8 March 2012 | International Middle East Media Center
Twenty-two years old Zakariay Abu Iram was killed while Mohamed Rashid, 18, was injured and arrested by Israeli troops as they attacked the southern West Bank village of Yatta on Thursday afternoon.
Residents told IMEMC that Israeli troops stormed the village and tried to arrest Khalied Makhamreh. He is a Palestinian political prisoner that got released from Israeli military detention last October as part of the Egyptian mediated swap deal between Palestinian groups and Israel.
“ Soldiers stormed the house of the released prisoner to arrest him. All the village rushed to stop the military.” Mohamed from Yatta who witnessed the attack told IMEMC.
The Israeli military said that one soldier was stabbed by youth before troops opened fire killing Abu Iram and injuring Rashid. “ I did not see anybody who even tried to stab the soldier” Mohamed told IMEMC.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society announced that Zakariay Abu Iram was shot in the head and died on location while Mohamed Rashid got hit with a bullet in his abdomen.
Medics added soldiers did not allow them to help Rashid at first but later troops allowed medics to give him first aid after leaving him to bleed on the ground for some time. Troops then arrested Rashid and took him to an Israeli military hospital.
Hundreds of Palestinian women filled the street outside Gaza’s International Committee of the Red Cross this morning, marking International Women’s Day by demanding the release of administrative detainee Hana Shalabi on the 22nd day of her open hunger strike.
The rally contained Palestinian women of every age, including many university students and other youth.
Many girls joined their mothers to express their support for Shalabi.
During the demonstration, which lasted several hours, tired participants rested inside a crowded protest tent.
Hundreds of Palestinians, mainly from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the Palestinian People’s Party (PPP), the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), and other leftist factions, rallied for administrative detainee Hana Shalabi, now on her 19th day of an open hunger strike, outside Gaza’s International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) this morning, ahead of International Women’s Day Thursday.
Photo courtesy Joe Catron, 2012
Their presence bolstered the numbers of a protest tent already erected at the ICRC entrance, and maintaining a continuous presence there, to support Shalabi.
Among the crowd, different kinds of red flags mixed easily with the black and yellow ones of Shalabi’s Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine.
Meanwhile dozens of Palestinians continued their weekly vigil for family members imprisoned by Israel, demanding that the ICRC fulfill its obligations to protect their rights.
“I hereby assert that I am confronting the occupiers not for my own sake as an individual, but for the sake of thousands of prisoners who are being deprived of their simplest human rights while the world and international community look on,” Sheikh Khader Adnan wrote from the bed that Israeli soldiers chained him to in the Ramleh prison hospital on 11 February.
“It is time the international community and the UN support prisoners and force the State of Israel to respect international human rights and stop treating prisoners as if they were not humans.” (Ma’an News Agency, “Hunger-striking prisoner not backing down,” 11 February 2012)
As we mark the 65th day of an ongoing hunger strike by Sheikh Khader Adnan, whose struggle has inspired millions and infused the Palestinian national and solidarity movements with new energy, we must reflect on his call to the world and prepare a meaningful international strategy to support Palestinian prisoners’ struggle for freedom, justice, and equality.
Khader Adnan is fighting for rights that should be guaranteed to all prisoners, including due process, fair and equal treatment, and freedom from torture and other coercive methods. Palestinian prisoners from the West Bank face a military justice system that is entirely separate from that for Jewish Israelis, including settlers, who are instead part of the Israeli civil justice system; this military justice system for Palestinian political prisoners includes systematic and arbitrary detention without charge, the acceptance of torture, an almost complete lack of due process, vague charges, very low standards of evidence including the use of secret evidence, and widely disparate and harsher sentencing than the civil justice system.In Israel’s domestic criminal justice system exists a system of apartheid Palestinian citizens of Israel charged with political offenses are deemed ‘security prisoners’ and treated very differently from Jewish citizens. Palestinians are subject to unjust and unequal trials using secret evidence, gag orders, and evidence obtained through torture. (Please see this comprehensive analysis by Addameer for further details.)
As of January 2012, 4,417 Palestinian political prisoners are held in jails in Israel, including 170 children and 6 women. Just like Khader, 310 prisoners are held – without charge or trial – under administrative detention including over 20 lawmakers. In solidarity with them, and to broaden Khader’s struggle, we will actively oppose their imprisonment and any detentions without fair trials.
