Tag: Prisoner

A detainee at risk: Ongoing hunger strike since December 17

by Shahd Abusalama

21 January 2012 | The Electronic Intifada

My lastest drawing of the Palestinians’ determination to find a way to fight injustices by the Israeli Occupation. (Shahd Abusalama)

If you have the power, you can abuse it and no one will say a word in protest. At least this is the case for Israel, which openly violates international law and human rights feeling secure that one will stop it.

But Khader Adnan, a detainee from Jenin, has decided not to stay silent and accept injustices against him and his fellow prisoners. He is battling armed jailers with his only weapon: his empty stomach. Khader started hunger striking the day of his arrest, December 18, to protest the unjust administrative detention he is serving and the indescribable cruelty he has experienced since then.

My father’s experience of being an administrative detainee

It’s worth mentioning that administrative detention is a procedure the Israeli military uses to hold detainees indefinitely on secret evidence without charging them or allowing them to stand trial. Over 300 Palestinian political prisoners are serving this term now, and tens of thousands of Palestinians have experienced administrative detention since 1967.

My father served this term three times. Previously, he had been sentenced to seven lifetimes plus ten years, but released in the 1985 prisoner exchange after serving thirteen. As I read about Khader’s story in a report by Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, stories about Dad’s experiences in Israeli prisons came back to me.

The last time it happened, a month after I was born in 1991, was the hardest. My mother told me how I came into this life where safety, peace, and justice are not guaranteed. ”In the middle of the night, a huge force of armed Israeli soldiers suddenly broke into our home, damaging everything before them. They attacked your father, bound him with chains, and dragged him to the prison, beating him the whole way.” The happiness of a new baby – me – didn’t continue for the whole family. My traumatized mother was able to breastfeed me for a month, but then she couldn’t anymore; her sorrow ended her lactation.

Every Palestinian is convicted to a life of uncertainty without having to commit a crime. Being a Palestinian is our only offense. For Khader, this detention is not his first time in Israeli prisons. It’s actually his eighth, for a total of six years of imprisonment, all under administrative detention. Each one had a different taste, ranging from bitter to bitterer.

Story of Khader’s Adnan’s arrest

This time, the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) raided Khader’s house at 3:00 am using a human shield, Mohammad Mustafa. Mohammad is a taxi driver who always takes Khader’s father to the vegetable market. He was kidnapped by the IOF and forced to knock on Khader’s door while blindfolded. Then the IOF raided Khader’s house, trashing it as they did. Shouting, they aggressively grabbed his father, with no consideration for Khader’s two little daughters, his wife, who could have miscarried her five-month fetus, or his sick mother. But when did IOF have any respect for human values?

Khader was immediately blindfolded, and his hands were tied behind his back with plastic shackles. Afterwards, the soldiers pushed him into a military jeep with non-stop physical torment that continued for the ten-minute drive it took for the jeep to reach Dutan settlement. You can imagine how a short period seemed like forever to Khader, who was unable to move or see while every part of his body was continuously and brutally beaten. To make things even worse, Khader’s face was injured when he smashed in a wall he couldn’t see due to the blindfold wrapping his eyes after he was pushed out of the jeep.

Addamear reported that after Khader’s arrest, he was transferred to different interrogation centers and ended up in Al-jalameh. Upon arriving there, Khader was given a medical exam, where he informed prison doctors of his injuries and told them that he suffered from a gastric illness and disc problems in his back. However, instead of being treated, he was taken to interrogation immediately.

Silence and hunger strike in response to interrogators’ humiliation

The interrogation period, which lasted for ten days, took the form of psychological torture with continuous humiliation using very abusive language about his wife, sister, children, and mother. Throughout the interrogation sessions, his hands were tied behind him on a crooked chair, causing extreme pain to his back. Believing in the power of silence, Khader’s only response was to object to the interrogator’s use of increasingly insulting speech.

