Friday, 21 December
6:00 pm
Salle de la Resistance
Mairie de Saint-Denis
Saint-Denis, France
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/370802957025890/
Salah Hamouri Franco-Palestinian lawyer spent more than a year in Israeli jails.
He is finally free and will come to testify to the resistance of the Palestinian people.
Salah Hamouri avocat Franco Palestinien a passé plus d’un an dans les geôles israéliennes.
Il est enfin libre et viendra témoigner de la résistance du peuple palestinien.
Wednesday, 19 December
6:00 pm
World Financial Shopping Center
250 Vesey Street
New York City
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/258478651489209/
WHAT: Holiday Caroling for Palestine – Boycott Everysight Raptor Cycling Glasses
WHERE: b8ta store, Brookfield Place (World Financial Center) shopping center, 230 Vesey St., Level 2, across West Street from the World Trade Center.
MEET AT 5:45 at Starbucks, NEXT TO b8ta STORE.
WHEN: Wednesday, December 19, 6-7 pm (meet at 5:45)
Please RSVP if you know you can join so we know how many people to expect! https://www.codepink.org/caroling_for_palestine_in_nyc
Join us for holiday caroling to boycott Everysight/Elbit – Israel’s largest weapons company – inside the b8ta tech product store in lower Manhattan where Everysight Raptor cycling glasses are sold. Musician and BDS songwriter Dave Lipman will lead our caroling.
Elbit Systems – the parent company of Everysight – is Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer. They make weaponized drones, sniper ammunition, surveillance equipment for the separation wall and the U.S.-Mexico border, and other tools of killing and repression.
Elbit has taken their death and destruction tools mainstream by selling Everysight Raptor cycling glasses. Everysight is not only owned by Elbit, but the glasses use the same technology Elbit provides for fighter jets to bomb Gaza.
Co-sponsors include Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Network
Wednesday, 19 December
8:00 pm
Maison du Peuple
Place Edouard Mazé
Brest, France
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/363518701068439/
Salah Hamouri, a French-Palestinian lawyer unjustly detained in Israel under administrative detention without charge or trial between August 2017 and September 2018 will honor us in Brest to meet us, thank us for our support and discuss the situation for Palestinian political prisoners.
We who supported him, come and meet him on Wednesday, 19 December.
As a reminder, Salah Hamouri had already been imprisoned by Israel for 7 years after Israel mounted a case against him. He was released in 2011 after deafening silence from French authorities, becoming the standard-bearer for Palestinian political prisoners in France. In particular, he helped to launch the sponsorship campaign for Palestinian political prisoners. After his release, he studied law and became a lawyer at the Palestinian Bar in August 2017. The Israeli authorities did everything to dissuade him, including barring him from access to the West Bank and thus the university where he studied. They also forbade his wife Elsa, pregnant at the time, from entering Israel in order to prevent her from giving birth in Jerusalem. Salah was separated from his wife and son and pushed to leave Palestine to France.However, he refused to leave and completed his studies to become a lawyer. He was arrested immediately after, without charge, and placed in administrative detention. Despite silence from the French authorities, a strong popular campaign urged Salah’s release. Especially in Finistère, where many communities and elected officials, including the City of Brest, adopted resolutions to this effect.
Salah Hamouri, avocat franco-palestinien détenu illégalement en Israël (statut de la détention administrative, sans charge ni procès) entre août 2017 et septembre 2018 nous fait l’immense plaisir de venir à Brest à notre rencontre, pour nous remercier de notre soutien et parler de la situation des prisonniers politiques palestiniens.
Nous l’avions soutenu, venez le rencontrer, MERCREDI 19 DECEMBRE A 20h, salle de la Maison du Peuple, place Edouard Mazé à Brest.
Pour rappel, Salah Hamouri avait déjà été emprisonné 7 ans par Israël qui avait monté un dossier de toute pièce contre lui. Il avait été libéré en 2011 après un silence assourdissant des autorités françaises et était alors devenu le porte drapeau des prisonniers politiques palestiniens en France. Il avait notamment contribué à lancer la campagne de parrainage des prisonniers politiques palestiniens qui avait eu un fort écho. Après sa sortie de prison, il avait suivi des études de droit et est devenu avocat au barreau palestinien en août 2017. Les autorités israeliennes avaient pourtant tout fait pour le dissuader, lui interdisant l’accès à la Cisjordanie, et donc à l’université ou il étudiait. Ils ont également interdit à sa femme Elsa, alors enceinte, l’entrée en Israel, alors qu’elle était enceinte, pour l’empecher d’accoucher à Jerusalem. Salah était alors séparé de sa femme et de son fils et poussé à aller s’installer en France. Mais il n’a rien laché et est allé au bout de ses études pour devenir avocat. Il a été arrêté juste après, sans charge et placé en détention admnistrative. Malgré le silence des autorités françaises, un fort soutien populaire a oeuvré pour la libération de Salah. Notamment dans le Finistère ou de nombreuses collectivités et élus ont demandé sa libération, dont la Ville de Brest qui a voté un voeu en ce sens.
