Today, approximately 1,000 protesters in Hebron marked Palestinian Prisoners day with a demonstration calling for Israel to release Palestinian prisoners. At the same time thousands of prisoners joined in a one-day hunger strike to protest their treatment and their legal rights as prisoners.
Protesters in Hebron began by gathering at the Eben Roshd school in Hebron City. Amongst the participants were families of prisoners, members of the Palestinian Authority and international activists. After speeches by family members and local authorities, the demonstration continued with a peaceful march from the school to the Manara square. Protesters carried pictures of imprisoned family members and banners calling for Israel to release prisoners and uphold international laws.
Prisoners Day commemorates the release of Palestinian prisoner Mahmoud Hijazi in the first prisoner exchange between Palestine and Israeli in 1974. According to a report released today by former Palestinian detainee Abdul Nasser Farwana, just about every Palestinian household has had members jailed. According to the report Israel has arrested around 750,000 Palestinians since the six day war in 1967, including nearly 12,000 women and tens of thousands of children
Today over 6,800 Palestinians, from the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem, and 1948 Palestine, are currently imprisoned by the Israeli state according to ADDAMEER. Of those, over 300 are children, 34 are women, 18 are elected Palestinian representatives and almost 300 are ‘administrative detainees’ – that means that they have been detained without trial not having been charged with any crime or seeing the evidence against them.
Remembering Palestinian prisoners in Hebron
A Palestinian girl shows a photo of a relative held in Israeli jails.
The International Solidarity Movement (ISM) Gaza calls for a global day of action to draw attention to Palestinian political prisoners who are illegally detained in Israel. April 17th marks the Palestinian Prisoners Day, a day in commemoration of the 5834 Palestinians who are currently (as of February 1st, 2011) held in Israeli prisons. No less than 221 of them are children and 798 of them are serving life sentences.
We call upon you to organize events on April 17th or during that week in your countries to oppose Israel’s numerous violations of human rights and international law concerning Palestinian prisoners.
Increase awareness, empower the public, pressure your local and national representatives to hold Israel to account, and demand the following:
* Stop child imprisonment!
* No more administrative detentions in the West Bank!
(These are detentions used to arrest human rights defenders and others requiring no official justification, holding them for 6 months without charge and which are frequently prolonged by a further 6 months)
* Halt the physical and psychological torture of prisoners!
* Grant the right to Gazan prisoners to receive family visits!
Gazans in Israeli jails have not been allowed to receive visitors since June 2007.
Israel receives huge global publicity for Gilad Shalit, the sole Israeli prisoner that is currently held in Palestine, while the world remains largely silent about the 5834 Palestinians that are incarcerated in Israel. They and their families remain anonymous and lifeless in the Western media and political circles despite the huge number of people effected. While torture is common practice in Israeli prisons, Israeli governmental authorities instantly threaten that the “sky will fall” if Shalit is harmed.
“Of course, there is torture in prison. But it is not the worst, physical wounds heal. The psychological torment is much more severe. The guards would wake us up in the middle of the night and get us out of our cells, while they trample the Holy Koran and steal our most personal possessions like letters and pictures”, says a man who was recently released.
As ISM Gaza we especially want to draw attention to the case of Gazan prisoners. Since June 2007, Israel has banned all Gazans from visiting their relatives incarcerated in Israel. The 676 Gazans that are currently imprisoned in Israel have therefore not received a single visitor for nearly four years. Gaza detainees, many of whom are held indefinitely without trial, have since been in virtual isolation, as they are generally not allowed to communicate through phone or over the internet, and are only occasionally allowed to send out a letter to their families.
Because Gazan prisoners are denied family visits, they also have restricted access to basic necessities in prison – such as clothing and money – as visits are often the prisoners’ sole means of accessing these items. Lawyers are prohibited from transferring money to a prisoner and the Israeli Prisoners’ Service insist that only relatives may transfer money, which is obviously impossible.
We are in touch with local organizations and have family members and ex-prisoners that are willing to talk to you through a skype conference that we would be happy to set up with you.
Please contact ISM Gaza by emailing gazaism@gmail.com for more detailed information.
Please ACT in the week of 17th April in the name of Palestinian men, women and children in Israeli prisons who have no voice and like all Palestinians, still have no justice.
According to Awarta residents, the Israeli army entered the village again at 3 am on Thuesday 22nd of March laying down a curfew for the second time this month. The previous week Awarta, south of Nablus, had been put under curfew for five days by the Israeli military.