Because of Khader’s hunger strike against violations of his rights and the terrible treatment used against him, Addameer reported that he was sentenced to a week in isolation by the Israeli Prison Service (IPS) on the fourth day of interrogation. Moreover, in order to further punish him without being required to go to court, the IPS also banned him from family visits for three months.

In addition, during the second week of interrogation, Khader experienced further humiliations. One interrogator pulled his beard so hard that it ripped hair out. The same interrogator also took dirt from the bottom of his shoe and rubbed it on Khader’s mustache. But they couldn’t break his dignity, and even after the interrogation ended, Khader continued his hunger strike.

According to Addameer report, on the evening of Friday, 30 December 2011, Khader was transferred to Ramleh prison hospital because of his health deteriorating from the hunger strike. But even there, he lacked medical care. He was placed in isolation in the hospital, where he was subject to cold conditions and cockroaches filled his cell. He refused any medical examinations after 25 December, which was one week after he stopped eating and speaking. The prison director came to speak to Khader, or rather threaten him, commenting that they would “break him” eventually.

I know I mentioned before that there are no trials for Palestinian detainees under administrative detention. But actually, they do get a trial. It’s not for them to challenge the reasons for their detention though. It’s for a military judge to decide the period they are going to serve according to the “secret evidence” that IPS holds against him, none of it shared with the detainee or his lawyer. This is an obvious violation of human rights, leaving Khader and detainees like him with no legitimate means to defend themselves.

On 8 January 2012, at Ofer military court, Khader received a four- month administrative detention order. There, he was threatened by members of the Nahshon, a special intervention unit of the IPS known for particularly brutality in their treatment of prisoners, who told Khader that his head should be exploded.

The need to act

Khader’s health is deteriorating rapidly. He is refusing treatment until he is released, but a prison doctor has threatened to force-feed him if he continues. Cameras in his cell watch him at all times, and if he does not move at night, soldiers knock loudly on his door. This prisoner is at risk, so SUPPORT Addamear campaign to call for his release.

People in Gaza set up a tent in front of the Red Cross last Thursday to join Khader’s protest against his administrative detention and violations of Palestinian detainees’ simplest rights, and demand justice and freedom for them. Something must be done against this unjust system and its conditions of imprisonment. International solidarity is greatly needed. Join Addameer’s campaign to Stop Administrative Detention. ACT NOW!

Shahd Abusalama, 20, is a Palestinian artist, a blogger and an English literature student living in Gaza City. She is interested in conveying the images, experience and emotions of the Palestinian people as well as their strength, determination, struggle and suffering. She blogs at Palestine From my Eyes, and she can always be followed at @shahdabusalama.

Further violence against prisoners as the second stage of the swap deal begins

by Shahd Abusalama

16 December 2011 | Palestine from My Eyes

Sketch by Latuff

As the second stage of the swap deal begins, Israeli jailers escalate their violations of the simplest rights of the Palestinian political prisoners behind bars and exercise more violence against them. Such are the typical actions of typical Zionist soldiers.

A statement I have heard repeatedly from all my friends who are former prisoners, every time I have asked about how Israeli torture impacts the prisoners’ spirits, is that “Israeli jailers never keep a sense of stability inside prisons. They expose prisoners to extremely difficult situations tying to depress their spirits. However, they always fail at achieving their inhumane aim. Their cruelty brings more strength and will out of the prisoners. No matter how strong those armed and heartless jailers are, our barehanded prisoners are stronger in spirit.”

On Tuesday, 13 December, a savage group of armed Israeli jailers broke into section 10 of Eichel prison and attacked prisoners aggressively.  They sprayed tear gas and pepper powder into the detainees, which resulted in several injuries and cases of suffocation.  They summoned additional military units to break into all 13 rooms of the section. Adding more savagery, they confiscated all the detainees’ possessions, dragging away TV, fans, banning them from the cafeteria, and cutting off electricity and water, leaving Eichel Prison isolated from the outer world.