Wednesday, 19 December
8:15 pm
Atmosphere Cinema
Celestins Park
Marcoussis, France
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/210303223185596/
Samouni Road, a film by Stefano Savona
(Award for Best Documentary at the Cannes Film Festival 2018)
France, Italy, 2018 – duration 2:08
Screening will be followed by a discussion with Hisham Abu Shahla, a young researcher on political science who works on the Palestinian question and was part of the film’s project team.
The discussion will be moderated by Véronique Hollebecque of the AFPS (Association France-Palestine Solidarité)
Description: In the rural outskirts of Gaza, the Samouni family is about to celebrate a wedding. This is their first celebration since the last war. Amal, Fouad, their brothers and their cousins have lost their parents, their homes and their olive trees. The neighborhood where they live is under reconstruction. They replant trees and plow fields, but a more difficult task remains for these young survivors: rebuilding their own memory. Through their memories, Samouni Road paints a portrait of this family before, during and after the event that changed their lives forever.
Samouni Road, un film de Stefano Savona
(Prix du Meilleur documentaire au Festival de Cannes 2018)
France, Italie – 2018 – durée 2h08 – VOSTFR
Projection suivie d’une rencontre avec Hisham Abu Shahla, jeune chercheur en science politique qui effectue ses recherches sur la question palestinienne et a fait partie de l’équipe de travail du film.
Le débat sera animé par Véronique Hollebecque de l’AFPS – Association France Palestine Solidarité
Dans la périphérie rurale de la ville de #Gaza, la famille Samouni s’apprête à célébrer un mariage. C’est la première fête depuis la dernière guerre. Amal, Fouad, leurs frères et leurs cousins ont perdu leurs parents, leurs maisons et leurs oliviers. Le quartier où ils habitent est en reconstruction. Ils replantent des arbres et labourent les champs, mais une tâche plus difficile encore incombe à ces jeunes survivants : reconstruire leur propre mémoire. Au fil de leurs souvenirs, Samouni Road dresse un portrait de cette famille avant, pendant et après l’événement qui a changé leur vie à jamais.
Imprisoned Palestinian Suha Jbara has reportedly suspended her 27-day hunger strike after the Palestinian Authority ordered her case be transferred to the PA’s special criminal court in al-Khalil. Jbara, 30, from the village ofTurmusayya near Ramallah and also a Panamanian and U.S. citizen, has been detained by the PA since 3 November.
Similar to fellow Palestinian women imprisoned by Israel, she is accused of transferring money to support Palestinian prisoners and the families of martyrs. She is the mother of three children, all of whom are also U.S. citizens; according to her sister in New Jersey, she had been planning to move back to the U.S. after their most recent school year. She continues to face unjust imprisonment and political charges: you can help to take action to urge her release.
According to her lawyer, Mohannad Karajah, Jbara was transferred to a hospital from the Palestinian Authority’s central prison in Jericho; her health has deteriorating as maintained a hunger strike since 22 November to demand her freedom. She was told that continuing her strike put her life at severe risk, and instead of being brought to court on 17 December, she was instead taken to a hospital. Her defense lawyers say that she will receive treatment to restore her health and attend court herself in a struggle to expose the truth and achieve justice.
Jbara is reportedly being accused of providing funds to support prisoners and the families of Palestinians killed by Israel, particularly those involved with Hamas; as there is no reason for Palestinians to be concerned by this activity, many have highlighted the imprisonment of Jbara as part of the PA’s “security coordination” with the Israeli occupation.
Despite the ongoing killings and mass arrests of Palestinians as well as calls from leading Palestinian bodies like the PLO’s Central Council to end the practice, security coordination has remained firmly in place. Indeed, as Jbara remained imprisoned, PA official Hussein al-Sheikh met with Nadav Argaman, head of the Israeli intelligence service, reportedly to discuss “toning down tension” in the occupied West Bank and maintaining coordination.
On Friday, 14 December, one day after the killing of four Palestinians by occupation forces, PA security forces attacked several demonstrations in occupied Palestine, seeking to disperse them. Participants at a demonstration in al-Khalil were beaten and several journalists who witnessed and filmed the attack were detained for hours. PA security also attacked demonstrations in Ramallah and Nablus. The demonstrations were supported by Hamas, marking the 31st anniversary of its founding as well as commemorating the Palestinians kileld the day before.
