27th August 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza Team | Gaza, Occupied Palestine
Yesterday Veronika Abu Sisi, the wife of Palestinian electrical engineer Dirar Abu Sisi, spoke with media and supporters in the Gaza Strip to denounce the international kidnapping, summary detention and solitary confinement of her husband.
Veronika Abu Sisi, center, stands with supporters. (Photo by Joe Catron)
“We won’t give up until Dirar Abu Sisi is released,” Veronika Abu Sisi said outside the couple’s Gaza City apartment building. “They steal our land, they put us in jail, but we have the right to live here. This is our home. I just hope my husband will be back soon with me and our children.”
Veronika Abu Sisi, left, speaks with supporters. (Photo by Joe Catron)
Dirar Abu Sisi, deputy engineer of the Gaza Strip’s only power plant, was kidnapped from an overnight train in Ukraine, his wife’s native country, on 18 February 2011. The Zionist entity announced it had detained him weeks after his disappearance.
On Friday, 16 August, after two and a half years in Zionist captivity without charge or trial, he began an open hunger strike. Following more than a week on hunger strike, in addition to prolonged solitary confinement and other forms of torture, his health, already deteriorating, is reportedly critical.
Young supporters of Dirar Abu Sisi rally in Gaza on 10 July. (Photo by Joe Catron)
Dirar and Veronika Abu Sisi have six children: Mousa (13), Malah (11), Aya (9), Mohammad (8), Maria (6) and Osama (4).
On 20 May, Obeida Shamali visited his father, Ahmad Abd Alraheem Shamali, in Israel’s Nafha prison. It was the first time they had seen each other since Israeli forces captured Ahmad in August 2008.
Palestinian children in Gaza hold a protest outside the International Committee of the Red Cross, demanding the release of their relatives detained by Israel. (Joe Catron)
“I was very happy,” the seven-year-old said. He was sitting under a picture of his father in his family’s house in Gaza City’s al-Shajaiyeh neighborhood. “Before it, I imagined how his face would look when I met him, because I hadn’t seen him for such a long time.”
But children of detainees remained unable to visit their incarcerated parents for almost another year. Only last month, on 6 May, did Israel allow seven children — all younger than eight years old — to accompany 54 other members of prisoners’ families through the Erez checkpoint, which separates Gaza from present-day Israel. Some 33 children have now joined four prison visits, according to Dibeh Fakhr, a spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross, which coordinates family visits to detainees with the Israeli authorities.
A recent report on the policy by the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem described the current visitation regime. “Visits are permitted very infrequently, only once a week on Mondays, and then only at one prison facility at a time: Nafha, Ramon and Eshel (Dekel),” according to the group. “As a result, each eligible inmate receives a visit once every three or four months. In contrast, inmates from Israel or from the West Bank who are held on criminal or security grounds may receive visits once every two weeks” (“Israel prohibits Gazan children from visiting imprisoned fathers,” 23 May 2013).
“We were all flying with happiness,” Najah Shamali, Ahmad’s mother and Obeida’s grandmother, said about the news that their entire family would be able to visit Ahmad for the first time. “The whole family celebrated. Everyone obsessed about the visit and could hardly wait for it to come.”
“No justification”
But the visit might have been Obeida’s last. Israel’s new policy still bars Gaza Strip children aged eight or older from visiting their detained parents. And Obeida’s eighth birthday — on 10 July — will almost certainly come before his family’s next visit.
“These policies show that the main aim of the Israeli prison system is to destroy the well-being of prisoners,” Rifat Kassis, the director of Defence for Children International — Palestine Section, said. “There is no justification for imposing these restrictions on Palestinian children from communicating and visiting their fathers in Israeli prisons. Even the security justification Israel uses to justify its policies are not in line with its human rights obligations and cannot stand.”
