3rd April 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Occupied Palestine
Demonstrations have been held today in several cities across the West Bank to protest the death of prisoner Maysara Abu Hamdiyeh. A strike has also been held in Nablus, Hebron and East Jerusalem, amongst other cities.
Maysara Abu Hamdiyeh
In Nablus, over three hundred Palestinians, together with international activists, participated today in the demonstration to protest the death of Maysara Abu Hamdiyeh. The demonstration was first held at Shuhada Square, where protesters were holding banners and chanting emotional songs in support of Palestinian prisoners. After an hour, the crowd marched towards Huwwara Checkpoint, passing through Balata refugee camp. As demonstrators arrived at the junction next to the checkpoint, they built several barricades along the road, where Israeli soldiers were already located.
Palestinian youths threw some stones at the jeeps and Israeli soldiers threw tear gas canisters at the crowd. Shortly after that, two jeeps drove by the road parallel to the main one where protesters were and started shooting more tear gas canisters. As demonstrators ran back to get closer to the jeeps clashes continued for several hours more.
In Hebron, clashes were particularly intense, with several demonstrators wounded as Palestinians persisted in their fight against Israeli guns with nothing but stones. The sound of tear gas canisters, stun grenades and rubber-coated steel bullets have become a prominent fixture of the last few days in central Hebron.
As the nation mourns, we can only hope that international action is taken to prevent the continuous maltreatment of Palestinians in Israeli cutody. The death of Maysara Abu Hamdiyeh has brought up many questions about the treatment of Palestinians in Israeli jails, with the PA minister for prisoners claiming Palestine must join the International Criminal Court to stop the disrespect of prisoners rights. Abu Hamdiyeh is the 207th Palestinian to die in Israeli custody.
Protesters running away from Israeli army jeeps near Huwwara checkpoint (Photo by ISM)
1st April 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Burqa, Occupied Palestine
By Team Nablus
A brief visit to any family home in the occupied West Bank is sure to be a combination of warmth and tragedy as no person here has been immune to the brutality of the occupation that has dominated the lives of Palestinians for over 60 years. Ra’ed Haj who is unable to walk, talk or hear after he was nerve gassed
In the small village of Burqa near Nablus , we visited the Haj household , where 32 year old Ra’ed has been rendered unable to speak , walk or talk after nerve gas was fired into the bathroom he was washing up in in 2002. The Israeli soldiers reached this bathroom by knocking through wall after wall of neighboring houses, which is common practice for the Israeli Occupation Forces.
Despite also suffering from a brain tumor, Ra’ed has been repeatedly denied permission to seek adequate medical facilities by the Israeli army.
His mother and father now care for him, but worry who will continue to do so in the future. Which relatives will be there to care for him in the future is unpredictable to say the least. His brother Muhammed is currently in the notorious Jalame prison after the Haj household was raided by the army at 2am. He is still awaiting charge or trial. Jalame prison is infamous for its harsh interrogations and solitary confinement in the dark. Muhammed also suffers from regualar migraines after he was shot in the head with a steel coated rubber bullet in 2005. The same illegal ammunition was fired at his friend which took out both of his eyes. In 1994 his home was also demolished to make way for the illegal Homesh settlement.
Wether a resident of Burqa has the absurd luxury of being able to reside in his family home or not, the Israeli army constantly make their presence known by raiding the village nearly every night, making wanton arrests and damaging property. Ra’ed holds up photographs of himself before the attack
19th March 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Occupied Palestine
The following statement by Samer Issawi was posted on his Facebook page by his lawyer Fawwaz Shloudy. It was translated from Arabic to English by Shahd Abusalama.
“Regarding the Israeli Occupation offer to deport me to Gaza, I affirm that Gaza is undeniable part of my homeland and its people are my people. However, I will visit Gaza whenever I want or I feel like it as it is within my homeland Palestine which I have the right to wander whenever I like from the very north to the very south. I strongly refuse to be deported to Gaza as this practice will just bring back bitter flashbacks from the expulsion process which our Palestinian people were subjected to during 1948 and 1967.Samer Issawi
We are fighting for the sake of freedom of our land and return of our refugees in Palestine and exile, not to add more deportees to them. This systematic practice which Israel aims to empty Palestine from Palestinians through and bring strangers in their place is but a crime. Therefore, I refuse being deported and I will only agree to be released to Jerusalem as I know that the Israeli Occupation is aiming to empty Jerusalem of its people and turn Arabs to become a minority group of its population. The issue of deportation is no longer a personal decision. It is rather a national principle. If every detainee agrees to be deported outside Jerusalem under pressure, Jerusalem will eventually be emptied of its people.