Karajah, Jbara’s lawyer, said earlier that the arrest of Jbara, a mother of three, was not handled properly according to the PA’s own legal procedures. Her home was invaded and she was seized without even a search or arrest warrant being issued by the PA’s public prosecution. In addition, Jbara suffers from heart disease and was not given appropriate medical treatment despite being transferred several times to the hospital.
While the PA’s “security committee” was announced to be dismantled by PA Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah in June 2018, representatives of the purportedly dissolved committee were reportedly present at Jbara’s interrogation. After all of these extralegal actions, the PA’s public prosecution then retroactively declared that she had, in fact, been arrested at the behest of its orders and that it was continuing a criminal investigation.
It should be noted that the PA’s Jericho prison has become infamous for the detention of political prisoners, particularly those imprisoned as part of security coordination with the Israeli occupation. The most well-known of these are imprisoned Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine leader Ahmad Sa’adat and his comrades Ahed Abu Ghoulmeh, Majdi Rimawi, Basil al-Ahmar and Hamdi Qur’an, as well as Fuad Shobaki. All of them were seized by the Israeli occupation when it attacked the Jericho prison in a prearranged agreement with British and U.S. guards in 2006, claiming it feared that the PA would release these political prisoners after that year’s Palestinian Legislative Council election.
Jbara has received little help from the U.S. consulate, Suha’s sister Khadija Jbara told northjersey.com. She said that despite a visit from the consulate, nothing had changed for her sister.
Amnesty International reported on the brutal conditions of her interrogation after representatives from the organization met her in Jericho prison on 4 December. She reported being dragged, barefoot, from her hospital bed after she had a seizure and lost consciousness at the time of her arrest. She slept on the floor of a van as they took her to the PA’s interrogation center in Jericho.
Jbara said that a male interrogator threw water in her face after she asked for a drink and that she was slapped, punished and threatened with violence. Throughout her interrogation, she was blindfolded and handcuffed, denied water and access to the toilet, Amnesty reported. She was also repeatedly threatened with sexual violence in an attempt to induce her compliance.
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network urges the immediate release of Suha Jbara and the dropping of all charges against her. Her imprisonment and torture has clearly come in the context of PA security coordination with Israel, illustrating once more how dangerous it is to the Palestinian people. We urge Palestinians and supporters of Palestine around the world to take action to help support her release.
It is critical that official Palestinian institutions hear from Palestinian communities in diaspora and exile and from friends of the Palestinian people in support of Suha Jbara and against security coordination.
We urge you to CALL the Palestinian Mission to the United Nations at +1 212 288-8500 and EMAIL the mission at palestine@un.int.
We also urge you to CALL the office of PA Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah in Ramallah at + 970 229 68989, or EMAIL the office at info@pmo.gov.ps. Please emphasize the same points above and the importance of the immediate release of Suha Jbara.
The following article, by Rebecca Stead, was originally published by Middle East Monitor on 15 December, and is reprinted here under a Creative Commons license:
In the dead of night, Israeli forces knocked on the door of Salah Hamouri’s apartment in Jerusalem, he told me. “When I opened the door they told me they were looking for me and began to search the house. They destroyed the furniture, turning it upside down, searching for something; I don’t know what. Of course, they found nothing, but they took me away anyway.”
That was on 22 August 2017. Over a year later – thirteen months to be exact – Hamouri was finally released from administrative detention, a status Israel uses to imprison Palestinians indefinitely with neither charge nor trial. Speaking to MEMO shortly after his release, he recounted being moved repeatedly between Israeli detention centres and deprived of contact with his family, as well as the challenges faced by the hundreds of other Palestinian political prisoners just like him.
“That night I was transferred between three military bases in Ramallah [in the occupied West Bank] until 4 o clock the next afternoon, at which time I arrived at the Russian Compound,” explained Hamouri. Sometimes known by its Arabic name Al-Moscobiyeh, the Russian Compound is a notorious interrogation centre located in the centre of Jerusalem, renowned for its brutal interrogation and torture methods. “I passed two or three levels of interrogations, and at the end of the first week [in detention], the judge ruled that I should be released.”
Of course, there were strict conditions attached to his release: he would not be able to leave the coastal city of Haifa for three months, for example, and would be forbidden from entering Jerusalem or the occupied West Bank. “I accepted the deal,” he said, but… “Just one hour before I was due to be released, the Shin Bet [Israel’s internal security agency] came and relayed a military order from the then Minister of Defence [Avigdor Lieberman] which blocked my release.” That is when administrative detention was used to imprison him for six months; it was then extended for a further seven months. He was never charged, so still has no idea why he was being held.