According to Kassis, Israel’s restrictions on family visits violate not only its responsibilities under international law, but also its own written regulations. “Denying political prisoners, especially those who are from the Gaza Strip, from their visitation rights for prolonged periods of time and imposing restrictions on them when they enjoy this right, including putting limitations and restrictions on who is eligible to visit them, is a form of collective punishment,” he said.
“The right of prisoners to receive visitors, especially near relatives, at regular intervals and as frequently as possible is recognized by the Fourth Geneva Convention.
“These practices are not in conformity with the Israeli Prison Service instructions related to the right of visitation of prisoners. The IPS instructions reads that the prisoners have the right to receive family visits after three months of imprisonment, once every two weeks.”
At the end of April, Israel held 511 Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, according to B’Tselem. Many are detained for lengthy sentences. “Most of their children are [older than] eight years,” said Osama Wahidi, a spokesman for the Hussam Association, a Gaza-based group for current and former detainees. “Very few are younger.”
The Hussam Association campaigns around issues of family visitation, issuing statements and holding rallies at the ICRC. Many of its activities, Wahidi said, aim to draw the attention of international media and human rights organizations.
“Their positions are very bad,” he said. “When [Israeli soldier] Gilad Shalit was detained by the Palestinian resistance here in Gaza, every human rights organization talked about him. At the same time, most of them, and the international media, never mentioned Palestinian detainees. But they demanded that Shalit should be released. He was a soldier; he was holding a weapon; he was targeting Palestinian civilians.”
“We don’t have a magic wand to release all the detainees. That’s why we are trying to find ways to talk about the suffering of detainees, their families, and their children. We don’t have any other way.”
“I send him voice messages through a radio station, and written messages through the ICRC,” said Nisma al-Aqraa, the 15-year-old daughter of Mahed Faraj al-Aqraa. She has not seen her father, a fighter for the Popular Resistance Committees’ al-Nasser Salah al-Deen Brigades, since his capture by Israeli forces in July 2007. Categorized as a “permanent sick detainee” in the Ramleh prison hospital, where he is serving three life sentences, both of his legs have been amputated.
“I saw him behind a glass barrier,” Hamze Helles complained. “I couldn’t go inside.” Hamze, who had just turned eight when Israel’s policy shifted on 6 May, was able to visit his father Majed Khalil Helles, a fighter for Fatah’s al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades sentenced to five years, in Nafha prison on 20 May, through an apparent administrative oversight. It was Hamze’s first visit since his father’s capture by Israeli forces in August 2008.
“It doesn’t make any sense to deprive a small child who will never cause any harm to Israel,” Wahidi said. “It’s not logical. But Israel doesn’t care about its reputation. It feels like it is a state above the law, that no one can hold it accountable for its crimes. Nobody in the international community has shown otherwise.”
At around 1:30am Palestine local time I was lying on my side in my bed trying to sleep and doing my best to ignore the queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach as I thought about how the 64th commemoration of Nakba Day would pan out.
My phone suddenly vibrated jarringly. I grabbed it and the name of the last person I expected to call me was flashing on the screen: Abu Thaer Halahleh, the father of Palestinian hunger striker Thaer Halahleh. I immediately answered.
What I learned in the conversation was a cause for both joy, and serious concern about a pattern of pressure to isolate prisoners and coerce them into accepting deals.
“Hello?”
“Hello…is this Um Muhammad?”
“No, this is her daughter. Is that Fathiya?”
“Yes, it’s me, Thaer’s sister.”
My heart stopped. I thought she had called to tell me Thaer had died. She cleared her throat. “I just want to tell you…I’m happy to tell you that Thaer has taken the decision to end his hunger strike in the morning.”
My heart swelled. “Tell me more!” I almost shouted.
“He will be released on 5 June after Israel signed a contract promising not to renew his detention… during that time he will receive medical aid to help his recuperation.” Fathiya was bubbling with happiness.
“What about Bilal Thiab and the other hunger strikers?”
