On Wednesday 10th October, Israeli occupation forces raided at dawn a bakery where the released prisoner Khader Adnan works in after his release in the village of Qabatiya, south of Jenin in the West Bank.
The forces interrogated Adnan and took some pictures for him before leaving the place.
Local sources said that a force from Israeli army stormed at dawn, the work place of Khader Adnan, surrounded the place and put a military checkpoint at its main entrance.
The sources added that the soldiers interrogated Adnan and the workers, searched the bakery and took some pictures for the released prisoner and the place.
It's worth noting that Khader Adnan, 33, is a leader and spokesman of the Islamic Jihad movement, and the first prisoner that launched a hunger strike which lasted for 66 days. He encouraged and urged other Palestinian prisoners to follow his path in the strikes. He was released after several months of being under administrative detention; without a charge or trial.
On Thursday 13th September, Minister of Palestinian Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs, Issa Qaraqe, sent a letter to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon calling him to immediately intervene to save the lives of the striking prisoners who are now at immediate risk of death due to serious deterioration in their health condition.
Qaraqe also said that crime against humanity and human rights is practiced in Israeli jails against the striking prisoners; Hassan al-Safadi, Samir al-Barq, Ayman Sharawna, and Samir al-Issawi.
Qaraqe said in the letter: We as Palestinian people, ask you as the sponsor of the largest international and human rights organization in the world to intervene to stop a humanitarian tragedy and catastrophe which may occur against the strikers who are exposed to the neglect and disregard of the Israeli government for their legitimate and humanitarian demands, and the need to international and official intervention to compel the Israeli government to release them immediately.
The letter also said that all the principles and UN resolutions have condemned the administrative detention and described it as a violation of the international and human rights laws. The arrest without a trial is considered an illegal, but Israeli government and its security services is still neglecting those principles, which called for a private session for the UN General Assembly to held and seek the deteriorated conditions of the prisoners, especially the striker prisoners and call on Israel to release them and cease its policy that violates the international laws and conventions.
The letter included that the striking prisoners Hassan al-Safadi who has been on hunger strike since 21/6/2012 and Samir al-Barq since 22/5/2012 and Samir al-Issawi who has been on hunger strike since 1/8/2012, are in very serious health condition and are at risk of death.
Qaraqe Continued that It's time to take the international society seriously and compel Israel to respect the humanitarian and political rights of prisoners and to treat them as war prisoners according to the third and fourth Geneva agreements and to put an end for its military laws and brutal procedures in dealing with prisoners.
On Thursday 13th September, The prisoners have executed a one- day strike in solidarity with the old prisoners and as protest against the raids by the prisons' administration to the prisons' cells and attacks on prisoners.
Qaraqe concluded in his letter that prisoners called on our nation, not to give the occupation a chance to take advantage of what's happening in the Palestinian territories and to protest against the Occupation.
Hamdan: Medical ignorance of Shirwana is flagrant violation against humanity
UFree Network called in a press release, both International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and World Health Organisation (WHO) upon undertaking their responsibility in exerting more pressure on the Israeli occupation authority to provide medical treatment to Palestinian hunger strikers, especially after the acute deterioration that affected their health, where three of them are at hospitals.
UFree Network condemned the Israel's actions as the rejection of providing medications to the Palestinian prisoner Ayman Shirwana, a 63-day hunger striker, in addition to blackmail and haggle policies practiced to stop his strike in return for an injection for his back pains. However, Shirwana did not succumb and he is still in strike until release.
UFree stated that Israeli occupation authority never stopped torturing Palestinian prisoners highlighting the intentional physical and psychological hurts practiced against hunger strikers.
Mohammed Hamdan, UFree chairman, said "What was done by occupation to Shirwana in terms of refusal of medical treatment is a crime against humanity". He added, "Providing Palestinian political prisoners and detainees with medications is a constant right in all international conventions, but occupation does not respect that and it hurts prisoners on purpose".
It is worth mentioning that Al Ramla jail clinic refused to provide Ayman Shirwana with an injection for his back pains unless he ended his hunger strike. Shirwana is one of the prisoners that were released in Shalit prisoner swap deal, but he was arrested again and Israeli military court demands reactivating his previous sentence. He suffers from back pains and he lost 25 kg of weight, besides he does not take any vitamins or sugar since the end of Eid Fiter, he only drinks water.
UFree said that four Palestinian prisoners are still in hunger strike whom are; ·Samer Al Barq – 104 days
· Hasan Safadi – 74 days
· Ayman Shirwana – 64 days
·Samer Al Essawi – 33 days, another released prisoner in the swap deal but he was arrested again.
Israeli occupation transferred Al Barq and Safadi from Al Ramla Jail clinic to Assaf Harofeh hospital due to their serious health deteriorations.
The shadow of a Palestinian youth playing football is silhouetted against a banner forming part of a protest tent in solidarity with Palestinian prisoner Mahmoud Sarsak in Rafah, Gaza on 10 June 2012. (Photo: AFP – Said Khatib)
A Palestinian footballer on hunger strike in an Israeli jail agreed on Monday to end his protest after Israel was forced to cut a deal to release him, his lawyer said.
Mahmoud Sarsak, who has refused food for 92 days, agreed to start eating after Israel offered to release him on 10 July.
His lawyer Mohammad Jaberein told the Palestinian news agency Ma'an that the agreement was signed in his presence, with Sarsak eating chocolate in front of Israeli authorities to prove he had ended the protest.
Israel's decision to cut a deal to release Sarsak comes after sustained international pressure, including in the sporting world.
Footballing legend Eric Cantona last week called for him to be released, while the Israeli women's team faced protests when they played in Scotland on Saturday.
Under the deal al-Sarsak will return to Ramle prison clinic until his release.
The 25-year-old professional footballer from Gaza has been imprisoned by Israel without charge or trial since July 2009.
He is held under Israel's Unlawful Combatants Law, which allows Israel to detain Palestinians from Gaza for an unlimited amount of time without trial.
Al-Sarsak had joined the local soccer team in the Rafah refugee camp in Gaza at the age of 14, and had gone on to play for the Palestinian national team.
He was arrested as he left Gaza heading for the West Bank, where he was hoping to continue his football career.
RAMALLAH, (PIC)-- The administration of Assaf Harofeh hospital told the Israeli prison authority that prisoner Mahmoud Sarsak, a Palestinian soccer player on hunger strike for 88 days, is dying and that it cannot be responsible for his death in the coming hours.
Human rights lawyers visited Sarsak on Monday in hospital and affirmed that his health status is more serious than some people think and has become hopeless.
Prisoner Sarsak was transferred on Sunday evening to Assaf Harofeh hospital after a serious decline in his health condition and last Thursday, he was transferred from the hospital of Ramla jail to Meir hospital.
Mahmoud Sarsak was born on January 20, 1987 in Rafah city south of Gaza and is still unmarried. He is a professional national soccer player and a university student majoring in computer programming at the third level.
88 days ago, he decided to go on huger strike in protest at his administrative detention without any guilt or charge, and refused once an Israel offer to exile him to Norway.
Thaer Halahleh narrowly skirted death when Israel agreed to a deal that ended his 78-day hunger strike, returning home on Tuesday night after languishing behind Israeli bars without charge for over two years.
“I had been in detention for 25 months, and in solitary confinement for 78 days, which is the hunger strike period,” Halahleh, his speech frail after the ordeal, told Al-Akhbar.
There was concern Israel would renege on its promise – as it has so often done in 64 years of its occupation of Palestine – and renew Halahleh's detention once again.
“I threatened the authorities with going on a silent hunger strike in case they didn't release me,” he said.