This uncertainty, the expectation of being released only to have your hopes dashed must be difficult to cope with, I suggested. “It’s tough on your psychology,” he admitted. “The knowledge that I could be detained over and over again was hard to come to terms with.”
This, quite clearly, is the whole purpose of the process. “The detention system is something the Israelis have developed over years of occupation. The strategy targets the consciousness of Palestinian prisoners and works to break their resolve. We see the constant isolation of prisoners, the rare contact they have with the outside world, and the way Israel denies them access to books and TV channels; everything is censored until their brains are destroyed.”
He told me about just one example of Israel trying to break prisoners’ morale, including his own. “One of the worst things about detention is the transfer from prison to court and between different prisons,” he pointed out. Hamouri was transferred several times during his detention, with moves from the Russian Compound to Al Naqab Prison, located south of Beersheba near the Egyptian border, and later to Megiddo Prison – south of Nazareth — as punishment for having spoken to a French journalist about his experience.
“We were obliged to wake up extremely early and [Israeli] Special Forces came to collect us, putting handcuffs on our wrists and shackles on our legs before boarding a special bus,” he recalled. “When you see the bus from the outside it looks like a tourist bus, but when you enter it’s made entirely of wood and iron. Even the chairs are iron, so in summer it’s extremely hot and in winter bitterly cold. We sometimes spent 12 or 14 hours being transferred from one prison to another. Many people lost consciousness and their illnesses became worse because of this brutality.”
Hamouri was keen to emphasise that, even taking into account the mistreatment that he suffered during his years spent in Israel’s prison system, his detention wasn’t just hard for him to bear. “I have convictions that I have to keep and my family respects me for this, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t hard for them.” For the 13 months that he was held by Israel on this occasion, he wasn’t able to see or contact his wife and son who were living in France and were prevented from entering Israel. “My son is two-and-a-half now,” he told me. “I’m not sure how far he is aware of what happened, but he keeps asking, ‘Where have you been?’ It’s difficult to hear.”
In an interview with MEMO in 2017, Hamouri’s wife Elsa explained that her husband’s constant cycle of detention and release is part of an ongoing harassment campaign by the Israelis. “The first actions were against Salah after his [initial] release in 2011. He could not go to Birzeit University, near Ramallah, to study law. They have interfered with all his freedoms – the right to study, the right to a family life.”
Hamouri himself pointed out that the strain that Israel puts on his family is part of its pressure to force him to leave Jerusalem. “They didn’t allow my wife to enter the country when she was pregnant, so our son wasn’t born in Jerusalem. The Israelis have said it to me clearly: ‘Why don’t you go live in France?’ and ‘Don’t come back here, we would have fewer problems if you stayed away’.”
He was just one of 5,554 Palestinian political prisoners being held by Israel. According to Addameer, of these, there are 482 administrative detainees, with almost 500 serving sentences longer than 25 years. “Unlike other political prisoners, I’m lucky enough to hold French nationality. They don’t have the chance to talk about their suffering and what happened to them, so I talk not just about my own experience but that of all of us.” To this end, Hamouri plans to go back to Jerusalem in January. “I don’t know what will happen when I go back; all the possibilities are on the table,” he noted. “I am ready for all eventualities because the Israelis don’t behave rationally when it comes to dealing with the Palestinians.”
Despite the very real probability that he will be detained again when he returns to his home city, Salah Hamouri believes that this is his only option. “We are under occupation and we have to stay,” he insisted. “If every Palestinian leaves, the occupation will be here for another 100 years. We have the right to resist and we have the right to stay in Jerusalem where we were born. Because of this, I must go back.”
Israeli occupation forces demolished the home of Latifa (Umm Nasser) Abu Hmeid, 72, the mother of five Palestinian prisoners and one killed by the Israeli occupation. Occupation forces exploded the home twice in a row after ringing the home with explosives, forcing over 400 Palestinians to be evacuated from their homes in al-Amari refugee camp. Occupation forces occupied the home for six hours, filling it with explosives.
They were detained inside a nearby school for over five hours as the residents of the camp struggled to defend the home and prevent its demolition. (During this mass detention, a woman gave birth to a baby inside the school, and medical treatment was delayed repeatedly by Israeli occupation forces.) Umm Nasser herself was detained for some time before being released. In a press statement, she reiterated her determination: “This is our land, and as long as there is occupation, we will resist.”
Hundreds of occupation soldiers and dozens of military patrols stormed the camps with bulldozers and armored personnel vehicles, accompanied by aircraft overhead as well as drones apparently photographing the scene. The people of the camp resisted the occupation invasion, showering military vehicles with stones. This explosion marked the third time that Latifa Abu Hmeid’s home was destroyed by the Israeli occupation; her family home was also destroyed in 1991 and 2003.