Once again houses were searched, leaving a trail of homes suffering from property damage and reactivating traumas from the previous military attacks on 12-16th of March. ISM activists present in Awarta on Monday during the curfew reported that computers and mobile phones had been confiscated and money stolen by Israeli soldiers. The activists witnessed how soliders entered families’ homes, arrested young men and left the homes completely wrecked from the inside.
At least nine men were arrested yesterday, one of them a 22 year old man who was removed from his family’s home, handcuffed, blindfolded and taken away to an unknown location in front of watching activists.
A youth center lost their computer access when soldiers stole the hard drives of seven computers. A computer shop was also completely wrecked when soldiers broke the door taking several hard drives and breaking laptops.
Familes were also left without enough drinking water when it ws tipped out by soldiers, and they were not allowed to leave their homes to fetch water from neighbours. When ISM activists demanded a reply from soldiers at Odala checkpoint they were told to encourage the familys to contact soldiers in the village although the curfew was still in effect. According to the same soldiers in charge of Odala checkpoint the curfew would be over at 6 pm the same day, 5 hours after the need for drinkingwater was critical.
At around 8 pm the soldiers left the village and the curfew was lifted, although the villagers are concerned that they will come back again.
Proof that any Awarta resident is involved in the murder of the Fogel family in the nearby illegal settlement of Itamar on 11th March has yet to be made public. ISM activists present in Awarta during the first five days of curfew claim that the last weeks military operations are a clear case of collective punishment on Palestinian civil society and are not connected to investigating the Fogel murders.
Director of programming at The Voice of Palestine Radio was arrested by Israeli military together with his sons aged 17 and 16. The arrest has been condemed by the Palestinian journalist syndicate according to Ma´an news agency.
According to the village council, eleven of the men that were arrested last week have been released, while nine were arrested yesterday. About 40 men from Awarta are in Israeli custody at the moment, some of them at the military base in Huwara, while some have been taken to an interegation prison in Israel. Their families have not been told where their fathers, sons or brothers have been taken, about their condition or when, or if they will be released.
On the 15th of march, during the five day curfew of Awarta, settlers from the illegal Israeli settlement of Itamar started building a new outpost on private land own by the villagers of Awarta. At the scene, on a hill in the valley between Itamar and Awarta, one can see settlers operating bulldozers under the protection of the Israeli military.
08 February 2011 | International Women’s Peace Service
By Kim Bullimore
Currently there are more than 11,000 Palestinian political prisoners locked up in Israel’s jails. This week, I found out that my friend Hasan* (*not his real name) is one of them. When in Ramallah, I mentioned to a mutual friend that I had planned to ring him to let him know I was in Palestine. Our mutual friend informed me that Hasan was being held under “Administration Detention” and had been in prison for three months.
I last saw Hasan more than a year ago, when I was last in Palestine. A year previous to this last meeting, he had emailed me to apologise for not answering my phone calls and emails when I had tried to contact him when I was in Palestine. Unfortunately, he apologised, he had been in prison for seven months held without charge or trial by the Israeli military under an Administrative Detention order.
When I met him last year in a local Ramallah coffee shop, he looked the same but different. In his early to mid-twenties, Hasan, who I had met him several years before, had always had a lean but strong build, but now he was more thinner than I remembered him. He was also smoking more and his demeanour was different. He was still as politically sharp as I remembered him, but his youthful, upbeat enthusiasm had been tempered and he was much more cynical and world-weary than before. I could see that the seven months he spent in Israel’s prisons had taken a definite toll on him. Hasan told me that he had been repeatedly tortured while in prison but it had made him stronger and more committed to his people’s struggle.
Hasan with wry humour, also recounted the toll his imprisonment had also had on his family, particularly his mother. An atheist himself, Hasan, comes from a Christian Palestinian family and upon his release from Administrative Detention; he came home to find that his mother, a believer, had hung a crucifix on his bedroom wall and left a small crucifix on his study table. For the first few weeks, he told me, he out of love and deference for his mother he allowed the Cross on the wall to remain but would put the small one on his table away. However, every time he returned home from being out, he again would find the small cross had reappeared on his table, placed there by his concerned mother. Our mutual friend, when she told me of Hasan’s re-incarceration, also recounted to me that his mother after his release from his first imprisonment woke at 3 am every morning, the time the Israeli military had raid the family’s home to kidnap Hasan. His mother, terrified that the Israeli military would again raid her home and take either one or both of her sons, woke at this time each morning to check they were safely in their beds.