Israel has already renewed dozens of administrative detention sentences despite having made a deal with 2,000 Palestinian hunger strikers, pledging their release at the end of their current terms.
The Jewish state has also maintained a prohibition on family visits to a number of detainees, again in violation of the deal.
Halahleh's hunger strike has left him weak and thin, but is on the road to recovery. “I am at al-Khalil hospital and staying there to take the necessary tests. Although I still feel pain when I eat sometimes, I am getting better,” he said.
Thaer, whose name means “rebel”, expressed deep joy at seeing his family, including his two-year-old daughter, Lamar, whom he barely knows thanks to Israel's stringent restrictions on family visits.
“I want to spend time with my only daughter who still doesn't know me and refused to acknowledge my presence until now,” he said bitterly, demonstrating deep resentment at the Israeli occupiers that robbed him of two years of his daughter's life.
But despite winning his own freedom, Halahleh could not contain the sadness at the thought of the many friends he left behind.
“I am overwhelmed with happiness and I am so glad to see my family again with their warm welcome. At the same time, I feel sad to have left my fellow detained brothers who hold the same mission,” he said.
Israel's draconian administrative detention policy dates back to the British mandate era of historic Palestine.
The policy enables Israel to detain Palestinians indefinitely without charge, and without disclosing the evidence supposedly gathered against them.
Human rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have slammed the policy as a violation of international humanitarian law.
Hundreds of Palestinians languish in Israeli prisons under the policy, which is just one of the many injustices Palestinian people suffer from under Israeli rule.
Halahleh described the inhumane conditions of the Israeli prison.
“The conditions in the jail were extremely harsh. They aren't fit for a human to live in. I was under the grip of the [Israeli] occupation which has all the means to provoke and pressure me.”
Halahleh has spent much of the past 15 years behind Israeli bars. The first time the 33-year-old was arrested by the Israeli occupation army was just before his senior year in high school.
Due to his frequent arrests and time spent in prison, Halahleh only managed to study for one year at Hebron University. He later managed to open a used furniture store.
He expressed hope in returning to his studies and continuing his furniture store business.
“I still haven't graduated from university. I think I will pursue my Quran and Islamic Sharia studies which I had started before I was detained. I will also handle the management of the furniture store I own,” he said.
Halahleh wrote the following to his daughter on the final days of his hunger strike, concerned that his non-violent resistance to Israeli occupation would take his life.
”My Beloved Lamar, forgive me because the occupation took me away from you, and took away from me the pleasure of witnessing my firstborn child that I have always prayed to God to see, to kiss, to be happy with. It is not your fault; this is our destiny as Palestinian people to have our lives and the lives of our children taken away from us, to be apart from each other and to have a miserable life.”
The letter describes the pain that Palestinian people must endure, and the misery Israel is bent on imposing upon them. But in Halahleh's case, his strength won him his freedom.
Palestinian fans hold the sign "Freedom for prisoners" during the opening match of the "Palestine Championship" between the local national team and Vietnam in the West Bank town of Al-Ram, between Ramallah and Jerusalem, on 14 May 2012 (photo: AFP - AHMAD GHARABLI)
During the latest wave of hunger strikes, many Palestinian movements occurred in support of the strikers’ struggle. It is clear that there is persistent action on the ground, but it is still limited to the active circles connected to the families of the prisoners. At the peak of the strike, when it was crucial to have massive support, many voiced frustration with continued Palestinian apathy, especially when in Scotland and Spain, for instance, thousands marched for the prisoners. Meanwhile, in Ramallah and Nablus, only hundreds bothered to demonstrate.
Despite the long history of Palestinian resistance, current popular action remains limited to small-scale participation. One has to ask, what went wrong?
Before discussing the major factor influencing every single aspect of Palestinians’ lives - the Israeli occupation, one needs to look at the process Palestinians went through since the Oslo Accord of 1993 and the subsequent creation of the Palestinian Authority (PA) that contributed in many ways to Palestinian apathy. Although those who signed Oslo thought they were heading in a positive direction, it is clear today that what they received was a lie. In lieu of a contiguous sovereign Palestinian state, Oslo has given the PA glorified local governance over disconnected city centers. In hindsight, Oslo has been a disaster for the Palestinian cause. The agreement gave much to the Israelis – the colonizers – with minimum concessions, while giving little to the Palestinians – the colonized – while extracting maximum concessions.
One cannot examine the absence of a massive movement on the ground without also taking into consideration the context of separation and division. At present, Palestinians are a separated and divided people. Half of the Palestinian population live in the diaspora and exile, the vast majority in squalid refugee camps in neighboring countries, denied their right of return to their homes and villages. Gaza, ruled by Hamas, and the West Bank, ruled by Fatah, are separated by the occupation. Within the occupied West Bank, divisions also exist. Jerusalem is isolated from the surrounding Palestinian population due to Israeli settlement expansion and occupation. Palestinians with Israeli citizenship were also ignored by Oslo and live in continued isolation from their brethren while suffering daily discrimination in the Jewish “democracy.” Accomplishing the physical unity of Palestinians as a nation to fight apartheid is, thus, difficult. And it’s difficult not only as a result of Israeli policies, and internal division, but also due to Arab countries that host Palestinian refugees, but do not allow them to resist from their borders.
Oslo’s implications pertain not only to geography, demography and land. There were also implications for Palestinian civil society in the occupied territories. Civil society began to be transformed from being part of the liberation movement to “development.” The phenomenon of “NGOzation” has infiltrated Palestinian society. International funders too often dictate to Palestinians their agendas and priorities, killing the spirit of the freedom fighters and resistance in the process.
The Oslo agenda was designed in a way that those trapped in it would have little or no interest in challenging it. Oslo has created the illusion of a “state,” a state for people with no rights and no sovereignty over their borders, resources or fate.
Any decision to dissolve the PA or change its mandate, especially to put an end to the security coordination with Israel, should be made outside the framework of the Palestinian leaders who have vested interests and are terrified at the prospect of losing them. The sole and legitimate representative of the Palestinian people as a whole, the PLO, is the body to make such decisions. The PNC (Palestinian National Council), the legislative body of the PLO, had its last meeting in 1996, where its members were appointed, not elected as they should have been according to the PLO constitution. Since Oslo, the PLO has lost its mandate and rebellious identity to the “quasi-state” of the PA. We should not expect that the same heads of the PLO, who also run the PA, would want to voluntarily surrender their power. The PLO is occupied by the same faces who have sat there for decades, stifling all sense of change, snuffing out the resistance element of the Palestinian cause. We should not expect such an ossified institution to bring a new vision.
Apathy, therefore, became a natural result of the frustration at the unchanged leadership. This leadership lacks any strategy or comprehensive vision, except the ultimate soap opera of “negotiations.” Furthermore, the security coordination with Israel is designed to ensure Israelis’ “security” not Palestinians’. In many cases, it also impedes the people from challenging the occupation with its security forces that sometimes block protesters from reaching checkpoints and have no tolerance toward anyone who dares to criticize Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas). It creates confusion; where do we start our fight? Against the PA leaders who failed the people but still hold on to power? Or the Israeli occupation forces that have trapped the PA in such a role and still control Palestinian lives? In order to fight, you need to set your target with clear eyes.
That is relevant to the West Bank under the PA and Fatah, however, Palestinians under Hamas in Gaza face similar challenges, and a regime even more oppressive toward critical voices that might challenge its rule.
Some also have concerns based on their experiences of the second intifada, where an unorganized armed resistance led to armed militias and security chaos. Many Palestinians are afraid an uprising will spiral out of control, and the same chaos will return.