Occupation soldiers fired tear gas on the people of the camp, injuring dozens; Majdi Bannoura, a photographer from al-Jazeera, was injured when he was hit in the head with a tear gas canister. At least 10 people were transferred to nearby hospitals due to injuries, while snipers occupied the rooftops of homes throughout the camp as soldiers spread throughout its streets.
Occupation forces demanded the family demolish their own home within 48 hours after the imprisonment of Islam Abu Hmeid, 32, in June 2018, accused of participating in a resistance action that killed an Israeli colonial soldier actively invading Al-Amari refugee camp. Four of Islam’s brothers, Latifa’s sons, are currently imprisoned by Israel, and another son was killed during the first Intifada.
The attack on the Abu Hmeid home was followed by the pre-dawn destruction of the Na’alwa family home in Shweika, north of Tulkarem. As hundreds of Palestinians gathered to protect the family home, occupation forces attacked the village, invading at 3:00 a.m., firing rubber-coated metal bullets and tear gas on the people of the village to force them away from the home and demolishing the walls of the home’s first floor.
Palestinian youth resisted the invasion, committed to protecting the home from the occupation attack. Three Palestinians were shot by rubber-coated metal bullets and another was burned by an Israeli occupation projectile. The people of the village had maintained a sit-in around the home after the occupation forces ordered the demolition of the ground and first floors of the home, and schools were closed due to the massive presence of colonial soldiers.
Ashraf Na’alwa, 23, was killed by occupation forces on Thursday, 13 December, one of a series of extrajudicial executions by the Israeli colonial forces. He had evaded occupation forces for over 60 days after carrying out an armed resistance action. His brother, brother-in-law and mother are all currently imprisoned by the Israeli occupation because they did not divulge the location of their son, who was killed far from home in the Askar refugee camp in Nablus.
Now, the home of imprisoned Palestinian Khalil Jabarin in the village of Yatta near al-Khalil has been ordered demolished within 48 hours. Khalil, 17, is accused of participating in an armed resistance action at the illegal Israeli colonial settlement of Gush Etzion. Khalil’s mother spoke to Quds News, saying that “the home demolition policy of the occupation is not a deterrent to resistance fighters or their families. On the contrary, it increases their strength, determination, resilience and resistance.” She noted the widespread support she and the family have received from fellow Palestinians.
Sheikh Khader Adnan, recently freed from prison after his third hunger strike to secure his release, said that these home demolitions are a form of collective punishment and systematic terror aimed at stifling the youth of the Palestinian resistance. However, Adnan said, “The Palestinian people will not bow down, despite home demolitions, mass arrests and the policy of collective punishment. What has happened recently in the West Bank has done nothing but increase Palestinians’ strength and steadfastness.”
He also commented on announced threats by the occupation to deport the family members of resistance strugglers, saying that this would also fail to suppress the resistance. “Palestinians have always shown that they will hold to their land and preserve their Palestinian identity and roots in the most difficult of conditions,” he said. He urged the strongest support for these young people and their families, who have sacrificed so much for the liberation of Palestine.
Like administrative detention, the imprisonment of Palestinians without charge or trial, home demolitions by colonial forces in Palestine date back to the British colonial mandate in Palestine. Home demolitions are a form of collective punishment that targets entire families and violates binding international law, including the Geneva Convention, which notes that “no protected person may be punished for an offense he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or terrorism are prohibited…”
These arbitrary demolitions, of course, operate hand in hand with a larger Israeli goal of settlement building and exclusion of the indigenous people of the land and over 70 years of continuing Nakba. After all, many home demolitions in Palestine take place after Palestinians build without Israeli permits (constantly delayed or denied) on their own land. Entire Palestinian villages and neighborhoods, like Khan al-Ahmar in Jerusalem, Umm al-Hiran in the Naqab or al-Araqib, destroyed over 100 times, are targeted for destruction. These “punitive” home demolitions, which the Israeli occupation claims to be a “deterrent” for resistance, must be seen in the overall context of colonial settlement and destruction.
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network stands in solidarity with the Abu Hmeid family, the Na’alwa family, the Jabarin family and all Palestinian families whose homes and lives are under constant attack by a settler colonial force. Israel’s policy of home demolition and the complete impunity it enjoys on an official level only highlight the necessity of international collective and grassroots action and organizing to support the Palestinian people, including building the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement to isolate Israel at all levels, including economic, cultural and academic boycott and a military embargo on the occupaiton state.
