Tag: Jenin

Torture as a daily routine: a witness from Israeli prisons

His face is hollowed out, white skin pulled over prominent cheekbones. The eyes, tired but wide open, never stop. Abed just got out of Al-Naqab prison in southern Israel five days ago. He still can’t believe it.

“I lost 60 kilos in less than a year.” He shows a giant picture of himself hanging in the lobby: a fleshy, muscular man, smiling with a small child in his arms. “That’s my daughter, that’s me. It’s been a year.” The man in front of me looks like the specter of the hanging image. Even the little girl zomping behind us doesn’t seem to recognize him: when her father calls her name, she throws herself into her cousin’s arms, almost frightened. “My daughter when she first saw me was hiding, calling me uncle. It was so sad.”

Abed is 28 years old and was a baker by trade. They arrested him last December in a night raid where the Israeli military stormed his home by breaking down his door, smashing several pieces of furniture and windows. And they took him away. He would never hear from his family or have any contact with the outside world again until November 30, 2024.

We are at his home in the refugee camp in Jenin, perhaps the city most affected by Israeli attacks in the West Bank over the past year. To get there, one has to travel several roads flooded with mud and water, with a panoramic view of piles of debris and damaged or demolished houses. Indeed, the destruction by Tel Aviv’s D9s and bulldozers has spared no infrastructure in the camp, which is considered by Israel to be one of the strongholds of resistance in the West Bank: every road, as well as the water and electricity systems, have been systematically and methodically devastated.

“They arrested me only because I am Palestinian,” begins the account of Abed, who is at pains to emphasize that he was not linked to any party and was not part of the resistance. “The conditions under which they kept us were terrible. I don’t know if I will be able to talk about what I experienced… even animals are not kept like that.” But then, he is a river of words.

“They gave me shampoo six times in a year,” he recounts. “We could shower, but they wouldn’t give us anything to wash with.” Before October 7, life for Palestinians in prison was different. Then the detainees suffered Israel’s revenge on their skin. “We became numbers. They called us by number all the time.” He shows us, it was written in marker on his ID card. It must have been seven to eight digits; reading it feels like going back to moments in history that one hoped had been surpassed. “The first day they gave me a plastic plate, spoon and fork, the disposable kind. I had to use it for a year.” He smiles. “It’s crazy, but when I went out, I wanted to take them with me. I don’t know how to use the real ones anymore.”

There were 14 of them living in a cell that was made for nine people. They slept without mattresses, in beds as hard as stones or on the floor, cramped together to keep warm. “We didn’t have enough clothes, and they didn’t give us anything to cover ourselves. People would make socks by cutting pieces from the blankets.” Abed continued, “When they brought us food, it was not enough for human beings. It was not enough to survive… I lost 60 kg, but if my situation in prison was not so good, the condition of many others was worse.”

News from outside the prison came only when new inmates arrived. There was no contact with the outside world. “Since October 7, they took everything away: no TV, no books, no newspapers, no visits, no letters to family members, no contact with the lawyer.” Not even the hearings were an opportunity to meet the lawyer, or a friendly face. “There was no real court, it was a room, they moved everything online.” He adds: “Every time they moved us from the cell to that room, or somewhere else, we knew we would not come back healthy.” Beatings were the norm, and they could also come during the many searches or counts they did of inmates in cells.

“I have scabies. Almost everyone in prison has scabies, at least 90 percent… I had it all over my body… it was not normal. They didn’t give us medicine. It was torture.” He then talks about a weird episode. “Once they finally sent me to the ‘doctor’ – in prison there was no hospital, and anyway they didn’t give you anything… there was a group of people who were not Israelis, they were international. I asked one of these ‘doctors’ where he was from, he told me [he was] French; he didn’t help me. Sometimes I think they were doing tests on us, like we were animals.”

He repeats several times, “I just want to be considered a human being, it doesn’t matter that I am Palestinian, I am a human being.”