Hasan’s imprisonment, our mutual friend informed me, came at a time when he was finally getting over the horrors of his first imprisonment and torture and was much more like his “old-self”. As I write this article, I worry that my friend is being tortured and that his family is suffering, like so many other Palestinian families who are experiencing the same horrendous situation.
Since 1967, more than 650,000 Palestinians or twenty percent of Palestinian population of the Occupied Palestinian Territories have been detained by Israel [1]. According to the Palestinian prisoner’s support and human rights association, Addameer, most of those detained are male. Addameer notes that this translates to more forty percent of the total male Palestinian population of the Occupied Palestinian Territories being incarcerated since 1967.
Since 1967, when Israel illegal seized and occupied East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, more than 1500 military regulations have been issued by Israel’s military to “govern” the West Bank, while more than 1400 have been issued to “govern” the besieged Gaza Strip[2]. These military orders can be issued on the whim of an Israeli military commander and do not need to be publicised. As a result, the Palestinians and the wider public, including the media and legal services, only become aware of the existence of such orders when they are implemented. In 1970, Israel issued Military Order 378, which authorised the military commanders of regions to issue “Administrative Detention” orders [3]. These orders allow Israeli occupying forces to detain and arrest large numbers of Palestinian civilians without charge or trail. In 1988, Military Order 378 was amended by Military Order 1229 in the Occupied West Bank and Military Order 941 in the Gaza Strip, with these amendments allowing military orders to be issued for Administrative Detention without designating a maximum period of time for incarceration without charge or trail [4]
According to the first paragraph of Military Order 1229: “If a Military Commander deems the detention of a person necessary for security reasons he may do so for a period not in excess of 6 months, after which he has the right to extend the detention period for a further six months according to the original order. The detention order can be passed without the presence of the detainee…” [5]
Under this regime, 22% of persons held under administrative detention are held for less than 6 months, while 37% have been held between 6 months to 1 year. Another eight percent have been held for 2-5 years. The longest period an individual has been held under administrative detention without then being charged is 8 years [6].
Israeli human rights group, B’Tselem notes that the highest number of Palestinians held under administrative detention was during the First Intifada, with almost 1800 Palestinians detain in November 1989 [7]. During the early to mid 1990s, between 100-350 Palestinian political prisoners were detained under administrative detention at any given moment. By the second year of the Second Palestinian Intifada, approximately 1000 Palestinians were detained under Israel’s regime. B’Tselem notes that as of August of 2010, 189 Palestinians were being held under administrative detention.
B’Tselm points out that while administrative detention is allowed under international law, it “can only be used only in the most exceptional cases, as the last means available for preventing danger that cannot be thwarted by less harmful means” [8]. B’Tselem notes, however, that Israel uses administrative detention in an arbitrary and regular manner in order to detain Palestinian civilians, denying them proper legal recourse, which is in violation of international law. Not only are Palestinians, who are detained under Administrative Detention orders, not charged with anything and denied the right to a trial, both the detainee and their legal council are denied the right to even know what the detainee is accused of. The detainee’s lawyers are also denied the right to access the military ‘evidence’ against those detained under the Administrative Detention regime. Addameer notes that the use of administrative detention by Israel is such a manner is in contravention of Fourth Geneva Convention, as well as other international and human rights law.
Nearly all Palestinian political prisoners, both male and female, as well as adults and minors, have suffered torture at the hands of their Israeli captors. According to Addameer, “Physical and psychological torture against Palestinian and Arab prisoners has been a distinguishing factor of Israeli occupation since 1967”, noting that “torture has taken different shapes throughout the period of occupation” [9]. According to Addameer since the beginning of the first Palestinian intifada in 1987, at least 30,000 Palestinians have been tortured by Israel.
Many of the Palestinian political prisoners detained under the Administrative Detention regime are minors. In the last week, the village of An Nabi Saleh, has been raided almost nightly and at least four Palestinian minors have been kidnapped by the Israeli military, including an 11 year old off the streets of the village. Under Israeli military law, Palestinian children age 14 years and over are tried as an adult in Israel’s military courts [10]. In practice, however, children as young as 11 and 12 have been brought before these courts and held under Administrative Detention. According to Defense for Children International, 213 Palestinian children are currently being held in Israeli prisons as of December 2010 [11]. The majority of Palestinian child political prisoners report that they have also been tortured by the Israeli military.