Susan Abu Ghannam, 39, the mother of Mohammed Abu Ghannam, 22, who was killed by Israeli occupation forces in July 2017 as he protested against the imposition of electronic gates at Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, was sentenced by an Israeli court to 11 months in prison on 17 December. Abu Ghannam was seized by occupation forces in early August 2018, only weeks after the one-year anniversary of the killing of her son. She was accused of “incitement” for posting about Palestine, politics and the killing of her child on Facebook, as prosecutors listed 40 of her social media posts.
It should be noted that Israeli occupation forces attempted to steal her son’s body after killing him in an attempt to hold it hostage. The imprisonment of the bodies of slain Palestinians is used as a tactic to attempt to suppress Palestinian resistance and popular protest. Palestinians prevented occupation forces from seizing his body, carrying it over the hospital’s surrounding wall to the cemetery of Al-Tur village.
Ashraf Na’alwa‘s mother, Wafaa Mahdawi, remains imprisoned by the Israeli occupation forces, even as her son was extrajudicially executed and her home in the Shweikeh village near Tulkarem demolished by those same forces. Mahdawi and other members of the Na’alwa family were imprisoned by occupation forces after they would not disclose the location of their son. Palestinian lawyer, Hanan al-Khatib, visited Mahdawi at Damon prison, where she said that the mother’s grief was “one of the most difficult and harshest scenes I witnessed as a lawyer visiting prisoners in Israeli jails on hundreds of occasions.” Wafaa Mahdawi is imprisoned as is her son, Ashraf’s older brother, and her son-in-law, her daughter Fairouz’ husband. Indeed, Mahdawi’s detention was extended once more, until 22 January 2019, on 12 December, the day before her son was killed.
Over 187 Palestinians have been seized since 13 December. Among them is Sabah Faraoun from Jerusalem, previously imprisoned without charge or trial for 18 months before her release on 21 December 2017. In addition, Palestinian prisoners in the Naqab desert prison have declared their intention to protest, with 60 prisoners affirming their willingness to enter a hunger strike, if Khawla al-Zeitawi, 40, is not freed by Israeli occupation forces. Al-Zeitawi, from Nablus, was seized by occupation forces on 16 December while visiting her brother Abdullah, held in the Negev prison and serving a 7-year sentence. She was previously imprisoned by occupation forces. The Center for Palestinian Prisoners’ Studies reported that her detention was extended for four days for interrogation.
Meanwhile, on 17 December, Amina Odeh Mahmoud, 41, from Jabal al-Mukabber neighborhood in Jerusalem, was sentenced by an Israeli occupation court to 33 months in Israeli prison. She was seized by occupation forces on 4 December 2017 after being searched in the village of Sarda; after being taken for interrogation, she was transferred first to HaSharon prison and then to Damon prison with her fellow female prisoners. She was accused by occupation forces of planning to stab Israeli colonial soldiers.
Israa Jaber, 19, from al-Khalil, was also sentenced on 10 December to 30 months in Israeli prison and 2000 NIS (around $650 USD) in fines; she has been imprisoned since 11 February 2017, accused of possessing a knife. Like other Palestinian girls, arrested as minors, she passed the national high school graduation exam (Tawjihi) while imprisoned. Palestinian girls have been repeatedly denied teachers by Israeli occupation forces and turned to self-organized classes, some led by imprisoned Palestinian parliamentarian, leftist and prominent political leader Khalida Jarrar, to advance their education behind bars.
All Palestinian women prisoners are currently held in Damon prison after the mass transfer from HaSharon prison earlier in the year after a collective protest by women prisoners against the installation of surveillance cameras. There are approximately 53 Palestinian women prisoners jailed, including two held under administrative detention without charge or trial: Palestinian political leader, parliamentarian and feminist Khalida Jarrar and Palestinian student Fidaa Ikhlil, 21. On 17 December, Sahar Francis, the executive director of Addameer, visited Damon prison for legal meetings with women prisoners; however, she was only able to meet with women prisoners for 15 minutes before an emergency was suddenly declared.
The prison administration sent repair workers to fix the sewage system in room 11 at Damon prison, where seven Palestinian women prisoners are held; the women went to the recreation yard during the repairs. The prison administration then claimed that the women were required to stay in the toilets instead, seizing Yasmin Shaaban, formerly the representative of the HaSharon women prisoners, and detaining her in the legal visit room from 12 pm until 5:30 pm. She was then banned from family visits for one month and letters for two months. Occupation forces then seized all electronic items from room 11, except one heater. The women protested and refused to go to recreation; after their protest, Yasmin was released from isolation and returned to the room, but not before all of the women were threatened with a disciplinary hearing.
