al-Zawiah neighborhood in al-Khalil, attacking young Palestinians protesting in solidarity with the ongoing prisoners’ hunger strike. It resulted in multiple persons being injured, caused by live ammunition and teargas, and at least one protester being detained.

Thursday

Clashes erupted on Thursday in the Bab al-Zawiyah area of Hebron between Palestinian youths and the forces of the Israeli Army and Border Police. Minor confrontations occurred in the souq in the morning before the situation escalated at noon when several platoons of Israeli soldiers, accompanied by Border Police, entered Bab al-Zawiah in the Palestinian controlled H1 area, causing anger among the hundred-or-so Palestinian youths gathered there.

Young Palestinian protestors, Bab al-Zawiyah

On Thursday, a general strike was held across occupied Palestine in solidarity with the 1500 Palestinians currently on hunger strike in Israeli prisons, demanding their right to humane and fair treatment in accordance with international law. Consequently, all shops and public transportation were shut down during the day. Many Palestinian youths had gathered in the Bab al-Zawiyah neighbourhood – not far from Ibn Rusht square, where the solidarity tent is placed in support of the hunger striking prisoners – to express their anger through spontaneous protests.

At around 12:30 on Thursday, at least two platoons of Israeli soldiers and around 10 border policemen made their way up the souq towards the vegetable market and Bab al-Zawiya. While initially seemingly halting their movements at the H1/H2 border, the soldiers soon took up positions around 200 meters into the nominally Palestinian controlled H1. From there, the Israeli forces began bombarding the surrounding area with teargas and sound grenades, as well as shooting live ammunition into the crowd of protesters.

Street leading up from vegetable market filling up with tear gas

Additional groups of Israeli forces soon swamped the roofs of the area, from which protesters were targeted with continuous showers of sound grenades. Swaying back and forth among a few centrally located streets, the clashes continued for several hours as the ground became littered with empty teargas canisters, grenades, and used bullets.

Israeli soldiers throwing sound grenades from a roof in H1

Fighting continued throughout the day as Israeli forces used live ammunition, sound grenades, and large amounts of teargas against Palestinians, who responded by throwing stones and burning tires. In addition to the numerous injuries caused by the indiscriminate firing of teargas canisters, ISM activists witnessed at least two Palestinians being seriously wounded after being shot with live ammunition in their feet. The two young protesters were quickly carried away and rushed to hospital.

Protesters halts a passing car to to bring an injured man to hospital. He was shot through the foot with live ammunition

Later in the afternoon the intensity of the clashes began to subside as the Israeli forces retreated back into H2. However, at around 17:30 several platoons of soldiers began to once again cross into Bab al-Zawiya which was by then all but empty. Their incursion soon caused renewed anger among the youths still present in the area, resulting in a resumption of clashes.

Israeli soldiers moving up through the souq towards Bab Al-Zawiyah

Two Israeli army jeeps sped towards Ibn Rusht square shortly before 18:00, followed by dozens of soldiers. However, the remaining protesters prevented them from reaching the square by setting up barricades. Soldiers began to enter private yards and parking lots adjacent to the streets leading up to the square. A standoff then ensued with Israeli soldiers yet again hurling grenades and firing rubber bullets into the crowd.

At the peak of the army incursion – which primarily went up Faisal al-Maliki Street – the soldiers reached almost 500 meters inside H1. As well as the army jeeps, there were also at least 50 soldiers accompanied by an Armoured Personnel Carrier and a water cannon truck.

Before finally retreating from Bab al-Zawiya into H2, a group of soldiers detained a young Palestinian man before escorting him, handcuffed and blindfolded, into the Beit Romano military base. When asked about the charges against the man, an Israeli army officer claimed that he had attempted to stab a soldier in the souq. Given the place of arrest and actions of the soldiers at the time – i.e., using live ammunition from long range – the ISM concludes that the stated scenario is highly implausible, but have not been able to obtain any other information on the background to the detention.