Rebelling against this violent aggression, the prisoners reacted by chanting and banging on doors.  Our strong-willed detainees have started a short-term hunger strike protesting the unjustified attack, and threatened to take serious protest action, like refusing to stand up for the daily count, in objection to Israeli soldiers’ brutality and arrogance.

As I read this news, reported by the Palestinian Prisoner Club, my mind was preoccupied with my friends Mohammed Brash and his brother Ramzy, who are imprisoned together at Eichel Prison and who witnessed this aggression. I found myself consumed with anger and contacted their family, who live in Al-Am’ary Camp in Ramallah. I called Hamza, their youngest brother, who sounded very worried. “I can’t wait to hear some news about them. I don’t know what to expect from Israel brutality. My brothers might be among those who were injured, but I can never know. Tomorrow, a lawyer of a detainee imprisoned there that I know is going to visit Eichel Prison, and we expect to hear some news if he is allowed to visit.”

Sketch by Latuff

His words added insult to the injury. He made me even more frustrated than I was already. Thinking of his mother, I asked him whether she knew about this attack that prisoners, including her two sons, had faced. I hoped that she doesn’t know about the increased repression. He settled my fears that his mother was aware. “If you were me, would you tell her?” he asked me, but when he only heard my silence, he continued “of course, I didn’t tell her. Imagine the reaction of a mother of two detained sons in the merciless Israeli prisons as she hears of this attack against them. She is already worried and laments their names over and over again, just knowing that they are in prison for the tenth year, so what if this old mother hears such terrible news?”

These violations by Israeli jailers are not something unusual to our ears, which are used to hearing about their violence and aggression, and to our eyes, which are used to witnessing their enduring crimes, oppressions, and humiliations against all categories of Palestinian people. However, one shouldn’t stay silent. The language of silence means submission to their power, which they think is unbreakable, and allows them to exceed all red lines and openly violate human rights and international law. Only the language of action can work here.

Palestine mourns another real legend, a symbol of motherhood

by Shahd Abusalama

11 December 2011 | Palestine from My Eyes

The mother of Anees and Akram (Photo: Shahd Abusalama, Palestine from My Eyes)

My voice is muted but every feature of my face speaks sorrow and anger. There is no need to wonder why. It’s Palestine, the rich land where smiles can turn to tears and laughs can turn to sighs in a second. It’s Palestine, where series of sad stories mixed with strength, will, and glory never end.

Anees and Akram Al-Namoura are brothers who were released in the first stage of the prisoner exchange on October 18 after spending ten years, originally supposed to be two life sentences, in prison. They joined the resistance by the beginning of the second Intifada, answering the call of their occupied lands and oppressed people to defend them, ready to pay any price that their precious homeland, Palestine, would require. While Israel was aggressively and continuously attacking, killing, wounding, and detaining Palestinian citizens, the brothers took to arms against the occupying army hoping for a better future for their family, their neighbors and their community. They planted a bomb beneath an Israeli tank, killing two Israeli soldiers.

I coincidentally met Anees, the elder brother, in his hotel while I was interviewing some other former detainees. After having a short chat, I learned that he was somehow related to my mother’s family. Then he told me that his imprisonment started five months before his brother’s. I commented innocently, “I can’t imagine how hard it is for your mother to have two sons in prison at the same time. But it is a little fortunate that you and Akram met each other there.” He shook his head, smiling at my naïveté, and corrected me. “No. We were in prison at the same time, but separated by the Israeli Prison Administration for the first five years. We tried legal remedies, but no lawyers and no courts could bring us together. So we started an open hunger strike to pressure them, and we were clear that our hunger strike would end only after they had met our demands. We could eventually meet and live as brothers in Armon Prison, in the same cell, for the last five years of our imprisonment.”

Anees and Akram’s father is holding their picture (Photo: Shahd Abusalama, Palestine from My Eyes)

Anees and Akram couldn’t enjoy the blessing of kissing and hugging their elderly parents even after they gained their freedom. Israel imposed a separation of a different kind on them as they were exiled from Hebron to the Gaza Strip. But this was only additional pain from a wound that was already existed, as their 80-year-old father, a cancer patient in a wheelchair, and 65-year-old sick mother weren’t allowed to visit their detained sons for more than three years.