The children kidnapped and detained in An Nabi Saleh are now being imprisoned under the same barbaric and illegal regime that my friend Hasan is imprisoned under. Their freedom is denied and the Israeli military will attempt to break their spirits and their resistance to the brutal military occupation which Israel is intent on perpetuating. While the Israeli state and its military machine may break the bones and tear the flesh of its captives, it will fail to break their resistance because these young boys, men and women understand the struggle in which they are engaged is not just a struggle for a homeland, but a struggle for human dignity, equality and freedom. And no man or woman or child, no matter how hard pressed by their oppressor, will ever give up the struggle for such basic and inalienable human rights.
16 December 2010 | International Solidarity Movement
On December 3, 2010, three leaders of the Ni’lin Popular Committee Against the Separation Wall were released from Israeli military prison: Ibrahim Amireh, coordinator of the Popular Committee; Hassan Mousa, spokesperson; and Zaydoon Srour.
Israel wrongfully imprisoned them for 11 months in apparent retaliation for their role as leaders of the nonviolent movement. During their imprisonment, Saeed Amireh, Ibrahim’s 19 year-old son, stepped forward as a powerful leader of the efforts to free his father.
ISM interviewed the four activists on December 15.
Ibrahim and SaeedSAEED AMIREH: I want to talk about the strategy of the Israeli occupation here in Ni’lin.
In 2004, Israel began to build the separation wall. Back then, there were no [organized] demonstrations and no organization like the popular committee we have now. We just went there, thousands of us, to stop the construction. One protester lost his eye to a rubber bullet.
We didn’t give up; we continued our protests against the annexation wall because it is just a way to steal more of our land. If we stay silent, they will continue to steal our land.
In 2008, they started to build the wall again and we surprised them with a large number of demonstrators. At our demonstration on May 27, 2008 the Israelis used a new strategy: high violence against us. There were many soldiers: if we were maybe 400 [demonstrators], they were 300 [soldiers]. We demonstrated every day and we could stop the construction for maybe 5 minutes but then they would shoot live ammo, tear gas, sound bombs and rubber bullets. They were surprised when we kept returning the next day and bringing greater numbers!
They wanted to stop us because the other villages joined in as the nonviolent popular struggle developed. We had with us international activists, Israeli activists and the media.
HASSAN MOUSA: Before our arrest, there were just 4 to 5 sites [of organized protest] in the West Bank. Now, there are about 50. If you suppress the people, the people will rise up. [Israel] committed very brutal crimes against our people, but our reaction was contrary to their expectation. When they shoot our people, the people realize who our enemy is. More and more oppression creates more and more resistance.
AMIREH: Our organization, the popular committee, represents the families and the farmers. Because we had the idea that nonviolent protest is the most effective form of protest, all of the people followed. We could stop the bulldozers for hours and it annoyed [the Israeli military].
Their new strategy against us was the curfew. Starting on July 5, 2008, no one could leave their house without the threat of being shot and killed.
On the third day of the curfew, the other villages came to support us and break the curfew – all of us went outside our houses! Two demonstrators were shot and one spent six months in the hospital, but both lived. When they saw shooting didn’t work, they arrested people for breaking the curfew. When they saw arrests didn’t work, they shot and killed 10 year-old Ahmed Mousa during a demonstration on July 29, 2008. [Ahmed is Hassan Mousa’s nephew.]
HASSAN MOUSA: I lost my 10 year-old nephew. It was terrible for me. He was my favorite nephew and a special part of our family. He was shot by an Israeli soldier in the head and died instantly. I don’t want anyone – Israelis or anyone in the world – to lose someone near and dear to them because of conflict.
Ibrahim and his youngest son in front of illegal wall and settlementsAMIREH: They thought that we would be scared, but after the funeral – that same day! – we made another protest against what they did to Ahmed and against the Apartheid wall.
The soldiers began night raids against our village and our family’s house was raided 25 times. My father was targeted because he was elected to be the coordinator of the popular committee. They arrested him and sent him to a military prison underground in Jerusalem under very harsh conditions. They beat him and insulted him and tried to get him to sign papers against those who participated in the demonstrations.
They continued the night raids and arrested 150 guys who had been in the protests to reduce the size of our demonstrations. They were surprised when they saw the women continue on instead of the guys. They could break our high spirit or destroy our protest!
I was one arrested during the horrible night raids. I was held from December 22, 2008 until April 2009. It was during my last year of high school and all of my future depended on my grades. I had a 94 percent average in my classes. They wanted to destroy my future and punish my father who wanted to see his children educated.