Detained Palestinian being escorted blindfolded by Israeli soldiers towards the Beit Romano base

Friday

The following day, a “Day of Rage” was called by Fatah and the national committee in solidarity with the Palestinian prisoners. The day started calmly as Palestinian security forces attempted to separate protestors and Israeli soldiers. However, they eventually failed and Israeli forces yet again advanced into Bab al-Zawiyah, firing rubber bullets and teargas. Several army vehicles, including a water cannon truck, spearheaded the charge before grinding to a halt half a kilometre into H1. Clashes continued for several hours, only to calm down when the contingents of soldiers retreated into their base at around 20:00.

A Friday prayer was conducted at Ibn Rush Square where people gathered to support the relatives of prisoners. Meanwhile,Palestinian security forces were stationed close to the infamous Shuhada checkpoint in an attempt to keep Israeli forces from entering H1 and to keep away potential protestors.

Friday Prayer conducted at Ibn Rusht Square

At 15:30 in the afternoon, with Palestinian forces now gone from the scene, Israeli forces once again approached Bab al-Zawiyah from the souq. The forces were spearheaded by a water cannon truck which immediately began to spray water towards protestors and into nearby buildings, accompanied by torrents of teargas grenades.

At least 50 Israeli soldiers quickly advanced towards Ibn Rusht square and the area around Alia hospital; effectively occupying most of the Bab al-Zawiya neighbourhood within only a few minutes. As well as attacking protesters, soldiers also broke down the doors of private buildings to occupy the rooftops. Border Police also shot so-called “sponge grenades” at the crowds.

Clashes continued until 17:00 when the soldiers withdrew to H2, only to erupt again half an hour later as Israeli forces poured into the city firing teargas indiscriminately. The drivers of cars who unknowingly tried to pass the area were violently harassed by soldiers who had set up flying checkpoints throughout the city.

Water cannon surrounded by tear gas around 500 meters into H1, Faisal al-Maliki Street

The sun had already set when the soldiers finally began to retreat towards the military base, leaving behind them screens of teargas which mixed with the smoke of burning tires over Bab al-Zawiyah.

NYT: Why We Are on Hunger Strike in Israel’s Prisons

Originally published in the New York Times.

By Marwan Barghouti

Having spent the last 15 years in an Israeli prison, I have been both a witness to and a victim of Israel’s illegal system of mass arbitrary arrests and ill-treatment of Palestinian prisoners. After exhausting all other options, I decided there was no choice but to resist these abuses by going on a hunger strike.

Some 1,000 Palestinian prisoners have decided to take part in this hunger strike, which begins today, the day we observe here as Prisoners’ Day. Hunger striking is the most peaceful form of resistance available. It inflicts pain solely on those who participate and on their loved ones, in the hopes that their empty stomachs and their sacrifice will help the message resonate beyond the confines of their dark cells.

Decades of experience have proved that Israel’s inhumane system of colonial and military occupation aims to break the spirit of prisoners and the nation to which they belong, by inflicting suffering on their bodies, separating them from their families and communities, using humiliating measures to compel subjugation. In spite of such treatment, we will not surrender to it.

Israel, the occupying power, has violated international law in multiple ways for nearly 70 years, and yet has been granted impunity for its actions. It has committed grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions against the Palestinian people; the prisoners, including men, women and children, are no exception.
Continue reading the main story

I was only 15 when I was first imprisoned. I was barely 18 when an Israeli interrogator forced me to spread my legs while I stood naked in the interrogation room, before hitting my genitals. I passed out from the pain, and the resulting fall left an everlasting scar on my forehead. The interrogator mocked me afterward, saying that I would never procreate because people like me give birth only to terrorists and murderers.

A few years later, I was again in an Israeli prison, leading a hunger strike, when my first son was born. Instead of the sweets we usually distribute to celebrate such news, I handed out salt to the other prisoners. When he was barely 18, he in turn was arrested and spent four years in Israeli prisons.

The eldest of my four children is now a man of 31. Yet here I still am, pursuing this struggle for freedom along with thousands of prisoners, millions of Palestinians and the support of so many around the world. What is it with the arrogance of the occupier and the oppressor and their backers that makes them deaf to this simple truth: Our chains will be broken before we are, because it is human nature to heed the call for freedom regardless of the cost.