“I’m not sure yet about Bilal…Thaer called my family in Kharas at around 12:45 am to inform them of the news. People in Kharas fired their guns in the air at 1 am when they heard the news. The mosques’ loudspeakers carried the call of ‘Allahu Akbar’ at that time too. My family immediately called my father to tell him the news but he didn’t believe him. Thaer was allowed to make another call to my house, and we almost didn’t pick up because it was a private number…anyway, talk to my father.”
“Uncle! This is fantastic news!” I said to Abu Thaer.
“Yes, my daughter, thank God. You heard he was to be released on 5 June?”
“Yes…tell me, how did he sound on the phone? What was it like talking to him again after two years?”
“His spirits are high, and his voice…well you know, it’s a good thing he can even talk after 77 days on hunger strike. But one thing he said struck me hard. He told me that if I wasn’t satisfied with his decision he was ready to continue his hunger strike.”
I asked him if he knew more information. He told me that all administrative detainees signed a deal with the Israeli Prison Service (brokered by an Egyptian mediator) to end their hunger strike in return for getting released once their detention was up, with Israel promising not to renew their detention.
“This means that Bilal Thiab will be released in August, because that’s when his administrative detention ends,” Thaer’s dad said.
Bilal was arrested on 17 August 2011.
“I don’t know if Bilal will be released on August 17 or not,” continued Thaer’s dad. “You know how it is with the occupation. They will find any excuse to postpone the release of a prisoner even by a few days. Thaer’s administrative detention ends on May 27 but he is getting released a week later.”
Deal raises new questions over role of Jawad Boulos and pressure on hunger strikers
The deal was struck after midnight, in the Ramle prison hospital. It is not known for sure whether Thaer and Bilal’s lawyer, Jamil Khatib was present, but Jawad Boulos, the lawyer who conducted the deals for Khader Adnan and the even murkier one with Hana al-Shalabiwas there.
Israel has consistently denied prisoners access to their lawyers of choice, so there is special reason to be concerned when Israel allows lawyers who do not represent the prisoners into the room.
On 14 May, Maan News Agency reported that Issa Qaraqe, a Palestinian Authority minister, had told media that Boulos had been dispatched to Ramle Prison to speak to Thaer Halahleh and fellow long-term hunger striker Bilal Diab.
The Egyptian mediator, the Higher Committee for prisoners, and the Israel Prison Service officials were also there.
Boulos was the key figure in the deal which ended up with Hana al-Shalabi being banished to Gaza for three years on 1 April in exchange for releasing her from administrative detention.
In her comments to The Electronic Intifada, al-Shalabi demanded that her lawyer [Boulos] clarify to her and to the public the controversial circumstances surrounding the deal to send her to Gaza.
Al-Shalabi’s account casts doubt on the claims that it was her “choice” and confirm that she may have received misleading information in order to induce her to accept the deal.
Is there a pattern here? It does look like Israel and those working with it to end the strike are creating conditions where prisoners are isolated from family, their own legal representation and independent medical personnel and then a “good cop” lawyer of Israel’s and the Palestinian Authority’s choice is brought in to pressure them to accept a deal.
This has now become a pattern with Boulos and there must be clarity and accountability.
A deal, but is it a victory?
Thaer’s father was speaking to me outside on a street, waiting for a taxi to take him back home to Kharas in Hebron. He hadn’t slept for three days.
“You better prepare the mansaf,” I joked.
“Of course. I’ll be waiting for you and your mother to come down to Kharas,” he laughed.
The fact that Thaer and Bilal and the other six hunger strikers in their second or third month without food will survive is a cause for great happiness. Yet this deal doesn’t seem like a victory.
Thaer and Bilal have vowed over and over again that they will not end their fast until immediate freedom or martyrdom, and with the involvement of Jawad Boulos in the arrangement similar to that of Khader Adnan’s, there seems to be more to it than meets the eye.
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — Hundreds of Palestinian prisoners agreed Monday to end a weekslong hunger strike after winning concessions from Israel to improve their conditions, the two sides announced.