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network stands in solidarity with Palestinian women prisoners, facing escalated repression and collective punishment. We urge broader international solidarity with their ongoing confrontations of unjust and arbitrary oppressive measures inside Israeli prisons and, most critically, the struggle for their liberation.
17-year-old Palestinian boy Ayham Sabah was sentenced by the Israeli occupation’s Ofer military court to 35 years in prison on 17 December 2018. Ayham, from the village of Beitunia near Ramallah, was also ordered to pay a fine of 1 million NIS (approximately $300,000.) He was accused of stabbing an Israeli occupation soldier inside the illegal colonial settlement in 2016 at the age of 14. The occupation soldier, who was also himself an illegal settler in the Ma’aleh Michmash settlement, died of his injuries.
The hefty fine was labeled “compensation” for the family of the occupation soldier. Ayham was there with Omar Rimawi, who was also 14. While Omar was shot and killed by another settler, Ayham was severely wounded in his shoulder, foot and hand after being shot. Both were denied medical care for long periods of time before being removed from the scene. Ayham’s father, Bassam Sabah, spoke with Asra Voice radio, saying that the lengthy sentence reflected the racism of the occupation, that does not see Palestinian children as children. Further, the father said that the verdict did not weaken his son’s morale. “He considers the sentence to have no value, because his hope for freedom is much greater,” he said.
In addition, Ayham’s father said that his son’s sentence is not an isolated incident but a price imposed on Palestinians wherever they are and a suffering that will not end until Palestine achieves its freedom. “Steadfastness and survival is our only option,” he noted.
Ayham is one of over 200 Palestinian children imprisoned by Israel, including 41 under the age of 16. Palestinian children are even detained without charge or trial under so-called “administrative detention,” facing indefinite renewal on the basis of secret evidence. He is not the only Palestinian child facing extreme sentences: Muawiya Alqam, 14, was sentenced to six and a half years in Israeli prison; Ahmad Manasrah, 14, to 10 years in prison; Nurhan Awad, 17, to 13 years in Israeli prison. In several of these cases, including those of Ahmad and Nurhan – like Ayman – a close friend or family member, also a child, was shot down and killed in front of the surviving child.
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network condemns the sentencing of Ayham Sabah and demands justice and freedom for imprisoned Palestinian children. We further call for international action to compel the Israeli state to respect the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and end international military aid and assistance that funds the imprisonment and torture of Palestinian children.
The imprisonment of children highlights the necessity of building the movement to boycott Israel, including economic, cultural and academic boycott and the imposition of a military embargo. The imprisonment, oppression, and killing of Palestinian children by the Israeli occupation is part and parcel of the Israeli colonial project in Palestine, and the only true freedom for Palestinian children will be achieved through the freedom of the Palestinian people and the liberation of Palestine.
On 13 December 2018, Israeli occupation forces shot down four Palestinians, including several resistance fighters who had evaded their pursuit for months. Ashraf Na’alwa, 23, was killed by occupation forces who attacked the home where he was staying in Askar refugee camp near Nablus. He had been pursued by occupation forces since he carried out an armed resistance operation on 7 October in the illegal colonial settlement of Barkan in the northern West Bank of occupied Palestine in which two settlers were killed.
Na’alwa, a Palestinian worker at a factory in the colonial settlement, evaded occupation forces for months. During that time, his entire family was repeatedly harassed and attacked by occupation forces. His mother, sister, brother and father were all repeatedly detained and interrogated, while his home village of Shweika near Tulkarem was subjected to ongoing attacks, raids and intensive surveillance. Many of his family members remain behind bars as we remember him today. Occupation forces ordered his family home demolished, a tactic of collective punishment that the Israeli occupation continued from the former British colonial mandate over Palestine.
Israeli sources reported that Na’alwa’s location was finally revealed under “harsh interrogation,” usually a euphemism for torture under interrogation. The occupation forces deliberately aimed to kill Na’alwa, who resisted until the last moment; indeed, Israeli headlines bragged about “eliminating” the “terrorist.” Occupation forces reportedly chased Na’alwa through the camp for hours before surrounding him in the building. Around the bloody scene, occupation forces seized more Palestinians, accusing them of “providing aid” to the “wanted” resistance fighter.
The extrajudicial execution of Ashraf Na’alwa did not come alone today. Saleh Omar Barghouthi, 29, the son of former Palestinian prisoner Omar Barghouthi, who served 25 years in Israeli prisons, was shot dead near the village of Sarda near Ramallah. Barghouthi, from Kobar village, carried out an armed resistance action at Ofra illegal colonial settlement on Sunday, 9 December, wounding seven settlers. Occupation forces attacked the his taxi he drove, seized him and shot him dead, according to Palestinian witnesses at the scene.
