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.
“What do you want from me?” a 70-year-old lawyer and professor of economics asked the Israeli military when they arrested him last year. “You are very dangerous,” was the explanation. Recalling his reply, the man laughs, his kind face lighting up: “I am dangerous to one of the most powerful armies in the world?! I am a danger to the only nuclear power in the Middle East?! I only have my pen, my notebook, and my mind.”
Exactly.
Following his arrest, the professor spent 6 months in Israeli administrative detention, an illegal practice of indefinite incarceration without any legal process, no charges let alone trial, and under ‘secret evidence’ that is never revealed to the prisoner nor their lawyer, and may or may not exist. As of 1 March 2014, Israel was holding 183 Palestinians under administrative detention.
On Thursday 24 April this year over 100 Palestinian political detainees went on an open-end hunger strike demanding the end of administrative detention. That was four weeks ago today (21 May); more prisoners have joined the strike along the way, bringing the total number to over 140; and even more are expected to follow.
“No-one wants to be hungry,” says Raed Amer, Nablus chairperson of the Palestinian Prisoners Society, an organization that supports prisoners and their families. But what other methods do people held incommunicado in occupation dungeons have, to fight for their rights and their dignity?
In an attempt to break the hunger strike, the Israeli Prison Service (IPS) has tried a diversity of tactics except for one: meeting the strikers’ demands. The repressive measures include both physical and psychological violence and abuse: isolation; severe beatings (in some cases prisoners lost consciousness for several hours, during which no medical assistance was allowed); denial of water and salt which are essential for human survival; denial of lawyer and family visits; violent raids and searches during which prisoners are made wait in an overcrowded cage while handcuffed; mass transfers from one prison to another, designed to disrupt and isolate; and dehumanizing treatment and conditions – e.g. confiscation of all personal belongings, denial of basic hygiene products and change of underwear, filthy toilet facilities, and cells of a size that violates IPS’s own regulations.
Even IPS medical staff are collaborating with these increasingly repressive actions against the hunger strikers. The Palestinian Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, Addameer, reported recently that after Mahmoud Shabaneh fainted as a result of his hunger strike, prison staff waited for 3 hours until they finally transferred him to the prison clinic. Doctors there then tried to offer him food as a provocation, which is in direct violation of the World Medical Association’s Malta Declaration on Hunger Strikers, of which Israel is a signatory. The Malta Declaration specifically states that “physicians must try to prevent coercion or maltreatment of detainees and must protest if it occurs“.
Additionally, the Israeli Knesset (parliament) is currently debating a bill that would legalize force-feeding, a practice the World Medical Association considers “never ethically acceptable“. Force-feeding in Israeli dungeons already has a tragic precedent: in the early 1980s, after a lengthy hunger strike in Nafha prison, Ali Ja’fari and Rasem Halawi died after doctors inserted the tubes in the wrong place.
Nablus protest in solidarity with the hunger strikers. Currently 24 of the hunger strikers are from Nablus (photo by IWPS).
The current hunger strike is yet another attempt of Palestinian political prisoners to bring Themis to the place she has been absent for so long. In 2012, after a mass hunger strike that started on 17 April, Palestinian Prisoners Day, and involved around 2,000 prisoners, an agreement was signed between IPS and the Higher Committee for Prisoners in which Israel promised to limit its use of the illegal practice of administrative detention to exceptional circumstances. Two years later, administrative detention is still systematic. Fake promises?
Exactly.
Hunger strikes have played an important role in the struggle of Palestinians held prisoner by Israel. “Every achievement in prisons for simple, daily things such as sanitation, bed, or radio have been reached through hunger strikes,” says Saed Abu-Hijleh, an activist, poet, and lecturer at An-Najah National University in Nablus. During the Oslo Accords of the 1990s, Abu-Hijleh says, Palestinian people were expecting all political prisoners to be released from Israeli jails, since a ‘peace treaty’ was being signed between Israel and the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization). However, such hopes never materialized and Palestinian prisoners became a bargaining chip in political negotiations – the so-called “peace process” – ever since.
Moreover, Jawad Boulus, chief lawyer of the Palestinian Prisoners Society, said in an interview with IWPS that the Israeli state is becoming more and more repressive: it places Palestinians in administrative detention simply because they resist the Israeli occupation. Some people have been held in prison without charges for 10-12 years; the list of administrative detainees includes highly educated people – doctors, lawyers, journalists, as well as political and community leaders. Boulus added that two administrative detainees started their hunger strike earlier and have now spent more than 80 days without food; the Israeli military court system rejected their appeal and ordered them to serve additional time.
According to Boulus, one of the most important achievements of Palestinian prisoners is that they’ve developed a prisoners movement with a code of conduct and a moral value system. “Officers and guards can see how detainees are engaged in a human struggle against injustice,” he says. Whether they choose to accept what they see or continue being complicit in the suppression of this struggle for human rights and dignity is another issue.