He shows us video of when he was released from prison a few days ago. When he was released, he was greeted by a crowd of his family and friends, where he hugged his mother and he cried. “For a year, I never cried. But as soon as I saw my mother, I cried,” he recounts. “My mother was sick. I could never write to her. But whenever I had a chance to see the moon from my cell, I sent her a message through the moon…”

At least 47 inmates have died in Israeli prisons since Oct. 7 due to torture or lack of treatment by Israel. I ask him if he has witnessed such incidents. He seethes. “One of these 47 was in my cell,” he says. “They brought him, who was already beaten to a pulp; he was injured. They had moved him there. Then they beat him again. At night they came in and counted us, they did that a lot. It was winter, it was cold. He was still lying on the ground, because he was sick, he couldn’t get up. I remember seeing blood coming out of his chest, I think he had internal bleeding but also external bleeding, he was bleeding. The police picked him up and carried him out of the cell, I could see him. They left him there in the open for hours and hours. It took him six hours to die. In front of my eyes.” They wanted to kill him, he says between the lines. He was politicized, from the Hamas party. He would not give his name.

He is afraid; he does not want to go back to prison. “I never want to live that condition of life again,” he says. The state of Israel in fact does not forget. Abed points us to Karim, a young boy of perhaps 15 who has been sitting by his side since the start of the chat. “Every time they raid here in the camp, the military enters his house and beats his whole family. This is because a member of his family in the past had relations with the resistance… Even though he is dead, they continue to take revenge and punish the whole family. They beat everyone.”

“Even if we believe in peace, where is the peace? I want peace. Israel does not want peace.”

He asks if he can leave a message for the rest of the world. He takes my notebook and writes in large Arabic characters, underlining the wording several times:

ALL PALESTINIANS LOVE LIFE.

What is Happening in the Northern West Bank?

4 September 2024 | International Solidarity Movement | Northern West Bank

By Diana Khwaelid

The radical Israeli Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has renewed his incitement to impose collective punishment on citizens in the occupied West Bank, including the killing of detainees in occupation prisons.

In the early hours of August 28, 2024, Israel announced the start of a large-scale military operation in the northern West Bank, specifically targeting three cities and their refugee camps: Jenin, Tulkarm, and Tubas. Israel has named this operation “The Summer Camps,” while the resistance factions in the West Bank, particularly the Jerusalem Brigades, have called it “The Terror of the Camps”. This Israeli operation is the largest since the “Protective Fence” operation in 2002. According to the *Yedioth Ahronoth* newspaper, a full military squad was mobilized after several weeks of preparation. Hebrew Channel 14 confirmed that the army had deployed thousands of soldiers from various special units, including the use of military helicopters and heavy weapons.

The operation began with a simultaneous Israeli incursion into the three cities, using huge bulldozers and air cover. The Israeli occupation forces closed all roads leading to the cities of Tulkarm and Jenin, but encountered armed resistance from fighters who attempted to prevent further advancement. In response to the armed clashes on the ground, Israel resorted to airstrikes, bombing three different locations: the Far’a refugee camp (Tubas), the Nour Shams refugee camp (Tulkarm), and a site near the Jenin refugee camp. These bombings killed several resistance fighters and wounded others. The first day ended with the assassination of nine resistance fighters, most of them from the Al-Quds Brigades and the Al-Qassam Brigades, and the wounding of an Israeli soldier amid massive destruction to the infrastructure of several targeted cities.

A week ago, the occupation forces began a large-scale operation in the northern West Bank under the pretext of dismantling resistance cells. Since then, resistance fighters have been confronting them with explosive devices and gunfire, resulting in the deaths and injuries of several Israeli soldiers.

The operation has so far resulted in the martyrdom of 33 Palestinians and the injury of 130 others, causing significant destruction to the infrastructure in the cities and camps of Jenin, Tulkarm, Nablus, and Tubas. The Israeli occupation forces have not only liquidated several resisters in the Nur Shams refugee camp, northeast of Tulkarm, Jenin Camp, Tubas, and Nablus but also renewed their incursion into the city of Tulkarm on the evening of Monday, September 2. This time, they stationed themselves in the Tulkarm refugee camp, where the military operation is still ongoing.