Barghouthi is also the nephew of Nael Barghouthi, one of the longest serving Palestinian prisoners, with 39 years in Israeli prison. Saleh’s brother, Asem, has spent 10 years in Israeli occupation prisons, while another uncle, Jacir, was deported to Gaza when released from Israeli prison.
Also on Thursday morning, Israeli occupation forces in Jerusalem shot Majd Mteir, 26, a Palestinian refugee from Qalandiya camp, ten to twelve times in a row. Witnesses said that Mteir was left lying on the ground bleeding for 40 minutes before his death. Occupation forces accused him of attempting to stab Israeli armed “border police” in Jerusalem.
These killings were carried out in a coordinated fashion, alongside the arrest of dozens of Palestinians on the same night. Clearly, these were intended to be a deadly blow not only against these strugglers, but also the Palestinian resistance as a whole.
Nevertheless, ensuing events made clear that the military power of the occupation and its extrajudicial executions would only inflame Palestinian resistance further. Three Israeli soldiers at the illegal colonial settlement of Givat Asaf were shot dead by unknown Palestinian resistance fighters, who left the scene, withdrawing from the area, later on Thursday morning. This response indicated that Palestinian resistance forces did not accept that the blood of these young strugglers should be spilled casually and without cost to the colonial occupier.
The assassination raids recall previous attacks, like those on Basil al-Araj and Moataz Washaha, Palestinian strugglers targeted for Israeli “elimination.” The policy of extrajudicial killings and assassinations by the Israeli state stretches back years and beyond borders, targeting resistance strugglers, local organizers and national leaders: Ghassan Kanafani, Abu Ali Mustafa, Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, Khaled Nazzal, Fathi Shiqaqi, Abu Jihad, Abdel-Aziz Rantisi and many others, including some of the Palestinian people’s brightest writers, poets and emissaries to the world. Despite decades of assassinations and killings, the Palestinian resistance has not been crushed. Instead, it has continued to adapt, survive and grow, resisting a brutal, colonial occupation and its imperialist sponsors despite vast disparities in wealth and resources.
Israeli occupation forces have imposed a harsh siege on Ramallah and the surrounding villages. They shot dead 60-year-old Hamdan Arda, originally from the village of Arraba near Jenin, in his vehicle near el-Bireh, accusing him of attempting to run over soldiers. Arda was returning home from his aluminum factory when he was shot. As he lay inside his car, the soldiers refused to allow the Red Crescent ambulance to reach him and provide treatment. The killing of Arda came alongside attacks by soldiers and settlers on Palestinian cities and villages. Six Palestinians were wounded in el-Bireh, shot by live ammunition and rubber-coated metal bullets. Illegal colonial settlers attacked Palestinians and their vehicles in cities and towns throughout the West Bank of occupied Palestine, while Palestinians took to the streets in protest.
Palestinian political parties, including Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine and even Fateh called for mobilization inside and outside Palestine to confront the escalating occupation attacks. Meanwhile, Palestinian Authority President Abu Mazen attempted to distance himself from “violence,” while leaving the PA’s security coordination with the Israeli occupation intact.
These events come only a week after the latest effort by Israel and the United States at the United Nations to attack and criminalize Palestinian resistance. An attempt to pass a General Assembly resolution against Palestinian resistance actions in Gaza failed. This was only the latest attempt to redefine international principles in the interests of imperialism, seeking to undermine the position expressed UN’s General Assembly resolution 34/43 (1982). This document supporting Palestinian rights as well as those of African peoples fighting colonization and apartheid “Reaffirm[ed] the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial and foreign domination and foreign occupation by all available means, including armed struggle…Strongly condemn[ed] those Governments that do not recognize the right to self-determination and independence of all peoples still under colonial and foreign domination and alien subjugation, notably the peoples of Africa and the Palestinian people.”
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network highlights the importance of global solidarity with the Palestinian people, their liberation movement and their resistance. We remember and honor Ashraf Na’alwa, Saleh Barghouthi, Majd Mteir and Hasan Arda, as we remember the over 200 martyrs of today’s intifada, the Great March of Return in Gaza.
As we look back on 31 years of the First Intifada and see its spirit reflected today throughout occupied Palestine, we urge people of conscience around the world to organize protests and actions to stand with Palestinians confronting occupation, colonization and imperialism. We also urge communities, municipalities, university groups and trade unions to escalate the boycott of Israel, including economic, academic and cultural boycott – and especially a military embargo of the occupation state.
The lives of these strugglers shall not be lost in vain, but will live on as symbols of resistance and the ability of an indigenous people to struggle by all means despite the most challenging odds and the most disadvantageous balance of power. From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!