MOUSA: Before my arrest, the town was invaded by dozens of soldiers during night raids. I talked to one of their commanders when he asked me why we were protesting. I told him that there had never been protests here before they built the wall that caused us so much suffering. I said give me back my land, and I will stop protesting.
When they arrested me and brought me to court, I was astonished to hear the charges against us. They accused me of throwing stones. How could a person who is 37 years old and an English teacher be throwing stones!?! I said I am never a person who has believed in raising his hand against another. If I am throwing anything, I am throwing my words, speaking truth to the soldiers.
They accused me of having contacts with foreigners. If that is illegal, then this interview is illegal right now! I said that these foreigners came to Palestine through their Israeli airport and they had come here to work for peace and freedom.
Saeed near apartheid wallThird, they accused me of incitement. I asked them to define the word and they refused. If you consider incitement helping the injured, taking care of prisoners, helping those people who are suffering because they lost their land to the annexation wall – then, let the world know I am guilty.
Last, they accused me of joining a protest that is not permitted. There is an irony here. They grabbed up my land and now want me to ask for a permit to express my disagreement. I will never ask for a permit to protest on my own land. I was not protesting in an Israeli city.
They sent me to jail for a year and fined me 9,000 shekels. But the whole time we were in jail, the protests never stopped.
[Being imprisoned] is beyond description. Our state of mind was terrible. All the time, we were thinking about our families, our kids. We got relief from the other prisoners, sharing stories and jokes. But I told them that I didn’t want to share my feelings. I want to forget. It is beyond description.
There is a lot of injustice against us. We want peace and justice on the ground, but Israel is not respecting that. The Palestinian people lack the right of expression, right of worship, right of movement. I think the Palestinian people are right to resist nonviolently.
Once you have a goal, you have to keep moving toward it. Despite the grabbing of our land, the suppression, the night raids, we will never seek vengeance; we will seek justice. I want peace and tranquility to prevail on this land, to put an end to the hatred. I will keep going toward this dream. Even if we don’t achieve it quickly, even if I die, at least I will have planted the roots.
We have a lot of challenges and obstacles, but I hope we will overcome them.
AMIREH: In our nonviolent struggle in Ni’lin, hundreds have been shot, hundreds have been arrested and five have been killed by the soldiers. They do what they want, but our hope is that we will tear down the wall, and our hearts are still full of hope that we will reach our aim.
Timeline of the struggle in Ni’lin:
2004: Construction of the annexation wall begins and then is halted by nonviolent protests. Both the Israeli Supreme Court and the International Court of Justice side with the villagers of Ni’lin and rule the wall illegal
2008: Construction of the illegal wall resumes. Upon completion, the apartheid wall steals nearly one-third (approximately 30 percent) of Ni’lin’s land. The village forms the Popular Committee Against the Separation Wall. Repression increases against Ni’lin; hundreds are arrested in night raids, and Ibrahim Amireh’s permit to work in Israel is revoked.
May 28, 2008: Nonviolent demonstrations begin, seeking to block the construction of the wall.
July 5, 2008: Israeli army imposes total curfew on Ni’lin.
July 8, 2008: After three days, villagers from the surrounding areas join the residents of Ni’lin in a a demonstration to break the curfew. The Israeli military shoot two demonstrators who survive.
July 29, 2008: Ahmed Mousa (10), the nephew of Hassan Mousa, is shot and killed during a nonviolent demonstration.
July 30, 2008: Yousef Amira (17) is shot and killed during a nonviolent demonstration.
December 22, 2008: Saeed Amireh was arrested during a night raid.
March 13, 2009: ISM activist Tristan Anderson was critically injured by a high velocity tear gas canister, which struck him in the head
2009: Israel establishes checkpoints around Ni’lin attempting to prevent Israeli and international activists from participating in the nonviolent demonstrations.
June 5, 2009: The Israeli military shoots five demonstrators, killing one – Yousef Akil Srour.
October 2009: Nonviolent demonstrators symbolically tear down a part of the concrete annexation wall. Israeli soldiers reinforce the wall with metal beams.
January 12, 2010: Ibrahim Amireh, Hassan Mousa, and Zaydoon Srour – leaders of the popular committee – are taken from their homes and arrested during a night raid.
December 3, 2010: After 11 months in prison, Amireh, Mousa and Srour are released. Another 10 political prisoners from Ni’lin remain behind bars.