The current Palestinian hunger strike is to hit Day 30 on Friday 23 May. After 14 days on hunger strike, catabolysis – a biological process during which the body starts to break down muscle tissue and fat for survival – occurs. Physical implications are increasingly serious: people start having difficulty standing up and suffer from severe dizziness, weakness, loss of coordination, and shivers. After 3-4 weeks on hunger strike, or when more than 18% of body weight is lost, there is a risk of medical complications becoming permanent; among them – loss of hearing and vision, indifference to surroundings, and incoherence. This is when the body, having no other source of energy, starts consuming itself: first fat, then muscles, and finally vital organs.
It is generally considered that a healthy person who consumes water during their hunger strike would have an absolute limit of 60 days. However, many of the Palestinian ‘administrative detainees’ who entered the hunger strike were already in ill-health, due to Israel’s refusal to provide them with proper treatment while in prison.
What thoughts run in the mind of a person on hunger strike? “You don’t think about your body – rather, you think about your family, your loved ones, and what you can do for them,” says Amer from the Nablus branch of the Palestinian Prisoners Society, who himself went on a 20-day-long hunger strike during his time in Israeli occupation prison in the pre-Oslo period.
As if to echo his words, Boulous quotes from a poem: “I am ready to give half my life to somebody who can make a crying child laugh…” and adds that “every Palestinian prisoner case is a big issue”. Ending the occupation is a big issue. Helping families to visit their loved ones in prison is a big issue. National morality and resistance is a big issue. How to pass Qalandiya checkpoint without loss of dignity is a big issue. Israel’s crimes against human rights are a big issue. The fact that Israel tortures prisoners is a big issue.
“Prisoners on hunger strike cannot go back now,” Abu-Hijleh says. “It’s ‘Either I go home, or I go in a plastic bag’.”
“We don’t have an alternative. We cannot raise the white flag,” Amer adds.
Exactly.
“I am an administrative detainee…” – activists reading out stories of Palestinians held prisoners by Israel (photo by IWPS).
LATEST NEWS:
– The IPS has so far refused to take the hunger strike seriously and prefers to turn “a blind eye and a deaf ear” on the prisoners’ rightful, legal, and legitimate demands. Palestinian Minister of Detainee Affairs, Issa Qaraqe, said in a statement that “a state of alert is taking place inside of Israeli jails in anticipation of projected deaths among Palestinian hunger strikers. Instructions handed to all prisons and hospitals, where Palestinian hunger strikers are held, called for the complete shutdown of the strikers’ cells, including all gates and windows, and denial of any access out of or into cells, even for urgent medical check-ups, under any spur-of-the-moment pretext.”
– Waad Association for Detainees and Ex-Detainees warned of the serious deterioration of Palestinian administrative detainees’ health conditions after more than 3 weeks on hunger strike. Many of the striking prisoners are sick detainees denied medical treatment.
Tell the Israeli authorities and IPS in particular what you think of their crimes against Palestinian political prisoners. IPS general contact email is ips@mail.gov.il, telephone number +972 (0)89776666. Can also be contacted through the website.
16th May 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus Team | Nablus, Occupied Palestine
Photo by ISM
Erected in the duar (city center) in the northern Palestinian city of Nablus, is a large tent utilized throughout the day by those in solidarity with the exceeding-one-hundred Palestinian administrative detainees.
“We will stay here as long as it takes” says Yousef, a Lawyer and University Lecturer, implying that the tent will remain until the hunger strike ceases.
Within the tent sits two fathers who are holding posters of their sons’, both married with children, one a journalist with a masters degree, the other with a doctorate; hence encapsulating the political motives behind these illegal incarcerations.
There have been dispersed hunger strikes by activist groups for one day at a time in solidarity with the prisoners.
Currently on its 24th day, the hunger strike is in objection to the ‘administrative detainee’ prisoner status, prisoners can be detained without a criminal charge, little to no visitation (in some cases none for months), inadequate to no legal representation, exploitative prisoner treatment, and lengthy/nonexistent trials.
On the 20th day salt was excluded from the diet, which now consists entirely of water.
Detainees are constantly denied proper medical care, while clothing is confiscated. Beatings, isolation, and violent raids of prisoner cells are common realities.
In recent developments, the Knesset (Israeli Legislative branch) is debating legislation to grant Israeli personnel authority to force feed hunger strikers.
Meanwhile, the occupants of the tent are calling for more honest and widespread media coverage, alongside an increase in foreign support.