Yet, the main reason for the Palestinian apathy and fatigue remains the occupation and colonization that has not relented since the creation of the PA in Oslo.
Israel attempts to crush peaceful resistance with no regard for Palestinian lives. And that, naturally, deters people from participation. When people go to participate in a protest against the occupation, they take the risk of getting shot, beaten, or arrested. Two-hundred and seventy-five Palestinian martyrs have been killed by the Israeli army since 2000 in popular resistance rallies. (Information taken from the Popular Resistance Coordination Committee).
Arrest means a verdict in a military court. Imprisonment is a near certainty and is far more of a persecution than prosecution. The system is heavily stacked against a fair day in court for Palestinians. According to Haaretz, in 2010, 99.74 percent of the trials of Palestinians in Israeli military courts ended in convictions. Arrest and then charges means a “security file” will accompany any attempt to travel, whether for leisure or studies. It kills the already near-impossible chance of getting a permit, either for work in Israel or to visit family or friends. Arrest means one becomes a target – and in many cases one’s family does as well.
Palestinians have sacrificed much for their steadfastness and resistance, with tens of thousands killed, hundreds of thousands jailed, arrested or tortured, and many others losing their homes or lands or source of income. Their sacrifice is met with non-stop Israeli colonization, their resistance is met with brutal Israeli repression, and their screams met with international silence. Combined, it has made Palestinians question the worth of their sacrifice.
Israel has “architectured” the Oslo agreement to make the occupation more efficient. To Palestinians in city centers, the occupation has become slightly less direct. There, you will hardly feel the occupation, unless you have to go through checkpoints every day or you see the Israeli army raiding your neighborhood at night to arrest your neighbor. Many people abandoned the option of filing for a permit to enter "Israel" to visit friends or family or simply Palestine. Many people gave up the idea of traveling abroad because they would need permission from Israel and they would need to cross Israeli "border" points. Most Palestinians have a “security file” in Israel and, if not them, a family member surely does. People just continue to live their lives, adapting to the reality, with the Israeli occupation sapping their will to resist. They fear losing the little they have left if they challenge the status quo.
Understanding this complexity under which Palestinians live post-Oslo explains the current situation where the will to resist has been drained from the people of resistance. In order to break down Palestinian apathy and fatigue, one will have to break down the many reasons that led to it, starting with Oslo.
Abir Kopty is a Palestinian blogger. Follow her on Twitter @abirkopty
One of the largest lawyers' representative bodies in America has written an open letter to the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, urging her to apply pressure on her Israeli counterparts to end the illegal practice of administrative detention against Palestinian prisoners.
The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) has expressed its grave concern over the recent Palestinian hunger strike, highlighting the causes as "the widespread and illegal practice of administrative detention... horrendous living conditions and ill-treatment to which [Palestinian prisoners] are subjected to in Israeli prisons".
The NLG highlighted further the use of long-term isolation and secret evidence in a military court system, and warns that hunger strikes will continue unless the prisoners' fundamental human rights are respected. The letter ends with a call for the immediate cessation of all US military aid to Israel, which amounts to $3.1 billion per annum. Read the full letter below:
Letter to Sec. Clinton Re: Palestinian Hunger Strikes
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton U.S. Department of State 2201 C Street NW Washington, DC 20520 Dear Secretary Clinton,
Although the imminent threat of death for Palestinian hunger strikers has apparently been averted as the strikers have won concessions from Israeli authorities to improve their conditions, the National Lawyers Guild continues to express its grave concern over the issues that caused those approximately 2000 Palestinian prisoners to put their lives on the line. Those prisoners were protesting against the widespread and illegal practice of administrative detention, as well as the horrendous living conditions and ill-treatment to which they are subjected in Israeli prisons. It is regrettable that it has taken the mass near-starvation of Palestinian political prisoners to call attention to their plight.
The last minute concessions allowed Israel to avoid a volatile situation, both in its prisons and in the land it occupies. We call on you to insist that the Israeli authorities abide by their international obligations, respect international humanitarian and human rights laws, and implement the concessions they agreed to in good faith—and to do so publicly.
The written agreement apparently contains five main provisions:
* The prisoners would end their hunger strike following the signing of the agreement.
* Israel will end the use of long-term isolation of prisoners for “security” reasons, and the 19 prisoners currently in isolation will be moved out within 72 hours.
* Family visits for first degree relatives of prisoners from the Gaza Strip and for families from the West Bank who have been denied visit based on vague “security reasons” will be reinstated within one month.
* A committee will be formed to facilitate meetings between the Israeli Prison Service and prisoners in order to improve their daily conditions.
* There will be no new administrative detention orders or renewals of administrative detention orders for the 308 Palestinians currently in administrative detention, unless the secret files, upon which administrative detention is based, contains “very serious” information.
Unfortunately, Israeli authorities have not agreed to end their widespread use of indefinitely renewable administrative detention by military courts, based on secret evidence, without charge or trial. This practice is in violation of international humanitarian law, which permits the limited use of administrative detention but nevertheless requires a fair hearing at which the detainee can hear the evidence against him/her and challenge the bases for continued detention. This is also a fundamental tenet of due process rights and is required by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), in particular Article 14 paragraph 3 (a), which provides that everyone be entitled to “be informed promptly and in detail in a language which he understands of the nature and cause of the charge against him.” The policy of administrative detention contravenes these basic international human rights standards as the evidence against these detainees is submitted in secret to the military court and neither the detainees nor their lawyers are given access to it. Since the detainees do not know the evidence against them, they are unable to refute it or otherwise defend themselves.
Administrative detainees have in the past included, and will likely continue to include many Palestinians involved in organizing non-violent political activity. They have also included elected members of the Palestinian Legislative Council. Currently 24 Palestinian MPs are in administrative detention, effectively disabling the governing body.
According to data in the military courts’ annual report, obtained several months ago by Haaretz, a leading Israeli newspaper, 98.77 percent of requests for administrative detention have been approved by military courts over the past few years. One third of the 308 currently held detainees have been held between one and two years, 13 have been held between two and four and a half years, and two have been held for even longer. Several individuals have been subjected to administrative detention several times, with aggregate time served in detention sometimes exceeding 10 years.
According to Human Rights Watch: “The idea that you can lock up 100s of people at any given time—and over the years 100s and 1000s of people—without any due process rights, really turns human rights law on its head.” The UN Human Rights Committee has consistently said that administrative detention is practiced by Israel in an unlawful way. In response to the mass hunger strike, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon demanded that all the administrative detainees “must be charged and face trial with judicial guarantees, or be released without delay.” We urge the US government to make this same demand concerning present and future administrative detainees.
Israel has consistently failed in the past to respect the agreements it has entered into with Palestinians regarding prisoners’ issues, including the use of long-term isolation. The release of Palestinian leader Ahmad Sa’adat, held in isolation since March 18, 2009, and the return of all isolated prisoners to the general population were the primary demands of the Palestinian prisoners’ hunger strike of October 2011. That strike ended with Israeli concessions that were not kept. Long-term isolation, up to 10 years in one case, continued. Ahmad Sa’adat remained isolated. Solitary confinement also continued to be systematically used pre-trial as a means of isolating detainees and coercing them to confess.
As we are sure you are aware, on October 18, 2011, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture Juan Mendez, speaking before the UN General Assembly, called for all use of isolation longer than 15 days to be banned, saying that isolation can cause “severe mental pain or suffering” and “can amount to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment when used as a punishment, during pre-trial detention, indefinitely or for a prolonged period… solitary confinement should be banned by states as a punishment or extortion technique.” We therefore urge you to insist that Israel respect the obligations it has just entered into concerning putting an end to its illegal use of isolation.