The residents of the camps in the northern West Bank, particularly in the Tulkarm and Jenin camps, are experiencing a state of fear and terror. On Monday evening, Israeli occupation snipers targeted a civilian and his 15-year-old son. The father was transferred to the hospital, but the child died while attempting to leave the camp.

Israeli special forces also surrounded a Palestinian house in the village of Dhnaba, east of Tulkarm, and demanded the surrender of two Palestinian youths. According to eyewitnesses, they used a Palestinian child, no older than 16, as a human shield. The forces subsequently killed the two Palestinians, seized their bodies, and confiscated their private vehicle.

The Israeli occupation forces are also obstructing the movement of medical crews in the northern West Bank cities, particularly Tulkarm and Jenin, preventing them from entering the camps, transporting the injured, and assisting Palestinian patients in humanitarian cases.

The house that was surrounded and two Palestinians were executed in the village of Dhnabu

Jenin: The Other Gaza

17 December 2023 | International Solidarity Movement | Jenin

On Wednesday, December 13, I received a message from a fellow actress of the Freedom Theatre informing me that the occupation forces had arrested without charge Mustafa Sheta, theatre director and general manager, Ahmed Tobasi, artistic director, as well as Jamal Abu Joas, acting coach. The arrests took place in a military raid carried out by the occupation forces in the city of Jenin, with their main target being the refugee camp where the headquarters of the Freedom Theatre is located.

Mustafa Sheta was arrested at his home in the city of Jenin, where they handcuffed him and took him, mercilessly, in front of his children. They sat the whole family in the living room and when they identified Mustafa they asked him, “Have you done anything?” To which Mustafa replied, “I have not done anything.” Still, the occupation forces took him away and to this day nothing is known about him.

Mustafa Sheta, Freedom Theater Director, arrested and still imprisoned by IOF. Credit: The Freedom Theatre

On the night of December 12, 2023, Tobasi heard soldiers knocking on neighbors’ doors. He got dressed, put on a winter jacket and got ready because he was worried about them coming to his home.

The next morning, shortly after 9 a.m., the Israelis began attacking and looting the Freedom Theatre. They fired from inside the theatre, destroying the offices and knocking down a wall. Tobasi’s house is directly across from the Freedom Theatre.

Around 11:30 a.m., still fully dressed and still hearing disturbances, he came out and said, “Why are you making all this noise? You are terrorizing children.”

The Israeli army took Tobasi and beat him. They made him take off his jacket and threw him on the ground in the street, in the cold and rain.

Shouting at Tobasi that he should stay there, the army entered his house and broke everything. They smashed his computer screen, his iPad, and destroyed everything they could, even taking the plants and throwing them on the ground.

After breaking everything in the house, the Israeli army took a towel from the house and blindfolded Tobasi. They then went to look for Mohammed, Tobasi’s brother.

Occupation forces handcuffed them both and took them away. They did not have enough clothing for the cold and winter weather.

Jamal Abu Joas has also been captured by the Israeli army.

Jamal recently graduated from the Freedom Theatre School of Performing Arts, where he is now an acting coach and also a freelance photographer.

The army invaded his house, and searched and took everything, including Jamal’s phone and camera. The soldiers have beaten him brutally.

On Thursday afternoon we decided to go to the city of Jenin in support and solidarity for my colleagues and friends from the Freedom Theatre and to document what had happened.

We arrived around two in the afternoon in the city of Jenin, and all the shops were closed. Some boys helped us get closer to the entrance of the refugee camp. Between the sounds of detonations of live ammunition and the smell of teargas we advanced, but only halfway. On the way we had to stop, there was an ambulance and a barricade that blocked the way.

Further up, at the entrance to the refugee camp, there was a convoy of the Israeli army. Journalists were gathered on the edge of the street at the entrance of a hospital and residential house. We waited for about 10 minutes; the sound of the live fire grew louder. But then the occupation forces withdrew and we were able to enter.

We entered through a side street towards the central square of the camp. From the first moment we could see the level of destruction that had been undertaken. The streets were completely destroyed, the doors of the houses broken, the shops destroyed, the water was running all over the place. What were once streets were now muddy fields because the army had also broken the pipes to destroy the water infrastructure. The level of destruction was incalculable.