Israel has built nearly all of its prisons inside Israel rather than in the occupied territory. In doing so, it has unlawfully and forcibly transferred Palestinian civilians into captivity, and has used this situation to restrict family visits and to inflict suffering on prisoners through long transports under cruel conditions. It turned basic rights that should be guaranteed under international law — including some painfully secured through previous hunger strikes — into privileges its prison service decides to grant us or deprive us of.

Palestinian prisoners and detainees have suffered from torture, inhumane and degrading treatment, and medical negligence. Some have been killed while in detention. According to the latest count from the Palestinian Prisoners Club, about 200 Palestinian prisoners have died since 1967 because of such actions. Palestinian prisoners and their families also remain a primary target of Israel’s policy of imposing collective punishments.

Through our hunger strike, we seek an end to these abuses.

Over the past five decades, according to the human rights group Addameer, more than 800,000 Palestinians have been imprisoned or detained by Israel — equivalent to about 40 percent of the Palestinian territory’s male population. Today, about 6,500 are still imprisoned, among them some who have the dismal distinction of holding world records for the longest periods in detention of political prisoners. There is hardly a single family in Palestine that has not endured the suffering caused by the imprisonment of one or several of its members.

How to account for this unbelievable state of affairs?

Israel has established a dual legal regime, a form of judicial apartheid, that provides virtual impunity for Israelis who commit crimes against Palestinians, while criminalizing Palestinian presence and resistance. Israel’s courts are a charade of justice, clearly instruments of colonial, military occupation. According to the State Department, the conviction rate for Palestinians in the military courts is nearly 90 percent.

Among the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians whom Israel has taken captive are children, women, parliamentarians, activists, journalists, human rights defenders, academics, political figures, militants, bystanders, family members of prisoners. And all with one aim: to bury the legitimate aspirations of an entire nation.

Instead, though, Israel’s prisons have become the cradle of a lasting movement for Palestinian self-determination. This new hunger strike will demonstrate once more that the prisoners’ movement is the compass that guides our struggle, the struggle for Freedom and Dignity, the name we have chosen for this new step in our long walk to freedom.

Israel has tried to brand us all as terrorists to legitimize its violations, including mass arbitrary arrests, torture, punitive measures and severe restrictions. As part of Israel’s effort to undermine the Palestinian struggle for freedom, an Israeli court sentenced me to five life sentences and 40 years in prison in a political show trial that was denounced by international observers.

Israel is not the first occupying or colonial power to resort to such expedients. Every national liberation movement in history can recall similar practices. This is why so many people who have fought against oppression, colonialism and apartheid stand with us. The International Campaign to Free Marwan Barghouti and All Palestinian Prisoners that the anti-apartheid icon Ahmed Kathrada and my wife, Fadwa, inaugurated in 2013 from Nelson Mandela’s former cell on Robben Island has enjoyed the support of eight Nobel Peace Prize laureates, 120 governments and hundreds of leaders, parliamentarians, artists and academics around the world.

Their solidarity exposes Israel’s moral and political failure. Rights are not bestowed by an oppressor. Freedom and dignity are universal rights that are inherent in humanity, to be enjoyed by every nation and all human beings. Palestinians will not be an exception. Only ending occupation will end this injustice and mark the birth of peace.

Hunger strikes and family visits in occupation jails

30th July 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine

A demonstration in solidarity with hunger striking prisoners and against the cut of family visits by the International Commmittee of the Red Cross was organised by the Hebron Defense Committee in occupied al-Khalil (Hebron) on 28th July 2016.

solidarity sit-in for hunger strikers & in protest to family-visit cut at the ICRC in Hebron

The sit-in took place at the Red Cross headquarter in al-Khalil, and was attended by locals, the press, family members of prisoners, former prisoners, and international solidarity activists. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) recently announced that they would cut one of the twice-monthly family visits for Palestinian prisoners in the Israeli occupation jails. The ICRC has been running a family visit program since 1968. With the majority of the Israeli prisons located outside of the West Bank, many families depend on the program by the ICRC to be able to cover the distance, costs and bureaucratic process of being granted a permit for the visit. Additionally to these hurdles and obstacles, the ‘normal’ occupation prevents families from reaching their loved ones through road-blocks, closures of whole cities or villages, revocation of permits and the arbitrary denial of passage at checkpoints.