This is not the first mass Palestinian prisoner hunger strike. Nor is it likely to be the last time that prisoners put their lives and health at stake in an effort to defend their dignity and human rights within a military justice system that is rife with physical and psychological torture, abuse, and deprivation.
Hunger strikes are virtually the only way that their voices can be heard. It is imperative that the US government hears the voices of Palestinian prisoners and takes action to secure and protect their fundamental rights. Their lives depend on it.
Given the likelihood that human rights and humanitarian law violations will continue to be committed and condoned by the Israeli military courts, in particular the widespread use of administrative detention, it is unconscionable that the United States continues its military aid of over $3.1 billion a year to Israel—and even discusses adding an additional $1 billion. In light of the violations we have outlined above, the National Lawyers Guild calls for the immediate cessation of all military aid to Israel.
Sincerely, Heidi Boghosian Executive Director National Lawyers Guild
Hunger strikes like the one that ended Monday have long been the only way for Palestinians held captive by Israel to secure improvements to harsh prison conditions.
More than 15 major indefinite hunger strikes have been organized by the Palestinian captive movement in Israeli jails in the 45 years since the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip began.
Decisions to stage “strategic” hunger strikes – as the prisoners refer to them, to distinguish them from the smaller-scale strikes they hold regularly - are taken in full knowledge of the suffering and danger they entail for the participants. But they have proven to be the prisoners’ sole means of partially alleviating the suffering of a different order which is inflicted on them on a daily and growing basis.
Conditions for Palestinians in the jails of “the only democracy in the Middle East” have never been determined by considerations of human rights. They have largely been the outcome of a constant struggle pitting the defenseless inmates, determined to continue their struggle for freedom and dignity behind bars, against an occupation authority for which brutal incarceration is an integral part of the broader system of repression.
In a world which tacitly colludes with the occupation by disregarding its crimes, it is unsurprising that this struggle goes largely unreported by the media. It only makes the news at major junctures, when the prisoners force themselves on the domestic and regional agenda by declaring a war of wills, with only their empty stomachs as weapons.
This weapon was first employed effectively in 1969, in a hunger strike in Ramleh prison which lasted 11 days and set a precedent. Large-scale hunger strikes have been held around once every three years since. They have invariably focused on variants of the same demand: the improvement of worsening prison conditions to a level consistent with the prisoners’ human dignity.
Veteran former inmates recall how prisoners in the 1970s were subject to forced labor – at times being made to do work for the Israeli military such as sewing tarpaulins – forbidden from speaking to each other in prison yards, and routinely meted out brutal and humiliating treatment from guards. They are acutely conscious that it was only the hunger and pain they suffered in successive strikes which brought about incremental gains – from the right to have spoons to eat their meals with, to the demands raised by the prisoners in their latest hunger strike. At times they have paid with their lives, as in the 32-day hunger strike at Nafha prison in 1980. Three inmates – Rasem Halaweh, Ali al-Jaafari, and Ishaq Maragheh – died during attempts by prison administration to force-feed them with fluid injected through tubes inserted into their nostrils.
Veterans consider this to have been one of the hardest-fought and toughest of all Palestinian prisoners’ hunger strikes because of the draconian measures the Israeli prison service took in an attempt to break it, apparently fearing the precedent it would set if it succeeded. But the prisoners’ determination proved stronger, and a number of gains were achieved. These included improved conditions such as being provided with beds to sleep on (they had previously had to sleep on cell floors), and also recognition of the prisoners’ organizational structures, and by extension their right to deal with the prison authorities via representatives of their own choosing.
The most high-profile hunger strike after Nafha was at Juneid prison in 1987, which also extended to other detention centers. It resulted in prisoners establishing their right to longer outdoors-time and access to radio and television.
The “mother of battles” waged by Palestinian prisoners was the rolling hunger strike they launched in September 1992. It took months to plan and coordinate, and was taken up in succession by captives in all the main prisons, numbering around 7,000 in total. Street protests in support of the prisoners rapidly gained momentum, sparking what the media dubbed at the time as the “prisoners’ intifada.” During the 17 days of the hunger strike, Israeli occupation forces killed 17 Palestinian protesters in clashes in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. One of the striking prisoners, Hussein Obeidat, also lost his life due to health complications.
Among the notable gains achieved was the right for prisoners to embrace their young children for five minutes during family visits, and also to continue their academic studies by correspondence, and to use fans to alleviate the summer heat in their cells.
It was clear to the captive movement at the time that it would be a struggle to hold on to these important gains. Having been forced to yield in the face of the prisoners’ resolve, the Israeli prison service proceeded to gradually but systematically renege on its undertakings. It withdrew, or effectively cancelled, many of the entitlements prisoners had achieved, taking advantage of the conducive political climate and conditions over the years that followed.
Thus, by the time of the outbreak of the Second Intifada in 2000, prison conditions had worsened steadily, and they have continued to deteriorate. The Israeli government itself ordered harsh measures against prisoners as a means of applying pressure and extortion during the course of the protracted prisoner exchange negotiations conducted after the Palestinian resistance captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.
Whenever a decision is taken to go on hunger strike, the leaders of the various political groups to which the inmates belong appoint a special committee to prepare for and organize the protest, and define and prioritize demands and tactics. Known as the “struggle committee,” it determines the parameters of the protest and the minimum terms for ending it. Once the strike is announced, the committee takes charge of leading it and negotiating with the prison authorities on behalf of the prisoners, and it alone can call an end to the strike.
Former prisoners who have been on open hunger strike say they always knew their lives were on the line, despite the measures they learnt to take to maintain their health for as long as possible. Captives who join hunger strikes are, for example, told to take regular doses of salt to keep up their blood pressure and drink plenty of water to maintain body fluid levels. It is also important to keep movement minimal to preserve calories and avoid sudden exertions which could cause vertigo.
Yet these measures do not spare hunger strikers from intense suffering. This is compounded by the foul smell which begins to be emitted from the gut around the fifth day, accompanied by severe pains in the joints and a growing sense of weakness. The feeling of actual hunger diminishes as the stomach atrophies. With time, other symptoms start to appear, with severe weight loss setting in after the first week. After the second week the body starts tapping energy from the liver and muscles.
According to medical observations, hunger strikers enter a critical phase in their fifth week, as muscle paralysis sets in, also affecting the eyesight, and it becomes difficult even to swallow water. Subsequently, the senses dull and weaken before being almost completely lost. Then, internal bleeding begins, along with the struggle against death.
There is no precise medical prognosis for how long someone can survive without food. But observations of hunger strikers suggest that a young, healthy adult of medium weight would expect to start losing consciousness on day 55 of a hunger strike, and be in a critically life-threatening condition from day 60. Statistics suggest it would be highly unlikely for a hunger striker to survive 75 days.
Prior to the latest Palestinian prisoners’ hunger strike, one of the longest in modern times was the 1981 protest by Irish Republican Army (IRA) prisoners jailed by Britain, led by the militant and poet Bobby Sands. They began a rolling hunger strike in March that year to demand recognition as political prisoners rather than common criminals. Sands died after 66 days, and his comrades continued the protest. Nine of them lost their lives before the hunger strike was called off in October after the British government acceded to the prisoners’ demands. Sands became an icon of the Irish republican movement, his funeral attended by more than 100,000 people. Palestinian detainees Thaer Halahleh and Bilal Thiab were on the 77th day of their hunger strike when Monday’s deal was announced.
About 2,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails had been on hunger strike to protest conditions and policies [EPA]
Deal reached to end hunger strike of about 2,000 Palestinians protesting against living conditions in Israeli jails.