The latest wave of mass hunger strikes continue for the 14th day as Palestinian prisoners demand the end of the policy of administrative detention. Administrative detention is a procedure in which Palestinians are arbitrarily arrested and detained without charge or trial based on a secret file. There are currently 183 Palestinians under administrative detention, 9 of them members of the Palestinian Legislative Council. On 24 April 2014, the administrative detainees announced a mass hunger strike to demand their freedom. Detainees will periodically continue to join the hunger strike if the demands are not met. There are currently 95 detainees on hunger strike in Ofer, Megiddo and Naqab prisons. It should be noted that Ofer and Megiddo prisons are provided services by the British-Danish company G4S, which installed cameras and surveillance equipment used to control the Palestinian prisoners. According to one hunger striker who spoke with Addameer lawyer Mahmoud Hassan, the detainees in the Naqab Prison have all been transferred to an isolated section, separate from the other prisoners. The cells are covered in sand. They have been ill-treated; suffering from daily searches of their cells and being permitted to change their undergarments only twice since the beginning of the strike. They are bound and handcuffed in their cells for ten hours a day. Three of the hunger strikers in Naqab prison, Fadi Hammad, Fadi Omar and Soufian Bahar, are now in solitary confinement and one detainee, Ahmad Abu Ras, was transferred to an undisclosed location. Furthermore, the IPS has been denying the hunger strikers salt for the last two weeks. Prisoners who engage in hunger strikes still take liquids and salt, as they are essential for survival. Denial of salt is a continuation of the punishments against hunger strikers, and despite the grave danger it imposes on the lives of the detainees, has been institutionalized by the Israeli Supreme Court. In 2004, the Israeli Supreme Court denied a petition by Adalah: The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, and several other Palestinian and Israeli NGOs that demanded the IPS provide salt on a daily basis to hunger-striking prisoners as its denial breaches the constitutional rights of the prisoner. The hunger strikers can potentially face harsher punishments if the IPS’s most recent proposed bill to legalize force-feeding is approved in the Knesset. The memorandum is currently up for public critique. In addition, 42 hunger strikers have been transferred to Ayalon / Ramleh Prison, including Abd Al Rizziq Farraj and Salem Dardasawi. On 4 May 2014, their cells were raided and the hunger strikers beaten. Mohammad Maher Badr’s finger was broken during the attack and Mohammad Jamal Al-Natsheh had to be hospitalized for the injuries sustained from the attack. The prisoners are in overcrowded isolation cells, with seven hunger strikers in each. They are in their cells at all times and denied recreational hours in the yard. Addameer maintains that the Occupation’s authorities are solely responsible for the lives of the hunger strikes. Addameer also demands that all contracting parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention pressure Israel to immediately release all administrative detainees and cease the use of administrative detention.
Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association can confirm the launch of a mass open-ended hunger strike involving over 100 Palestinian political detainees. All those involved are being held under administrative detention, which is a procedure whereby detainees are held without charge or trial.
Today’s hunger strike can be traced back to May 2012 when an agreement was reached between the Israeli Prison Service and representatives of the prisoners, which brought an end to a mass hunger strike involving approximately 2,000 political prisoners. As part of this agreement Israel agreed to limit its use of administrative detention to only exceptional circumstances. However, since then Israel has reneged on the agreement and has continued to use administrative detention on a systematic basis leaving the detainees with little choice but to launch a fresh strike.
The strike is currently taking place in Ofer, Megiddo and the Naqab Prisons and there are plans to escalate the strike should the striking detainee’s demands not be met. The general demand of the hunger strikers is an end to the use of administrative detention. The hunger strikers are also specifically demanding that extensions to administrative detention orders are limited to one extension only.
As of 1 March 2014 there were 183 Palestinians being held without charge or trial under administrative detention, including 9 Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) members. This number has been steadily increasing over the last year. In 2014 alone, Israel has used administrative detention against 142 detainees, including renewing existing orders and issuing new orders.
Addameer lawyer Samer Sama’an today visited a number of administrative detainees, including PLC member Yasser Mansour, at the Naqab Prison. It was confirmed that 55 administrative detainees being held in the Naqab Prison have launched a hunger-strike. All striking detainees were immediately isolated by the Israeli Prison Service from the rest of the prison population and are currently being held in tents.
As mentioned administrative detainees are held without charge are trial. They are detained on completely ‘secret evidence’ and neither they nor their lawyers have access to such evidence. Some detainees have spent over eight years in prison, never knowing
what was contained in the ‘secret evidence’. While administrative detention is legal under international law, it must be used in very specific circumstance and on a case-by-case basis. This is clearly not the case given Israel has used administrative detention against tens of thousands of Palestinians.
In another development Mr. Sama’man reported that prisoners and detainees being held at the Naqab Prison wishing to meet their lawyers are forced to wait for long periods of time in tiny cells which lack any sort of ventilation. As a result many are choosing not to meet with their lawyers due to the humiliating procedures that the Israeli Prison Service has imposed on them.
Addameer holds the Israeli authorities solely responsible for the health of all hunger strikers. Addameer also demands that all contracting parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention pressure Israel to immediately release all administrative detainees and cease the use of administrative detention. Furthermore, Addameer calls on global civil society to mobilize without delay in support of the striking detainees and 5,000 Palestinian political prisoners currently being held in Israeli prisons.