Furthermore, the protest was in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners hunger striking against the practice of ‘administrative detention‘ – detention without charge or trial. Administrative detention allows the Israeli forces to imprison anyone without even charging them with a crime, making it the perfect tool for an occupying power to lock-up anyone who is considered a dissident or a ‘threat’ – without having to even justify why. This, for the imprisoned and their families, in turn, means that they never know for how long they’ll be imprisoned, as administrative detention can be extended. Administrative detention, as a tool to illegally and without cause imprison Palestinians – and only Palestinians, not settlers – clearly violates international law.

Sami Janazreh enters 46th day of hunger strike

17th April 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, Al-Khalil Team | Hebron, occupied Palestine

Today volunteers from ISM attended a demonstration in Al-Khalil for Prisoners’ Day. Once the main demonstration had ended in the city a group of young Palestinians invited the volunteers to the Fawwar refugee camp outside the city.

Prisoner's day demonstration in occupied Hebron — Prisoner’s day demonstration in occupied Hebron

At the camp they were greeted by the Janazreh family, relatives of Sami Janazreh who invited the volunteers into their home for tea so they could tell us his story. Sami’s brother Haitham explained that Sami was detained on the 15th of November 2015 from his home in front of his family. The Israeli military brought no charges against Sami, but he was brought before a military court, with no jury or media present and sentenced to 4 months in a military prison. Once the 4 months were up he was brought before the military court again and sentenced to a further 4 months, without charge.

Three young demonstrators hold images of Sami

On the 3rd of March 2016 Sami was left with no option but to begin a hunger strike in protest at his detention. He is now 46 days into his hunger strike, and for the last 20 days his family has had no contact with him. The last information they received was that his kidneys were failing, his teeth had begun to fall out and he was unable to walk. The family have made concerted efforts to contact the prison to get updates on his condition but to no avail. They have had no contact from the Israeli government and there have been no official reports made.

On April 3rd 2016 two other prisoners, Adeb Mafaga and Fuouad Asse also began a hunger strike in protest at their illegal detention. The three men are striking in the hope that the Israeli government will release them to their families with signed papers to say they will no longer be detained without cause.

Sami's brother Haitham — Sami’s brother Haytham

Sami’s home is within the Fawwar refugee camp where he live’ with his wife, 3 children, Feras (13), Mahmod Darwesh (7), Marya (4) and other relatives including his brother, Haitham. The family has accepted that their father will die in prison without them having the chance to say goodbye. They asked the human rights defenders from ISM to highlight the plight of these men and raise awareness in the international community to give Sami the strength to continue his protest. As the hunger strike on its own has not been successful, it is now vitally important that we highlight this issue and put worldwide pressure on the Israeli government to release the men and save their lives.

On this Palestinian Prisoner’s Day we urge you to show support for Sami, Adeb and Fuoud by tweeting #FreeSami and by spreading his story through social media as much as we can.

Sit-in in solidarity with Muhammad Al-Qiq at Birzeit University

19th February 2016 |Birzeit University | Birzeit, Ramallah, occupied Palestine

Birzeit University administration, Workers’ Union, and students organized a sit-in in solidarity with its former student and head of students council, Journalist Muhammad Al-Qiq, who has been on hunger strike since November 25 against his imprisonment without charges or trial.

Protestors called for immediate and unconditional release for Al-Qiq and all prisoners as key to the realization of justice and comprehensive peace. They demanded all academic institutions and international organizations to work together to promote and implement campaigns of boycott and sanctions against Israel and its illegal measures against Palestinians.

“Palestinian journalists have always been on the frontline, and Al-Qiq is now experiencing forceful and abusive measures from the Israeli occupation because he practiced his normal right of speech and freedom of expression”, Abu Hijleh added.

On behalf of the Workers’ Union, Salem Thawaba demanded that officials should urgently interfere to end Al-Qiq’s torture. He stressed on the importance of unity and reconciliation for Al-Qiq whose health has deteriorated to the point of facing imminent death.

Representatives from the students council assured the students movements will never stop its solidarity events to support Al-Qiq and all prisoners who are going through a legal struggle on behalf of the whole nation for the sake of the Palestinian cause.