The Palestinian Minister for Prisoner Affairs has said a deal has been reached with Israel to end a weeks-long hunger strike by hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.
Issa Qaraqe said the Palestinian prisoners signed the deal on Monday afternoon at an Israeli prison in Ashkelon.
He did not have details of the deal, and Israeli officials had no immediate comment.
About 2,000 prisoners held by Israel have been on a hunger strike since mid-April, demanding better conditions.
A handful of prisoners have been refusing food for as long as 77 days, and are said to be in a critical condition.
In contrast to Gilad Shalit, the French-Israeli soldier kidnapped by Hamas on June 2006, who became a cause celebrate by heads of states, international organizations, kidnapped Palestinian civilians are ignored by Israel, by the Palestinian leadership, certainly by the world community.
Gilad Shalit was not an ordinary Israeli civilian citizen. He was a soldier, a member of the IDF, carrying a gun, ready to shoot and kill. He was a prisoner of war. In contrast, the Palestinian prisoners held under administrative detention are kidnapped civilians, not soldiers, not carrying guns, did not shoot or kill any one. They are simply kidnapped and held without cause and without trial by a criminal Israel and every one that count remains silent.
The interesting thing about Israel’s administrative detention is that it is inherited from the former British Mandate in Palestine and used to detain and applied more to Palestinians and much less to Jews, even though Jewish settlers were actively engaged in terrorist activities.
It is also interesting to note until Israel formally adopted the “administrative detention” in 1979, the Knesset and for a long time since the founding of the state refused to formally adopt it, as it was ashamed to use it. The state simply “borrowed” it to detain Palestinians, first those who remained in Palestine of 48 and then later widely used to detain hundreds of thousands since 67. Over 600,000 Palestinians were processed through Israeli jails. That is one third of the population.
Israel uses “administrative detention” to punish, intimidate even force detainees to become “informers” of Shin Beth, the Israeli internal security agency.
Under Israeli laws, the Defense Minister has the authority and power to detain any one for renewable periods of 6 months based on recommendations of the various security agencies. Of course no need for any detainee to have committed any crimes. Simply if the security agencies think a detainee is a person of interest it can detain them.
Moreover the law does not require the state to bring or file formal charges, and the detainee has no right of council, and has no right to see or cross examine the order, neither the defense lawyer. So-called “evidence” is presented to a presiding judge normally in a military court and the state does not even have to present evidence. A simple letter from the Defense Ministry claiming there is “evidence” is sufficient to send someone to jail for yearns without trial. Now my friends this is the only democracy in the Middle East and this is America’s best ally, certainly the most expensive ally in the history of the world.
Of course we all need to keep in mind that the US like its ally Israel did and does exercise the powers of “administrative detention”. In fact over 110,000 Japanese American were also held in administrative detention called “internment camps”.
Now these people were never charged with any crime, nor there were any evidence they collaborated with the Japanese. Yet the President of the United States saw it fit to detain these American people simply because they were Japanese.
While the US detained and “interned” these US citizens because they were of Japanese origin, the US did not detain or create internment camps for Americans of German origin living on the East Coast.
The US Supreme Court in Karamtsu vs. the US, 323 US 214, sided with the government and ruled President Roosevelt Executive Order 9066 was constitutional. I was surprised back in 76 when I did a research paper on the subject
that the most liberal justice on the court justice William Douglas ruled with the majority of 6-3. That case stand, it was never overruled.
While every Tom, Dick and Harry from Obama to Blair, to Merkel to Sarkozy to too many to mention traveled to Jerusalem and Ramallah in support of the release of Gilad Shalit, even the G8, the Catholic Church, Russian leadership all demanded his release. He became an “honorary” citizen” of many countries in Europe. Yet hardly any one, not even the UN ever gave a damn about the thousand Palestinians kidnapped and detained by Israel.
More tragic is the fact that the Ramallah leadership never made the issue of kidnapped prisoners a priority or an issue in international meetings, only giving a lip service. Only when these detainees went on hunger strike did the Ramallah leadership paid any attention. Its priority always was to seek funds to operate and serve the Jewish Occupation.
Unlike the movie Fiddler on the Roof when the lead character Tevye sang his song “If I was a rich man,” the Palestinians prisoners should be singing the song “ If I was Jew”. Only then will the world give them any attention.
The Palestinian Thaer Halahleh who has been on hunger strike for 73 days in protest at his detention by the Zionist entity has been told he "could die any moment" by a prison doctor.
Halahleh, who was recently transferred to a hospital after refusing to drink water, is reportedly on his deathbed.
A lawyer from al-Quds-based charity Addameer described Halahleh's deteriorating condition.
"Halahleh has lost significant weight, and now weighs 55kg," said the NGO. It further warned that "he has exceedingly low blood pressure and his temperature is fluctuating at dangerous levels. In addition to vomiting blood, Halahleh is also bleeding from his gums and lips."
"Israel's" supreme court rejected a request by Halahleh and fellow hunger striker Bilal Diab to be freed. This came as "Israel" still refuses to transfer Diab and Halahleh to hospital after 73 days on hunger strike, the Prisoners Society said Friday.
Diab, 27, and Halahleh, 33, are being held in the "Israeli" prison clinic, Prisoners' Minister Qaddura Fares said, adding that the "Israeli" authorities refused to allow the society's lawyer to visit them on Thursday.
However, it seems that "Israel" started to surrender.
According to news agencies, "Israel's" prison service has offered to ease restrictions on Palestinian prisoners in a bid to end a mass hunger strike that has left several detainees close to death.
An official with Addameer told AFP on Thursday that negotiations between prisoners and the "Israel" Prison Service (IPS) appeared to be making progress.
"According to what we have learned from the prisoners, there was a meeting last night in Nafha prison between the IPS and leaders of the hunger strike," she said.
GAZA, (PIC)-- The Palestinian PM Ismail Haneyya called, in a solidarity tent in Gaza city on Monday, to use all means and ways including resistance options to free the prisoners and support them in their hunger strike that continues for the 14th day running.
Haniyeh called on the Arab and Islamic people and governments to rise up in all revolution squares in solidarity with the Palestinian prisoners who represent "a part of this Umma”.
He stressed on the need for a concerted effort at the Palestinian, Arab, Islamic, and international levels to support the prisoners' steadfastness and to work by all means for their freedom and dignity. "All the world was moving for releasing the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit whereas 5 thousand Palestinian prisoners are being ignored," he said.
He stressed that the prisoners' determination needs more support from the Palestinian people, promising the prisoners to stand behind them till their freedom and to keep fighting and resisting till attaining their safe return to their homes.
Haneyya confirmed that resistance will never accept negotiating on prisoners' freedom and dignity and they will work to enforce prisoners' rights that are guaranteed by international law and principles.
He appreciated the Palestinian factions’ unity around this issue that is more superior to all differences.
Meanwhile, minister for Detainee Affairs Dr Attallah Abu al-Subah, stated that the two coming days of the strike will be critical, either the prison service respond to the prisoners' demands, else the prisoners are entering a serious stage where hunger striking prisoners might start dying.
Abu al-Subah stressed, in an exclusive statement to the PIC, that the coming days will witness an escalation in the strike where many prisoners will join the open-ended hunger strike and will launch a mass civil disobedience campaign disrupting all facilities and workers within the prison.
He revealed that many meetings were held last week between the captives’ movement leadership and prison service discussing ways to end the strike. The prison service tried in these meetings to get around the prisoners’ real demands but the prisoners refused to cede their fair demands.
Abu al-Sabuh confirmed that solidarity activities will expand more inside and outside Palestine, stressing on the need to unite all efforts to support the prisoners' fight for their usurped rights.