When I Googled Anees and Akram’s names, I encountered a video of their parents from a year ago. They were interviewed about how it felt having sons in the Israeli tyrants’ prisons. “How can an old man like me, sick with cancer, threaten Israeli security?” their father wondered with a shaking voice full of sadness. “I collected all papers that explain my health situation, which is getting worse, and tried every possible way to meet my sons again before I die.” After watching the video, I smiled despite my sadness, thinking of how merciful God is: Anees and Akram’s father is still alive and has witnessed his sons attaining freedom.

In the same video, their mother, with expressive wrinkles that evoked long years of suffering, said, “I only wish I could sit on their beds, as I used to when they were young, and play with their hair while their heads lie on my knees.” The father challenged his disability by joining his sick wife and one of his daughters in a trip to the Gaza Strip to meet their sons only six days ago. This trip couldn’t happen earlier, as their permission to leave through Jordan was denied by Israel, and they obviously couldn’t come here through the Erez border for “security reasons.” However, if there is a will, there is a way. They eventually overcame all obstacles and made it here.

Six days ago, I heard Mum speaking cheerfully to Dad about the arrival of Anees and Akram’s parents and sister safely. Today, I saw Mum’s tears for the death of their mother, who had waited long to hug her sons and celebrate their freedom. “Oh Allah, her destiny was to live and not die before she enjoyed seeing and hugging her sons between her arms once again,” Mum said with tearful eyes as she entered our home after the funeral. After ten long years of waiting, with worry, sadness, suffering, and humiliation between checkpoints as she tried to visit her imprisoned sons, she lived six days with them before passing away, leaving us a real legend, a symbol of patience, challenge, and motherhood.

Family fears their son is dying within Israeli prison

by Alistair George

 6 December 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

Mohammad Awad is a 16 year old Palestinian boy, he is in an Israeli jail and he is gravely ill – his family believe that he is not receiving the right treatment and that he may be dying.

As they sit in their house in Beit Ummar, a village near Bethlehem,  Mohammad’s parents Ali and Amina, grow visibly angry and distressed as they recount their son’s treatment.

Documents showing the fines that the Awad family must pay to secure the release of their sons Mohammad (left, 3000 shekels) and Ahmad (right, 1000 shekels).

“He has fever, he sweats very much, he can’t sleep on the bed – he has to sleep on the ground to get some cold – he overheats and he cant move at all” says Ali.  Despite the fact that he is barely eating, Mohammad’s weight has ballooned from 58kg to 92kg since he has been in prison.

Mohammad suffers from Familial Mediterranean Fever (FMF), an inherited condition characterized by recurrent episodes of painful inflammation in the abdomen, chest, or joints. These episodes are often accompanied by fever and sometimes a rash. Without treatment to help prevent attacks and complications, a buildup of protein deposits (amyloidosis) in the body’s organs and tissues may occur, which can lead to kidney failure or congestive heart failure.

Amina and Ali Awad – parents of Mohammad – at their home in Beit Ummar.

Ali says that Mohammad was first arrested in February 2011 after he attended a peaceful protest in Beit Ummar.  He was severely beaten by Israeli soldiers during his detention and was subjected to extreme cold.  Amina says, “They beat him so badly, and he was shouting and screaming and crying ‘Please stop you’re hurting me’ but they said ‘no’.  I believe that is the cause of his current condition – he had the fever [FMF] in the past but it was not serious as the thing he has now.”

Ali added that, ” When he told the solider that he had hurt him in the waist they beat him again and again on purpose in his liver and they caused internal bleeding.”  The bleeding in his liver was so severe that Mohammad required a blood transfusion.  He was released from prison in June, only to be arrested 14 days later and sentenced to six months imprisonment for attending a demonstration in the village and throwing one stone.

 Mohammad is currently being held in Ofer Prison but the family has learned that he has been repeatedly sent to hospital at Ramle or Hadassah during the past two months and then returned to prison.