We arrived at the central square which was unrecognizable. Wherever one turned there was graffiti of the Star of David painted on walls.

All the surroundings were damaged. We joined with local community members trying to clean a little and see how they could repair what the occupation forces had destroyed. We continued walking towards the theatre. My eyes could not recognize where I was. This place that I walked so many times could not be connected with my memories. The firefighters were putting out a fire in a house that still seemed to be burning We could feel the heat coming off as we passed by.

When we arrived outside the theatre, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The place that I saw so full of life the last time I was there was covered by a spectral silence. The warehouse, the theatre room, the offices, everything had been destroyed. They threw everything everywhere. They broke everything: books, pictures, doors, computers, screens, glass. And again, the Star of David was everywhere one looked. They did this as an exercise in intimidation, cruelty and power. This was not only an attack on life but also an attack on freedom. The occupation forces want to end any type of resistance.

I went out to the parking lot again and see a man outside the theatre room. When he turns to me, it takes me a moment to recognize him. He is Tobasi. They have released him. I hug him tightly. I feel relieved to see him again. He asks me how I am. “Confused,” I respond, “I think it’s absurd for me to ask you.” But he nevertheless responded, “Alhamdulillah.”

It is evident that they have hurt him, that they tortured him, that they beat him. It is difficult for him to walk. We entered the office at a slow but steady pace. “They destroyed everything,” he says. When we are in one of the offices outside we hear the noise of a car engine, he turns around and asks me, “Is it a jeep?” No, it’s just a car, but we have to leave. We offer to help clean, but he says, “Later, now it’s not safe. They can come back at any time.

Already on the street outside the theatre, we say goodbye. I told him to write to me, that I will return. He said, “Yes, but in a couple of days, now it is not safe.” I told him that I am here for him, for Mustafa and for the Freedom Theatre. I initially came to do an artistic residency with them, which was cut short by the events that arose after October 7. “Take care of yourself, be careful, stay safe,” he said.

IOF damaged the inside of the Freedom Theatre. Credit: ISM

We continued walking deeper into the camp, reaffirming with our eyes the horror and devastation.

We reached the roundabout where the great monument of the map of Palestine was located, which was knocked down. We advanced a little further and the children around us run and shout at us “Jeish Jeish,” the occupation forces had returned. Explosions were heard and the sound of the siren announcing a new incursion. We didn’t have much time to stop and think of what to do, to either take refuge in the theatre or continue to try to reach the service station to Ramallah. We decided to continue. A Palestinian in a car offered us a ride to the service station; walking wasn’t safe. We tried to insist on giving him money but he more insistently refused. At the service station we said goodbye.

The service advanced towards Ramallah, leaving behind the unprecedented devastation. My memories want to find a place in this reality. It is like trying to put together a puzzle from which several pieces have been stolen.

The next morning Tobasi gives an interview in which he says the attack on the refugee camp has been the most devastating, the most violent since 2002, referring to the second intifada. Jenin is now in some ways the other Gaza.

Blocking Paths to the Holy

Children sit outside of Al Aqsa Mosque after being denied entry. Photo Credit: ISM

Israeli soldiers and police once again blocked the majority of worshippers from entering Al Aqsa Mosque on Friday, December 15th. Among those excluded were many young children who attempted to enter but were prevented by Israeli soldiers and police. The soldiers and police also pushed and beat many people away from the gates of Al Aqsa, down Via Dolorosa, out Lion’s Gate, and beyond, including shoving some women. At least one journalist was severely beaten as well and required medical attention.

An Israeli soldier violently assaults a Palestinian women attempting to attend the Mosque for prayer. Still from Video Credit: Silwanic.net

Israel has laid siege on Al Aqsa Mosque since October 7th. In multiple locations throughout Al Quds (the Arabic name for the city of Jerusalem meaning “the holy”), groups of people once again got as close as they were able to the Al Aqsa Mosque, laid down their prayer mats and prayed.