The Tadamun International for Human Rights stated that the isolated detainee Abdullah Barghouti suffers from low body temperature and low blood sugar and severe weight loss.
Ahmad Bitawi,a researcher for the organization, affirmed that in his meeting with Barghouthi, 19 days into his hunger strike, he noticed that he suffers from a low body temperature about 36° and a sharp decline in sugar reaching 65, causing his dizziness while moving, as he has lost 16 kilograms of his weight, pointing out that at the same time he shows a great steadfastness and determination, insisting to continue his strike.
He added that the prison service of Aylon offered the detainee vitamins and minerals but he refused to drink but water.
For his part Barghouti sent a message from his isolation cell saying that he and his fellow captives are gain to extract their rights and not beg for them from the occupation, praising the Palestinian people solidarity asking them for more support. He also thanked the Jordanian people and the Jordanian engineers Association that has given so much to serve and support the prisoners' issue.
Barghouti stressed that his demands are to allow his family to visit him and to go out with his brothers from isolation, which prisoners call the “graves of the living”, and he expected to be transferred to hospital during the next few days because of his serious health deterioration.
A court hearing to look into his isolation is slated for 2 May 2012 o decide whether to extend or end his isolation.
The Engineer Abdullah Barghouthi, who is serving 67 life sentences, the highest sentence in the history of the Arab-Zionist conflict, is married and a father of 3 children and holds Jordanian citizenship. He was detained since 5 March 2003.
Barghouthi is one of 18 isolated prisoners in occupation prisons and their release from isolation is one of the demands of the captives’ movement and a condition to stop the hunger strike, which entered the 14th day.
Hamas militants stage a mock prison break during a rally,
calling for the release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli
jails, in Jabalya, in the northern Gaza Strip, April 13, 2012
(Reuters/Mohammed Salem)
Thousands of Palestinians are on hunger strike in Israeli prisons - for over a week, they have been protesting against indefinite detention without charge and alleged ill-treatment. Some of those who got out, told RT about their life behind bars.
Human rights groups in the West Bank say 2,000 Palestinians have been on hunger strike for more than a week, and others are ready to join next week. At the moment there are an estimated 5,000 Palestinians in Israeli jails. Each year, 700-800 minors are arrested, and in all, 20 per cent of Palestinians have experienced Israeli prison.
Yahya as-Sinwar was arrested in 1988 and sentenced to 462 years in prison. He served 23 years and is now 50. He is one of the founders of Hamas and the Islamic University of Gaza.
Israel accused him of organizing and leading Hamas internal security unit MAJD and killing Palestinian traitors who spied for Israel. As-Sinwar says that they had no choice, because these people put the resistance movement in jeopardy.
Speaking about his years spent in an Israeli jail, as-Sinwar says different kinds of torture were routine practice.
“They kept me awake for 10 days in a row. Whenever I dozed off, they would pour ice-cold or boiling water on me – depending on their personal preferences. They would tie my arms behind my back, throw me on the floor, a prison guard would sit on my stomach or chest, apply pressure to the groin – the pain was excruciating,” Yahya as-Sinwar recollects.
According to as-Sinwar, the Shabak [Israeli General Security Service] handles torture during the investigation, and the Shabas [Israeli Prison Service] tortures sentenced prisoners. “They have two departments – Nahshon and Metzada – which are responsible for the total psychological destruction of a person. These methods are not used anywhere else in the world.”
He says Israeli prison guards could tie a prisoner to a child’s chair and make him balance on it for days; put a person in an ice box (after this the person’s limbs are usually amputated).
“They have this form of torture when they tie a prisoner’s hands and leave him hanging for 24 hours. Or they suffocate the prisoner, watch him turn blue, let him breathe for a bit, and then repeat this several times,” as-Sinwar told RT. “When they tortured my close friend, they beat him on the back of the head with tightly rolled newspapers. A person has terrible headaches afterwards, becomes hysterical, all the internal organs get damaged.”
According to as-Sinwar, these kinds of torture leave no marks and even a very keen doctor would find it very difficult to discover any signs of abuse.
“They study the prisoners and come up with something especially humiliating for this particular convict. For a Palestinian it is easier to die than suffer humiliation – they know it very well and humiliate our people in a very cruel way.”
As-Sinwar says the prisoners could not get proper medical treatment in custody: “After long hours of waiting in pain, all you get is not a doctor but a nurse without any experience who gives you one cure for all conditions – a painkiller. They don’t care if a prisoner lives or suffers terrible pain.”
As-Sinwar believes hunger strikes are the only way for Palestinian prisoners to express their protest.
“Prisoners in Israel get 10 per cent of the amount of food served in the prisons of other countries. After many days of hunger strikes convicts look like the walking dead. Prison guards have to carry them to interrogation sessions on stretchers, and throw them on the stone floor in their prison cells.”
Cells space of 1.2 by 0.8 m
All the fences in the neighborhood around Ayman Hatem Afif al-Shakhshir’s house in Gaza are covered with citizens’ wishes of health and well-being to him. He spent 19 years in an Israeli prison out of the 550-year term he was sentenced to, and was released in exchange for Corporal Shalit. Ayman Hatem Afif al-Shakhshir stems from a well-known Palestinian family. He was arrested at the age of 28. His three daughters grew up, and two of them got married and had children without him around.
Ayman was the head of one of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas. He was arrested on charges of taking part in assaults on Israeli military personnel deployed in Gaza.
“None of the detainees had a single visitor for five years since 2006. My father died without seeing me once in the last 10 years of his life. It was only through the Red Cross that I occasionally received letters – it was the only way to keep in touch with the family, while my children were growing up without me,” says Ayman.
He says his cell was not fit to hold people.
“It was a tiny cell measuring 1.2 by 0.8 m where one person could not lie down, or stand up or stretch his legs, it had no furniture, and food was given once a day, and it’s so bad you couldn’t eat it. I know three prisoners who spent 25 years each in such cells.”
“Israeli propaganda is advertising their prisons to the world as if they were five-star hotels – but this is all lies. And what they say about prisoners having the opportunity to complete their education in Israeli schools is also a lie.”
Ayman himself got his Bachelor’s degree in Social Defense through the remote education program from Gaza University. “Now prisoners are denied any education opportunities whatsoever. A whole system to break the prisoners’ will is in place, they get denied everything a person needs to feel connected with the outside world,” he says.
Ayman is convinced that meaningless imprisonment terms of many times a lifetime are given with the sole purpose of breaking the prisoner’s will.
“They want a person to sit in this stone well and know that this is where he is to die. But they are hugely mistaken. Each Palestinian has a hope for help from God, and there is no taking this away.”
Yahya as-Sinwar with his wife (Photo: Nadezhda Kevorkova, RT)
Giving birth with hands and feet tied
Samar Isbeh was arrested when she was 22 following a student protest. She was sentenced to 2.5-year term in prison. She is now 28, and lives in Gaza, while her own and her husband’s families live in the West Bank.
“I was arrested three months after my wedding. I was the head of the student council at the Islamic University. We organized a protest against occupation. I was arrested in my husband’s home in Tulkarm. Two days later my husband was arrested too and sentenced to 9 months in prison, although they had nothing to charge him with whatsoever,” says Samar.
Samar Isbeh (Photo: Nadezhda Kevorkova, RT)
She has now been deported to the Gaza Strip and is denied entry to Tulkarm, so she can see neither her husband nor her children.
“I was in my fist weeks of pregnancy when I got arrested. I went through every kind of torture. They tortured me in an underground cell for 66 days. They made me balance on a children’s chair, they kept me in a freezing cold disciplinary cell,” says Samar.