 In the immediate family, only Mohammad’s sister Rahaf, 7, has been allowed to visit him.  She first alerted the family that Mohammad’s condition had deteriorated when she visited him in prison with a cousin – she returned saying that her brother was swollen and dreadfully ill.

 On 2 November 2011, Mohammad had a court hearing which his mother attended – but Mohammad was not in the court. “We didn’t get information why he wasn’t there,” said Ali,  “but the manager of the prison himself came to the judge – we knew this from the lawyer – and told the judge that [the prison] can’t be responsible if anything happens to Mohammad, [since] he’s now in hospital, in very bad condition, and we recommend  that we release him.”  The judge also recommended that he be released, but he needed approval from the Israeli intelligence – and they refused.”

According to Ali, “The manager of the prison himself called [him].”

“He told me, ‘your son is in a very bad condition and we can’t do anything for him so I will try to release him to be treated on the Palestinian side.’ So I’m afraid that my son is dying.”

Amina last saw her son in court on 28 November 2011. “He was very bloated and swollen all over his face and body, and it was not normal at all.”

 Mohammad’s parents believe that the prison authorities have been giving Mohammad the wrong treatment that may be harming him even further. “When he was released for the first time, he smuggled some drugs out that he was being given [in prison]” says Ali, showing ISM the Allopurinol tablets given to Mohammad.  “We asked a doctor what these was for, and he said these pills were for another disease, not for Muhammad’s condition.  The doctor told him that it is vey dangerous to take this drug, and we’re sure now that they are giving him the same drug.”

 The family has asked the prison authorities for Mohammad’s medical reports but they have refused to produce them.  There is no cure for his condition but when he was out of prison Mohammad was taking Colchicine and antibiotics to manage his symptoms.  Yet his rapidly deteriorating health and the statements from the prison manager suggest he is not receiving the correct medical attention.

 The Israeli team of Physicians for Human Rights has attempted to visit Mohammad in prison but has so far been denied access by prison authorities.  The Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem picked up some medicine for Mohammad but was also denied access to the prison by the Israeli authorities. The family claims that they have not been able to give him any supplies at all whilst in prison.

 Mohammad is due to be released on 22 January 2012 – however, the family must pay 3000 shekels as a fine to secure his release.  If they are unable to do so, he will serve a further three months in jail.  His parents believe that his life is in danger and if he spends much more time in jail, without receiving correct treatment, the likelihood is that he will die.  Mohammad’s brother Ahmad is due to be released from prison in three months but the family must find a 1000 shekel fine to secure his release, otherwise he will serve an extra month in jail.  Ahmad also suffers from Familial Mediterranean Fever but his health is much better than Mohammad’s.  If they do manage to pay the fines, the Palestinian Ministry of Prisoners usually pay it back – but Ali says this only happens around three years later.

 As Ali shows us the documents from the military detailing the fines, he says that he doesn’t have the money and has no way to raise it as he is currently unemployed. “We are suffering from a very bad economic situation” he said. “I cant work inside settlements or inside the green line and most of the work is there. Also I am ill – I have asthma and I have heart problems now and can’t work.”

 The targeting of the family

 Mohammad’s parents have not been allowed to visit him in prison and they have difficulty getting information.  Two of Mohammad’s brothers, Saddam, 21, and Ahmad, 19, are also in prison.  Mohammad’s younger brother Hamza, 15, is not allowed to visit. When he was 14, he visited Mohammad during his first sentence, yet Israeli authorities detained and interrogated him for three days and then banned him from visiting in the future.

 Now that all of his brothers are in jail, Hamza is terrified that he will soon be arrested.  At night he paces around the house, looking out the windows for the Israeli military.  “I am very depressed,” said Hamza, “I don’t have any hope that I will stay here at home, the Israeli army can come here at any time and detain me and take me to jail.”