The deal ended a strike in which prisoners had gone without food for up to 77 days, leaving several prisoners in life-threatening condition. It was the longest strike ever staged by Palestinians in Israeli custody.
With the Palestinians set to hold an annual day of mourning on Tuesday, both sides were eager to wrap up a deal to lower tensions. The Palestinians are marking what they call the “nakba,” or “catastrophe,” the term they use in describing the suffering that resulted from Israel’s establishment 64 years ago.
The Palestinian minister for Prisoner Affairs, Issa Qaraqe, said that Palestinian prisoner leaders signed the deal on Monday afternoon at an Israeli prison in Ashkelon. Israel’s Shin Bet security agency and Palestinian militant groups confirmed the deal, which was brokered by Egyptian mediators.
Two men launched the strike on Feb. 27, and were joined by hundreds of others on April 17.
Among their demands: permission to receive family visits from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, an end to solitary confinement and a halt to an Israeli policy of “administrative detention,” under which suspected militants are held for months, and sometimes years, without being charged. Israel has defended the policy as a necessary security measure.
According to a Palestinian negotiator, Israel agreed to allow prisoners from both the West Bank and Gaza to receive family visits. The visits from Gaza were halted in 2006 after Hamas-linked militants in Gaza captured an Israeli soldier. After the soldier was released in a prisoner swap last October, the Palestinians said the ban should be lifted.
He said Israel also agreed to halt its punitive policy of placing prisoners in solitary confinement, would allow prisoners to make phone calls to relatives and permit prisoners to pursue academic studies.
He spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to talk to the media.
There was no word on any change to the administrative detentions.
The Shin Bet said in return, the prisoners pledged “to absolutely stop terror activity from inside Israeli jails.” It also said militant group’s commanders outside the jails made a commitment “to prevent terror activity.” It did not elaborate.
Israel said some 1,600 prisoners, or more than a third of the 4,500 Palestinians held by Israel, joined the hunger strike. Palestinians said the number was closer to 2,500.
The fate of the prisoners is an emotional issue in Palestinian society, where nearly everyone has a neighbor or relative who has spent time in an Israeli jail. As the strike dragged on, hundreds of Palestinians took to the streets of the West Bank and Gaza to demonstrate in solidarity.
For families of the prisoners, any deal that did not win their freedom fell short.
“Will they release Bilal? Is it over?” asked Missadeh Diab, the elderly mother of Bilal Diab, one of the prisoners who refused food for 77 days. “May God give your demands and freedom.”
We have only two options: to achieve all of our demands, or to die
Free Palestinian people, masses of our nation, free people of the world….
We have entered a stage of legendary and draining human struggle, where we face real danger which threatens our lives. We are now very close to martyrdom, which is more precious and one of the best options for us.
We are now at the state of a great test of wills and we reject completely the attempts of the Prison Service management to force us to accept partial settlements in order to bring an end to this epic humanitarian struggle for justice. Here, we emphasize the following points:
We have only two options to achieve all of the following.
First, we swear not to go back without achieving our demands. We are waiting for martyrdom for the sake of our dignity, and we have prepared ourselves to confront our only two options – the victory of our humanity and our dignity, or our martyrdom without it.
Second, we strongly and firmly swear that we will continue with our battle of the empty stomachs, whatever the costs may be, until we achieve the minimum of our demands, particularly the immediate end to the horror of solitary confinement and isolation, and to allow prisoners from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank who have been denied family visits to receive them, and to return prison conditions to their pre-2000 state.
Third, we greatly appreciate the role of our great sister Egypt with regard to compelling “Israel” to implement the second part of an agreement and fulfilling its commitments, and we are confident that Egypt is an Arab leader that will not leave us to face this battle alone. We also affirm categorically that we will not end our strike without promptly achieving our demands. We are confident of the depth of support in our nation, and particularly in Egypt.
Finally, we are ready for martyrdom. We are not amateurs in hunger. Death is easier than disrespect for our dignity, so we swear we will live with dignity or die.