“My hands and feet were tied when I was going through labor. They C-sectioned me, not because I required it but simply out of hatred. They let me have the child but treated him as a prisoner, too. They gave us no milk or diapers, or only expired ones. I was kept in terrible conditions during and after I gave birth. I wasn’t allowed to go out for fresh air. The only medicine they ever gave me and my child for any condition was Paracetamol.”
Pregnant on Hunger Strike
Patima Zakka is 42. She was released from an Israeli prison in exchange for a video tape featuring Gilad Shalit during his captivity. The video was passed by Shalit’s captors just before Patima was due to stand trial, and she was released one day short of the hearing. That is why she never received a sentence.
Patima Zakka with her son (Photo: Nadezhda Kevorkova, RT)
Patima had been charged with conspiring to suicide-bomb a bus full of Israeli military personnel. The prosecution had demanded a 12-year prison sentence for the mother of eight.
“I did not know I was pregnant before I got arrested,” says Patima. “A nurse found that out while I was in detention. My eight children were left without me at home. No one had instructed me to blow up anybody. It is true that they [Israelis] had killed my brother and a number of relatives – but that is the case with most people in Palestine.”
Patima says she was put through the full sequence of interrogation techniques. “They tortured me while I was pregnant,” she says. “They kept me in an ice-cold cell, relocating me from one cell to another time and again. They wanted me to have a miscarriage. This mistreatment got me to the point of bleeding.”
This prompted Patima to go on hunger strike. She lasted 21 days. “They did not leave me a choice,” she explains. “Allah be praised, I did not have a miscarriage. My son was born in jail. His name is Yusef.”
“The obstetrician yelled at me and treated me like I was an animal,” says Patima. “She refused to put me on an IV, and she denied me anesthesia. She was calling down terrible curses upon me. But you know, a punishment ensued for her right away: she hit her head real bad right in my cell. Allah helped me. She told me, “You are a terrorist, and your child will be a terrorist.” But I delivered my beautiful Yusef. And the real terrorists are those medics in Israeli prisons.”
Palestinian political detainee, Bilal Thiab, sent a letter from his hospital bed at the Ramla Israeli Prison hospital that lacks adequate supplies and equipment, stating that he is persistent and determined to continue his hunger-strike until death or until he is released.
“I swear to almighty God that I will continue this battle, the battle of dignity, freedom and pride until I break my shackles with will and faith, it is either freedom or martyrdom”, Thiab said, “I am sending you this message from my cell at the prison hospital, while intense pain and weakness invade my body, not from hunger but from the cruelty of my jailor”.
“Despite the tiredness and the pain, I receive my patience and determination from those who stand in solidarity with me, and I am telling you now, the time has come to break this savage occupation”, He added, “Detainees Khader Adnan and Hana’ Ash-Shalabi who won their battle of empty bowels paved the road for me, to walk the path of pride and dignity, and we will all walk this path until victory and freedom”.
On Friday, Thiab entered his sixtieth day of ongoing hunger-strike demanding to be released. Several hunger-striking detainees were moved to hospital but refused to break their strike. Thiab is from Kufr Ra’ey village, near the northern West Bank city of Jenin.
Also on Friday detainee, Tha’er Halahla, entered his 59th day of hunger-strike at the Ramla Prison Hospital; prison doctors warned Thursday that his body is losing its immune system and his organs might be failing.
There are more than 4,600 Arab political prisoners held by Israel according to latest figures published by the Ad-Dameer Prisoner Support Association on April 17 - Palestinian Prisoners Day.
The vast majority are from the West Bank, while approximately 475 are from the Gaza Strip, and 360 are from occupied East Jerusalem and the 1948 territories. Israel is still holding captive six women, 183 children, and 27 democratically-elected Palestinian legislators, including Marwan Barghouthi who was sentenced to more than five life-terms, legislator Jamal Terawi, who was sentenced to 30 years, and Ahmad Sa’adat who was sentenced to 30 years.
In addition, 24 legislators are currently being held under Administrative Detention orders without charges.
120 Palestinian detainees have been imprisoned since before the first Oslo peace agreement was signed between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization in 1993; 23 of them have been imprisoned for more than 25 years.
Palestinian political prisoner, Tha’er Halahla, entered his 58th day of hunger-strike at the Ramla Prison Hospital, and is still determined to continue his strike while prison doctors warned that his body is losing its immune system and his organs might be failing.
Lawyer of the Mandela Institute, Anwar Abu Lafy, visited Halahla and stated that a recent CT-Scan for his liver and kidneys revealed that his body is unable to function and that his life is in grave danger.
Abu Lafy stated that Halahla, 34, is unable to walk or stand, suffering from sharp chest pain, stomach ache, and can barely see with his right eye.
Halahla has lost 24 kilos in weight and is suffering from low blood pressure, very low sugar levels, escalating heart beats, hair loss, bleeding from his mouth and gums, and weakening muscles.
Despite his deteriorating health condition, Halahla told his lawyer that he is determined to continue his strike until Israel voids the administrative detention order against him, and called on human rights groups to pay attention to the miserable conditions sick detainees are subject to at the Ramla Prison Hospital.
Halahla is from Kharas village, near the southern West Bank city of Hebron; he was kidnapped by the army in June 2010, and has been held under administrative detention that has been repeatedly renewed without charges.
On Monday, April 23, Israel prevented a lawyer of the Mandela Institute from visiting hunger-striking Palestinian detainees held at the Gabloa’ Prison.
Head of the Mandela Institute, Botheina Doqmaq, stated that the administration at the Galboa’ prison even prevented the lawyer from visiting detainee Jamal Abu Al-Haija, despite the fact that the visit was approved beforehand.
There are more than 4,600 Arab political prisoners held by Israel according to latest figures published by the Ad-Dameer Prisoner Support Association on April 17; Palestinian Prisoners Day.
The vast majority are from the West Bank, while approximately 475 are from the Gaza Strip, and 360 are from Israeli controlled East Jerusalem and the 1948 territories.
Israel is still holding captive six women, 183 children, and 27 democratically-elected Palestinian legislators, including Marwan Barghouthi who was sentenced to more than five life-terms, legislator Jamal Terawi, who was sentenced to 30 years, and Ahmad Sa’adat who was sentenced to 30 years.
In addition, 24 legislators are currently being held under Administrative Detention orders without charges.
120 Palestinian detainees have been imprisoned since before the first Oslo peace agreement was signed between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization in 1993, 23 of them have been imprisoned for more than 25 years.
Palestinian women shout slogans during a protest calling for the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails in Gaza City on 25 April 2012. (Photo: AFP - Mohammed Abed)
On Wednesday April 25, 33-year-old Hasan al-Safadi entered the 52nd day of his hunger strike in protest of not just administrative detention (a form of internment where a prisoner is held indefinitely without ever knowing the charges against him or her), but the Israeli occupation’s policy of imprisonment in general.
Safadi was arrested for the seventh time by Israel on 29 June 2011. He spent 60 days under interrogation, and was only allowed to meet with his lawyer Mohammad al-Abed for the first time after 30 days.
Safadi was in Megiddo prison when he began his hunger strike, which the Israeli Prison Service (IPS) responded to by transferring him to Gilboa prison.
Prisoners who are transferred from one prison to another suffer immensely due to the harsh conditions they travel under, which include having their hands and feet shackled inside a metal ridged vehicle. The process of transfers, referred to as bosta, turns a two-hour trip into a torturous journey that could take up to three days.