 The military has arrived in the night to arrest members of the family before – Ali has been detained eighteen times, although he claims that he has only resisted the occupation nonviolently by attending peaceful protests.  “The detention of our children caused a medical condition for my wife,” said Ali – “She takes drugs for her nerves as she’s always worried and the doctor told her this is very serious.  She’s on medication for anxiety and depression.”

 The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child defines a “child” as “every human being below the age of eighteen years.”  According to Israeli military order 132, Palestinian children aged 16 and older are tried and sentenced by Israeli military courts as adults. By comparison, juvenile legislation defines Israeli children as age 18 or younger. A Palestinian child’s sentence is decided on the basis of the child’s age at the time of sentencing, not when the alleged offence was committed.

According to Addameer,  a prisoner support and human rights organisation, there were approximately 176 Palestinian children (under the age of 18) detained in Israeli prisons, as of September 2011 and around 700 Palestinian children from the occupied West Bank are prosecuted every year through Israeli military courts. Since 2000, more than 6,500 Palestinian children have been detained.  The most common charge brought against children is for throwing stones – an offence which can incur a 20 year prison sentence.

Addameer reports that “the majority of children report being subjected to ill-treatment and having forced confessions extracted from them during interrogations. Forms of ill-treatment used by the Israeli soldiers during a child’s arrest and interrogation usually include slapping, beating, kicking and violent pushing. Palestinian children are also routinely verbally abused.”

With three of their four sons in prison, it seems that the family has been singled out and targeted by the Israeli authorities.

“All Palestinians are targeted, not just my family” said Ali. “But from the first Intifada I have been a member of a legal movement – I’m not doing anything illegal, I’m just demanding my people’s rights. I don’t do anything to hurt anyone, I just demonstrate.”

Amina says that she believes that the Israelis are doing this as “revenge.”  “My sons are innocent and they don’t do anything bad.”  Ali added that he believes it to be “revenge against all Palestinians, but we are a special case as I was detained [so often] in the past. Also I have land near Karmei Tzur [an illegal Israeli settlement] and they are trying to take this land.  They have made me many offers to buy the land and I refused so they hate me. I told them go to hell this is my land I will stay here, and I will die here.”  Ali also shows us the protruding bone in his hand which was broken by the Israeli military a few months ago after he was detained during a peaceful protest in Beit Ummar.

Ali is trying to stay hopeful but he admits that it is difficult.  “My son is only 16 years old, he is very ill, he needs medical treatment but they don’t care.  My son is ill, I have a problem with my heart, my wife has a problem with her nerves, but I thank God that we are still alive.”

Alistair George is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).

Bittersweet Eid

by Lydia de Leeuw

19 November 2011 | A Second Glance

Donkey carts lined up opposite the market in Jabaliya refugee camp (Photo: Lydia de Leeuw, A Second Glance) – Click here for more images

Last week Eid al Adha was celebrated in Gaza and other Muslim communities worldwide. Eid al Adha is one of the most important holidays in Islam, marking the end of the Haj (annual pilgrimage to Mecca) season and symbolizing sacrifices for Allah as well as asking for forgiveness. The official day of Eid al Adha, which fell on Sunday 6 November this year, is celebrated by ritually slaughtering animals, such as cows and sheep, and parents giving their children a new outfit and some pocket money to buy toys. The meat of the slaughtered animals is divided among families and neighbours, and especially shared with those who cannot afford to buy meet.

While spending a wonderful time with friends and their families during Eid, I reflected on the essence of holidays. Regardless of the location, religion or traditions, celebrations of holidays seem to have three core elements in common: spending time with family, giving to others and a feeling of happiness. But what does a holiday look like without those?