I would prefer to die on my hospital bed to being deported from Jerusalem. Jerusalem is my soul and my life. If I was uprooted from there, my soul would be uprooted from my body. My life is meaningless away from Jerusalem. No land on earth will be able to embrace me other than Jerusalem. Therefore, my return will be only to Jerusalem but nowhere else. I advise all Palestinians to embrace their land and their villages and never succumb to the Israeli Occupation’s wishes. I don’t see this issue as a personal cause that is related to Samer Issawi. It is a national issue, a conviction and a principle that every Palestinian who loves his homeland’s sacred soil should hold. Finally, I reaffirm for the thousands time that I continue my hunger strike until either freedom and return to Jerusalem or martyrdom!”
5th March 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Hebron, Occupied Palestine
22 year old Ibrahim Saadi is still being held at Ofer Prison in Ramallah after being shot in the head close range by a rubber bullet and arrested during a peaceful demonstration in Hebron on Friday.
His brother told us he had recieved a number of stitches on his head before being transferred to Ofer.
Ibrahim Saadi with wounds to head being dragged down street by soldiers
The peaceful protest organised in remembrance of the Abraham mosque massacre in 1994 was broken up by tear gas and stun grenades in Hebron on Friday. Many parts of Hebron have been shut off to palestinians since the massacre, including Shuhada Street which was once a busy commercial area.
The demonstration was organised by Hebron Defence League and was attended by Palestinian, Israeli and International activists who sat down on the road close to the gate which blocks access to Shuhada street. Soldiers threw tear gas canisters and sound grenades at the demonstrators causing many to disperse.
When the remaining demonstrators regrouped, they were prevented from moving anywhere else by a line of soldiers. Soldiers attempted to take the megaphone of one activist but was blocked by both Israeli and International activists.
Not long after the demonstration ended , 22 year old Ibrahim Sa`adi was dragged unconscious down the street by a group of soldiers with his face covered in blood. According to several eyewitnesses including his brother, Ibrahim was shot at close range with a rubber bullet. His eight year old sister saw the entire scene and was left in shock.
After the news of Sa`adi`s arrest spread , clashes erupted around bab al zawiya area of Hebron. Dozens of demonstrators were injured , including one international, as the army fired rubber coated steel bullets, tear gas, stun grenades and live ammunition. The clashes continued until after sunset.Israeli Occupation Forces stand in between peaceful demonstrators
Earlier that morning 19 year old Abdel Basset was arrested by soldiers in Tel Rumeida A witness who filmed the arrest was made to delete the video by the soldiers.
Ibrahim Saadi is dragged down the street unconscious by soldiers
3rd March 2013 | International Action for Palestine, Gaza, Occupied Palestine
“Our prisoners are dying.” said Gaza student Khaled Shehab from the Islamic University. “We won’t wait till the death of another prisoner to move in solidarity with all the detainees.” Khaled was joining the thousands attending the growing number of demonstrations in the Gaza Strip right now.
Majeda Sabbah, with other students protesting the death of Arafat Jaradat in Israeli custody . Photo by Joe Catron
It is not lost on young people in Palestine acting in support of Palestinian prisoners that many who have spent years in Israeli jails were at the same age when they were originally imprisoned. While there has recently been a spotlight on the 219 Palestinian children currently detained by Israel, it is often forgotten that the majority of detainees arrested are youths or in their early twenties. Some have spent the entire decade of their twenties removed from their parents, their families and communities, a young person’s life defined by Israeli prison walls.
Mohammed Al Adini explained his story late at night in the tent erected outside the Red Cross offices in the Gaza Strip, where some Palestinians were on hunger strike in support of those striking in Israeli prisons. He was arrested aged 20 in June 2003, just short of concluding a two year office management course at a college in Deir El Balah, central Gaza. He was imprisoned for nine years and released in the prisoner swap deal after which he was able to complete his course at the University of Gaza aged 31.
Mohammed Al Adini, hunger striking in solidarity after nine years in Israeli prisons. Photo by Ehab Omar
“There were some classes in prison but we were often prevented from going. So we organized our own “internal education” where any prisoners with an academic background such as languages, history and law would teach the other prisoners. It depended on the cell we were in but classes were generally around ten to twelve students. I taught history and Palestinian issues.”
Mohammed knew many students and academics on long term prison sentences. Yassir Namrouiti visits the solidarity tent in Gaza regularly. He was studying at the University of Al Quds when he was arrested in 1987. He didn’t see freedom again until 24 years later when he was released with Mohammed in the Gilad Shalit swap deal 24 years later. Karim Younis who remains incarcerated after 31 years, was a student when arrested in 1983 and was attending classes at Ben Gurion University on the day the Israeli army raided his house. He is now a prison representative and the author of two books. His personal and historical writings from prison have reached and inspired many who support him and the other 4800 Palestinian detainees.