Palestinians pray surrounded by soldiers blocking their entrance to Al Aqsa. Photo Credit: ISM

At the same time that police and soldiers are denying worshippers entry to Al Aqsa Mosque for Friday prayers, they are desecrating other Mosques, such as the Mosques in Jenin where soldiers have spray painted Mosques, threw trash in them, and sang songs over the loudspeaker used to broadcast the call to prayer.

Graffiti on Mosque in Jenin. Photo Credit: ISM

Attacks on places of worship are against the rules of war, but thus far Israeli army and police have targeted mosques and churches in Gaza and the West Bank and done so without repercussions from international political bodies such as the International Criminal Court or United Nations.

42 Days Transgressed: Legal Restraints on Life Support from Jenin to Gaza City

Medical workers being marched out of Jenin Hospital. Credit: Al Jazeera.

17 November 2023 | International Solidarity Movement | Jenin, Gaza

Through the war riddled lens of Palestinian journalists’ reports and social media posts, we have watched the crossing of an invisible line.

As an American nurse doing human rights monitoring work in the occupied West Bank, I woke today to see the lens focused on a team of outfitted medical workers being marched out of Jenin Hospital in the night, arms in the air, as occupation bulldozers, drones and operatives draped the community in a spark-lit flash of raining bullets and blasts. Those who died bled in the streets where they have lived, likely discussing ‘the war’ on a daily basis.

The question of where and what good is International Humanitarian Law has been posed by people and organizational bodies stretching back over decades. But it has been screamed into a void for 42 days of brutal bombardment in Gaza and through soaring instances of settler rampages and incursions against Palestinians in the occupied territory.

For a foreign medical worker, it is hard to intimate this occurrence unfolding in the West. The same law limping through the fog of bomb blasts in Gaza would forbid it.

The law is plain. Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, not only demands that the wounded and sick be cared for but it is made wholly clear that medical units must be respected and protected at all times, and must not be the object of attack as announced in Additional Protocol II.

From Shifa to Al Ahli to Indonesian to Al Quds Hospitals, the occupation army has stomped roughshod over what has been enshrined in these charters, an entitlement they have been granted through the arms and funding pipeline flowing from the United States.

The law goes on to state that “under the Statute of the International Criminal Court, intentionally directing attacks against hospitals and places where the sick and the wounded are collected… in conformity with international law constitutes a war crime.”

An investigation into violations of these laws of armed conflict by Israeli occupation forces in Gaza was birthed amid the aftermath of ‘Operation Protective Edge’ during which countless instances of proportionality and discernment violations were committed. Israeli authorities refused participation and forbade an official Gazan body to take part, blunting the teeth of the query.

But to date through the courageous reporting of Palestinians on the ground, the grinding documentation of daily atrocities must continue to be spotlit in both humanitarian and legal contexts and given the breath that millions worldwide have thus far provided through ceaseless acts of resistance and blockade actions.

An outcry to adopt universal jurisdiction through domestic courts may be another avenue to introduce justice into an area justice-deprived.

According to the International Rescue Committee, “Prosecutions can also take place in some domestic courts that have adopted “universal jurisdiction.” That refers to courts deciding to prosecute a crime committed outside its country by people who are not its nationals–but where the crime is serious enough to warrant prosecution anywhere.”

If we are committed to action, not only to halt the atrocities animated for the world through a stop-motion flood of images, videos and audio from on the ground in Gaza City to Jenin and Masafer Yatta to Khan Younis, let us also relentlessly pursue the avenues where barriers can be torn down to allow the long delayed, long deprived justice that Palestinians running from occupation bombs and bullets at this moment deserve.

The U.S. is a refuser of International Criminal Court participation but many other nations are members who can seek legal action against those recorded committing atrocities against the bodies of murdered Palestinians, likewise those seen marching medical workers at gunpoint out of Jenin Hospital last night. Those air striking hospitals. Those bombing schools and refugee camps.

The Hague awaits the ‘moral army’ flying flags over Shifa Hospital in their brave defeat of an illegally targeted medical facility where injured children and civilians were robbed of the last bastion of security in the warzone that has been made of their home.