Many families in the Gaza Strip had to celebrate another Eid without their brother, son, father, daughter, or sister. Following last month’s prisoner exchange between Israel and Hamas, there are still about 5,500 Palestinians[1] languishing in 22 Israeli prisons and detention facilities.[2] Over 700 of these prisoners are from Gaza and have not seen their relatives for many years as the Israeli occupation authorities have not allowed any family visits. On the second day of Eid several relatives (mostly mothers) of Palestinian prisoners gathered in front of the Red Cross Office in Gaza city. They held a weekly sit-in demonstration in support of their imprisoned family members. They have been coming together in solidarity, holding pictures of the sons, every Monday morning for the past 17 years. The constant sadness over the absence of their relatives seemed even more tangible during this important holiday. A woman sitting next to me showed me a picture of her son, saying she had not seem him for four years and that she always kept hoping that he would come home again the following day. She had been cherishing this hope for the past eleven years. There seems to be no other consolation than to hope that one day she would see him again, so we just repeated together “insh’allah” (God willing).

For Eid al Adha it is tradition to buy  a new outfit for your children and to give them some money for buying toys. However, the suffocating closure of the Gaza Strip has made increasingly difficult for parents to provide for their families, let alone giving their children something extra. The closure has brought the Gaza economy to a standstill and has driven the unemployment rate up to a staggering 42,5%. Approximately 75% of the people in Gaza receive humanitarian aid of some sort. So for many parents in Gaza Eid means more struggling and juggling; more borrowing, and trying to figure out a way to give their kids the traditional Eid gifts. Even more than usual, the high food prices were a ‘hot topic’ for conversation and everyone was eager to find out where to go for the best deal.

Two days before Eid, when I was on my way to visit a friend in the north, I learned about another absurdity of the circumstances in Gaza. Throughout the streets and fields I noticed there was an unusual number sheep, cows and goats. Since there is not a lot to eat here for those animals and many of them were grazing around rubbish dump sites, I started wondering: where had these herds of fluffy Eid meals come from? Turned out that a lot of the animals for Eid are smuggled (yes, smuggled) in through the tunnels with Egypt. Even though I could have expected this, I was still shocked. Even the holiday meals have become a smuggled commodity. Looking at these goats, sheep and cows and visualising their trip through the tunnels, the absurdity of the policies once again hit me.

Besides the absence of loved ones and the financial struggles, there is the ever present risk of army attacks from the border, the sea, and especially air. A week before Eid, 15 year old Rawand Tayseer Abu Mughassib was on her way to her grandmother’s house nearby, for an evening visit. They all live close to the border area in the central Gaza Strip. As Rawand headed for the front gate, separating the house from the road in front of it. Suddenly, an Israeli plane fired a missile which landed four to five meters away from her, on the road. She was lucky to be one step away from the gate, with the wall protecting her from most of the deadly shrapnel. The gate was blown out of the wall and only just missed Rawand.  She was injured in her left hand, and three houses (including that of her family) were damaged. The missile apparently targeted Palestinian fighters in the area. Since the attack, Rawand and her siblings are very anxious, especially after sunset, and are afraid of being alone. Rimas, Rawand’s little sister wakes up crying from nightmares every night and has started bedwetting. The father, Tayseer, says he does not know how he can comfort his children when they are so full of fear: “there is nothing I could do or say, instead of just being there with them”. He says he is also struggling with his own fears, but that he insists to no show this to his children. Rawand and her family started their Eid with fear, feeling abandoned and unprotected.[3]

In a place like Gaza holidays seem as much a test of the people’s resilience and strength as a time of joy and celebration.

[1] Among those thousands are 251 children, 37 women, and at least 124 prisoners who are detained for long periods without charges.

[2] Most of these prisons and detention facilities are located within Israel. The imprisonment of Palestinians from the occupied territories (Gaza Strip, West Bank) in Israel is illegal under international law and violates the Fourth Geneva Convention, particularly Article 76, which stipulates that “Protected persons accused of offences shall be detained in the occupied country, and if convicted they shall serve their sentences therein.”

[3] The Israeli occupation army often uses heavy airstrikes to target fighters in the densely populated Gaza Strip, often risking to cause civilian casualties, who will then be called ‘collateral damage’. Since January this year 18 civilians were killed and 16 injured in airstrikes which targeted fighters in the Gaza Strip. Of those who were killed, 3 were children.