Mohammed does not appear bitter that his education was taken away and is enthusiastic about the rise in student solidarity. “I am so pleased that students in Gaza have rallied around the cause of the prisoners.” said Mohammed. “They are using different languages to express our cause through facebook and other media, which is something we have never been able to do before.”
Khaled shares Mohammed’s certainty that the youth of Palestine have a crucial role to play in the resistance against occupation, which is why many student leaders have been a target for Israeli arrests and incarceration. “Youth and young people are strongly involved in resistance against occupation. Israel arrests them to stop resistance. They want to destroy the educational life for the students. They are aware that students can expose them and their crimes to the world, especially now that so many are communicating directly to Western audiences.”
Student activist Khaled Shehab calling for the release of Samer Issawi . Photo by Jomanah Hadad
He cites other Palestinian students from Gaza such as Malaka Mohammed and Shahd Abusalama whose blogs and reporting on the prisoners in the English language have amassed many followers globally, with frequent updates on the individual stories of prisoners and the ordeals and injustices facing them.
The day after 30 year old Arafat Jaradat was killed after six days of Israeli detention last Monday, Majeda Sabbah, Khaled and other students immediately organized a demonstration, calling for united support for all Palestinian prisoners.
“Arafat didn’t just die” said Majeda. “He was killed under the systematic torture that takes place in Israeli Jails.”
We are here to show our support for all the hunger strikers and all the political prisoners. The sons of Palestine sacrificed their freedom and belief for others, like Samer Issawi who is now in a critical condition after a hunger strike of over six months. We young people in Gaza support them, which is why we mobilized quickly as soon as we heard about Arafat. We can’t wait for the parties to move. If we didn’t act for a united struggle then no one would.”
Most Palestinian families contain someone who has been detained in Israeli Jails or is currently incarcerated. “My uncle was a prisoner.” said Khaled. “He spent 25 years in Israeli prisons and was recently freed in the swap deal. He joked that over time they changed the prison door three times while he remained in the same room.”
For relatives of current detainees in Israel the struggle can never go away. It is a double agony – for those on the inside and those on the outside. The last hunger striker who won his freedom was Akram Rikhawi, who in his ninth year of incarceration refused food for 104 days. “When I was released I could not recognize Samah, my eleven year old daughter” Akram told us. Samah was just two years old when he had last laid eyes on her. “My wife was allowed to visit me once in that time and my mother also once. I learned of my mother’s passing on prison radio a month after she had died.”
Mohammed Al Adiny said that it was being away from his family and friends that hurt most in prison. “I would send letters to my mother. I would tell her that if she wants me to be okay, just smile. Your smile is what gives me strength is what I would tell her.”
The fight of the hunger strikers goes on. Samer Issawi, now weighing just 44 kg was recently moved to Haifa hospital after a serious deterioration in his health. Ayman Sharawna was moved to the Soroka Israel hospital in Beersheba last month, briefly falling into a coma after which for a period he was unable to move, suffering severe pain to several parts of his body.
Hana Shalabi, a female detainee released after a 43-day hunger strike in March 2012 was in attendance at Sunday’s demonstration and she described to some of the students what Samer and Ayman were going through. “I’m sorry for the death of Jaradet, sorry for his family in the West Bank. Sadly I’m not surprised, this is not a new thing with over 210 prisoners who have been killed in Israeli prisons since 1967. By my experience on hunger strike I feel what they feel. You can’t sleep because of the pain, you can’t speak, you can’t move, there’s hair loss, pains in the stomach and joints, you can’t see well, there are heart irregularities, palpitations and migraines. Soon your body, like mine, can’t accept water.”
Hana Shalabi, released after a 43-day hunger strike, remains an inspiration. Photo Eva Barlett
At the time of writing Samer Issawi and Ayman Sharawna are among 178 prisoners who are being held under what Israel defines as “Administrative Detention” . This open ended imprisonment without a formal charge has been condemned by major international human rights groups. This self-sacrifice of Samer, Ayman and the other detainees has struck a chord with young people across Palestine who are absorbed in the struggle for life and dignity of the hunger strikers. They want immediate action.
“When students and young people become more aware and start writing about israel’s crimes it’s like a disaster for Israel. We want to deliver our message all over the world. Palestinian prisoners don’t have basic human rights or dignity. They’re not treated as human beings. We demand the Israeli government release the hunger strikers.”
Adie Mormech is a Gaza-based activist with International Action for Palestine and a teacher at Al Aqsa University in Gaza City.