After refusing to eat or drink water for five days in Gilboa, Safadi was taken back to Megiddo. After it became clear that he would not end his hunger strike, he was placed in solitary confinement in Jalameh prison. Ten days later, Safadi’s health deteriorated rapidly, and he was taken to the Ramleh prison hospital where he has remained since.
Safadi is no stranger to spending time in Israeli prisons. He was first arrested when he was just 16 years old, in 1994. From 2007 to 2010, he became the longest administrative detainee in Israeli prison, with his detainment renewed every six months over and over again.
After his release, he was arrested by the Palestinian Authority for 48 days and spent the next five months being summoned for interrogation regularly. Prior to his arrest by Israel in 2007, he had spent 43 months in prison. In total, Safadi spent 10 years as an administrative detainee in Israeli prisons, without ever once being sentenced or charged officially.
In the living room of his family’s house in the old city of Nablus, photographs of Safadi taken over the years cover the coffee table. Framed pictures of his oldest brother Farid, who was killed in 1996 in the Battle of the Tunnel near Joseph’s tomb, and of his sister Nelli, imprisoned for 18 months back in 2010, adorn the walls. Nelli was finally able to travel to the Gaza Strip to be reunited with her husband Obadah Saeed Hakam, also an ex-prisoner, who was freed in the October Hamas-Israel prisoners’ deal but exiled to Gaza.
The day before Israeli forces came to arrest Safadi, his mother recalls, was a good one. She had gone to see a bride for Safadi, and was planning on going back again with Safadi.
Instead, later that night the Safadi family was rudely awakened by an explosion that blew the front door off its hinges at 2am. Suddenly the house was teeming with soldiers, with more coming down from the roof. They took Safadi and as his mother began crying out and screaming at the soldiers, they beat him up on the way to taking him to the jeep.
Safadi had studied maintenance but could barely keep a stable job, due to his frequent summoning for interrogations by the Palestinian Authority and Israel, which sometimes lasted for days on end.
He is adamant that he will not break his hunger strike unless he attains freedom and rejects the notion of exile unequivocally.
His sister Najiyeh, whose four young sons are all wearing t-shirts emblazoned with their uncle’s face, elaborates more. “The Israeli authorities have presented Safadi with the chance to go into exile as opposed to the continuous arrests and harassment he faces from them since 2004,” she said. “They offered him exile again in 2007, and the Israeli intelligence officer’s exact words were, ‘It’s better for you to go to a different country instead of rotting here in Palestine.’”
Safadi’s detainment was extended by another six months on December 2011. None of Safadi’s family members have seen him since last June, or were allowed the courtesy of speaking to him by phone. Safadi has reportedly lost 20kg so far.
Safadi’s mother shook her head slowly. “I support his hunger strike,” she said, “but it’s extremely difficult watching your own son dying.”
Despite her age, Safadi’s mother went on hunger strike for 15 days in solidarity with her son. She almost collapsed, and had to be taken to the hospital where she was forced to end her strike.
“I don’t want Safadi to know of my hunger strike,” she said speaking softly. “I don’t want him to worry about me. One of my grandchildren wanted to write on his Facebook about my hunger strike but I forbade him from doing so.”
She added, “He’s a compassionate person. Quick tempered, but the most loving of my 11 children. Safadi has told me time and time again, in and out of prison, that he gets his strength from me. If he sees my crying on TV for example, he tells me it’s like I’ve placed him inside another prison.”
Former Palestinian hunger strike prisoner Khader Adnan (L), a senior member of Islamic Jihad who was jailed in Israel, is greeted by members of the crowd in the village of Arraba near the northern city of Jenin, in the Israeli occupied West Bank on 18 April 2012. (Photo: AFP - Saif Dahlah)
Ramallah – Khader Adnan defied everything related to the Israeli occupation, its prisons, and jailers. He rose up against interrogators and informants, and against all kinds of intimidation and humiliation. He put his body on the line with a 66-day hunger strike until the occupation relented. Adnan spoke to Al-Akhbar about the details of his historic hunger strike.
Fadi Abu Saada: Why did you decide to go on the hunger strike the day of your arrest?
Khader Adnan: I decided to go on a hunger strike based on four main reasons. The first reason concerns the period before I was detained. There were several failed attempts to arrest me through requests by the Israeli secret service calling for a meeting. But I refused. Being humiliated and having to see Israel flexing its muscles does not disturb me at all.
The second reason concerned being abused during my arrest, including when the jailers assaulted me physically.
The third is the type and methods of interrogation.
The fourth and last reason is my repeated administrative detention without reason. My rejection of administrative detention complements my rejection of the occupation itself and my search for dignity which was stolen from us by the Israelis.
FAS:What is administrative detention?
KA: I believe Britain is responsible for this type of detention and its idea. It comes from the British mandate in Palestine. They used to call it the “emergency regulations.”
This type of detention starts with a letter from the intelligence officer in a particular region. He would send it to the region’s military commander requesting the arrest of a particular person based on “secret information” that cannot be divulged. In other words, it is “information received from a collaborator with the occupation.”
This type of detention can be renewed several times. In the case of brothers Mohammad Jaradat, Usama Barham, and martyr Ayman Daraghmeh, it was up to five or six years. Renewal is like a hammer hanging over the heads of the detainee and his family. The psychological torture has no equivalent and the worst thing is that the detainee and his family know that there will be no specific date for his release.
FAS: How did you spend your day during the hunger strike?
KA: I did not just stop eating. I also took a vow of silence for more than 20 days and refused to bathe for 65 days.
I prayed a lot and read the Koran when I was able to get a copy. I never slept during the day. People thought that was strange, but I preferred to sleep at night and wake up for morning prayers.
The daily search was always “amusing” because I used to confront the jailers who conducted the search.
FAS: How did they try to break your will and pressure you to end the hunger strike?
KA: They basically tried this by transferring me from one Israeli hospital to another for tests. First they took me to Ramleh hospital, then to “Tal al-Rabi” in Tel Aviv, then to occupied Jerusalem, then Safad, then the isolation in Ramleh again. It was very exhausting.
Then they turned the hospitals where they took me into courts for my case. The main method they used was isolating me from the outside world and assigning three or four jailers in my room to pressure me.
They deliberately tied one of my hands and one of my feet for hours, even when I had to use the bathroom. They said it was so I would not escape, even though there is no window or exit anywhere.
The occupation soldiers tried to provoke me by turning my confinement cell into a “restaurant” full of all kinds of food that one might crave. They tried to break my will but I was stronger, thank God.
FAS: What about threats to your family and friends? KA: True, a secret service officer came to me and told me, “Say hello to your father.” He had said the same thing when they came to arrest me once. They threatened to arrest all my family and friends and actually arrested four of my friends from my town, Arrabeh, a few days before my release.
Occupation soldiers are not satisfied with all of that. They criminalize everyone who speaks about me or my experience.
The best example is what happened with the Mufti of Jerusalem Mohammed Hussein who mentioned me in his Friday sermon at al-Aqsa mosque.
The Israeli government responded by starting a felony case against him, as if he was a criminal, just because he spoke about me.
FAS: What do you say to the 2,000 detainees who followed your path and are now in their second week of a hunger strike?
KA: I tell them, go forth under the grace of God for you shall be victorious. You named it the “battle of dignity,” so do not fail your families or the remaining prisoners. Continue until you are granted your demands.
A hunger strike is a matter of destiny and it is of utmost importance. We ask God to grant us victory.
I conclude my message by saying, do not drop the banner of the eight knights, especially Bilal Diab and Thaer Halahla. They have been on a hunger strike in detention for 58 days, continuing the battle of Sheikh Khader, Hana Shalabi, and the others.
This article is an edited translation from the Arabic Edition.
