Palestinian prisoner Ihsan Dababseh was released from Israeli occupation prison on Thursday, 23 November, leaving five Palestinian women jailed without charge or trial under administrative detention and approximately 59 total Palestinian women prisoners in Israeli jails. Dababseh, 32, from the town of Nuba in al-Khalil, was jailed for nine months without charge or trial since being seized by occupation forces on 27 February 2017.
She has been arrested and imprisoned on multiple occasions by Israeli occupation forces, including in 2007 and 2014; she was last released in July 2016 after being accused of membership in the Islamic Jihad movement. The five Palestinian women who remain imprisoned without charge or trial are Palestinian leader and parliamentarian Khalida Jarrar, Jerusalemite seamstress Sabah Faraoun, journalist Bushra al-Tawil, Afnan Abu Haniyeh and Khadija Ruba’i.
On Monday, 20 November, the Salem military court issued a sentence against Palestinian prisoner and university student Ansam Shawahneh, from the village of Amatin near Qalqilya. Shawahneh was sentenced to five years in prison and a two-year suspended sentence after 28 military court hearings since she was seized by occupation forces on 9 March 2016 and accused of attempting to stab Israeli colonial settlers near the illegal settlement of Kedumim. She was also accused of incitement and membership in a hostile organization based on her participation in student politics.
On Wednesday, 22 November, an Israeli occupation court continued a hearing on the case of Nisreen Hasan Abu Kamil, 40, from the Gaza Strip, until 27 December. A Palestinian citizen of Israel from Haifa in occupied Palestine ’48, she was seized on 18 October 2015 as she crossed the Beit Hanoun/Erez crossing from Gaza, where she is married with seven children. She has been accused of providing information to the Palestinian resistance from her visits to family and for medical treatment in Palestine ’48.
Meanwhile, also on 22 November, Israeli occupation forces released Manal Abu Ali from the village of Yatta near al-Khalil after six months in Israeli prisons. She was seized on 11 June 2017 as she entered the Ibrahimi Mosque in al-Khalil and accused of possession of a knife. She was held in Damon prison for six months before her release. Upon her release, she emphasized the poor conditions in which women in Damon are held, saying that wounded women are not provided with medical care or proper treatment and that the situation is intensified as winter approaches with a lack of warmer clothing and blankets.
On 23 November, an Israeli military court issued a ruling in the case of Siham Batat, the mother of Haitham Batat, serving a life sentence in Israeli prisons. Batat, 55, from Dahariya south of al-Khalil, was previously jailed for two months in 2015; after her release she was continually summoned back to the prison for ongoing hearings. She was sentenced to a 10 month suspended sentence and a massive fine of 100,000 NIS ($26,000 USD).
There are approximately 58 Palestinian women jailed as political prisoners by the Israeli occupation, including 10 minor girls under 18. Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network expresses our support and solidarity with the women prisoners and demands their immediate release.