We demand the immediate release of all Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. They have been targeted by an unfair and unequal legal system. Their imprisonment reflects Israel’s inherent system of injustice and racism. In addition, Israel must immediately halt its practices of:
Administrative detention.
Torture and ill-treatment of detainees.
Solitary confinement and isolation.
The use of military courts in the occupied Palestinian territory that illegally try civilians.
Undermining a fair trial by using secret evidence against the accused.
Arresting vulnerable groups, such as children, disabled, elderly and ill people.
On Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, Tuesday, April 17, we ask that all supporters of the Palestinian political prisoners’ movement bring Khader Adnan’s spirit of resistance to the doorsteps of his captors and would-be killers:
Organize a protest in front of your local Israeli embassy, consulate or mission.
Write letters to protest the violations of rights of Palestinian political prisoners and to call for an intervention to the International Committee of the Red Cross, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and your government or parliamentarians.
Raise awareness on your University campus or in your community about Palestinian political prisoners
Picket and protest G4S, Motorola, the Volvo Group, and the Israeli Medical Association – all providing services to Israel’s prisons – as well as other targets of the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which challenges the Israeli policies of occupation, colonization and apartheid these repressive institutions maintain.
Write letters to Palestinian prisoners expressing your support.
We must not allow Khader’s struggle to pass, like so many before his, as one more brave stand crushed by the armed might of the Israeli apartheid regime, unremarkable and inconsequential. Rather let this historic moment mark the beginning of a revitalized global movement for Palestinian prisoners, their rights, their families, and their struggle. Together, we can make it so.
*At approximately 7:50 PM local time, it was confirmed by Ran Cohen, Executive Director of Physicans for Human Rights-Israel, that Khader Adnan has ended his hunger strike.
Khader Adnan’s hearing at the Israeli High Court was cancelled today, 21 February 2012, only minutes before the hearing was to take place. On Khader’s 66th day of hunger strike in protest of his administrative detention and inhuman and degrading treatment by the Israeli authorities, one of Khader’s lawyers negotiated a deal with the Israeli military prosecutor that Khader will be released on 17 April instead of 8 May and that his administrative detention order will not be renewed. Addameer lawyer Samer Sam’an is actively working to gain permission to visit Khader to confirm whether or not he will continue with his hunger strike.
Photo Courtesy of Carlos Latuff, 2012
Khader previously stated to Addameer lawyers that though he was calling for his immediate and unconditional release, the minimum requirements he would consider for ending his hunger strike would be the guarantee that he would not receive a new administrative detention order and that his duration of detention would be considered from the date of his arrest on 17 December 2011 and not from the date that he received his administrative detention order on 8 January 2012. The provisions of the deal reached today as announced by the lawyer involved do meet these minimum requirements. However, if new “secret material,” upon which administrative detention is based, presents itself during the next two months, there would still be grounds for the renewal of his administrative detention order. This caveat is consistent with similar deals made in the past, in which Israeli officials leave the door open for re-arrests.
Addameer maintains that the fact that Israeli officials negotiated the duration of his detention, in addition to agreeing to an early release, reveals that there were no grounds for his administrative detention in the first place. His administrative detention order, as is the case with all other administrative detainees, is based on the alleged threat he poses to the “security of the State of Israel.” However, if Israeli officials agree that he will not be a threat on 17 April, as clear from today’s deal, he surely does not pose any threat today and his case provides further proof of Israel’s policy of arbitrary detention. Addameer reiterates its call for his immediate and unconditional release and the release of the 308 other administrative detainees.
Addameer’s main concern remains Khader’s health, in critical condition after over two months of hunger strike.Whether or not Khader continues his hunger strike, he must receive proper arrangements for observing his health condition, which will likely now have irreversible consequences. If he does decide to end his hunger strike, the potential complications from such a protracted hunger strike will require urgent and trusted care, which can only be provided if he is released.
Addameer continues to salute Khader Adnan for his incredible steadfastness in challenging Israel’s policy of holding Palestinians in detention without charge or trial, which is in violation of international law. Addameer further thanks all individuals and institutions who have chosen not to ignore the basic human rights violations being committed against Palestinian prisoners on a daily basis and who have expressed their explicit support for Khader and his fellow prisoners. The date set for Khader’s release, 17 April, ironically falls on Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, which will serve as a reminder of the thousands of other Palestinian political prisoners who remain in Israeli detention.
