Israeli occupation authorities issued 35 administrative detention orders between 1 and 12 March, reported Palestinian lawyer Mahmoud Halabi of the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society.
Administrative detention orders are used to imprison Palestinians without charge or trial; they are issued for one to six month periods, but are indefinitely renewable. Therefore, Palestinians can spend years at a time imprisoned with no charge and no trial. There are currently around 600 Palestinians imprisoned without charge or trial under administrative detention orders.
Among the Palestinians issued administrative detention orders in this group is Ihsan Dababseh, former prisoner and one of two Palestinian women currently held in administrative detention. Among the orders, 13 are new orders and 22 are renewals of existing administrative detention orders.
The list of prisoners against whom orders were issued are:
1. Mumin Fathi Fashafsheh, Jenin, 4 months extension
2. Khaled Mansour Abdel-Nabi, al-Khalil, 3 months, new order
3. Samarah Sami Majid, Ramallah, 3 months, extension
4. Mahmoud Mohammed Salah, Bethlehem, 4 months, extension
5. Omar Ali al-Hih, al-Khalil, 6 months, extension
6. Khaled Majid al-Badr, Jerusalem, 4 months, extension
7. Tariq Mahmoud Blalou, Jenin, 6 months, extension
8. Mohammed Ahmed Suqia, Jenin, 3 months, new order
9. Mahmoud Khalil Ghuneim, Bethlehem, 4 months, extension
10. Said Ismail Abu Hadid, al-Khalil, 4 months, extension
11. Yousef Naim Ghuneim, Bethlehem, 4 months, extension
12. Mohammed Ribhi Saleh, Bethlehem, 4 months, extension
13. Rami Hisham Abu Safiya, al-Khalil, 6 onths, extension
14. Musab Mahmoud Suwaita, al-Khalil, 3 months, new order
15. Ismail Khalil al-Zeer, Bethlehem, 4 months, new order
16. Ahmad Nasri Ibrahim, Jenin, 4 months, extension
17. Ahmed Fayez Saadi, Jenin, 3 months, new order
18. Mohammed Ibrahim Yahya, Jenin, 4 months, extension
19. Alaa Abdel-Rahim al-Azm, Ramallah, 4 months, extension
20. Yousef Mahmoud Laham, Bethlehem, 6 months, new order
21. Amer Omar Za’aroureh, Nablus, 4 months, extension
22. Khaled Jamil Shanaiteh, Bethlehem, 6 months, new order
23. Eyad Habib Mohammed, Bethlehem, 6 months, extension
24. Shadi Mohammed Abu Aker, Bethlehem, 6 months, extension
25. Walid Daoud Bustanji, Bethlehem, 4 months, new order
26. Mohammed Abdel-Raouf Hamed, Qalqilya, 4 months, extension
27. Mohammed Suleiman Srouji, Tulkarem, 6 months, new order
28. Ismail Ahmed Hawamdeh, al-Khalil, 6 months, new order
29. Jaoudat Ahmad Mashal, Ramallah, 4 months, extension
30. Maan Hamdallah Hamidat, al-Khalil, 6 months, new order
31. Walid Mohammed Hmeidan, Bethlehem, 4 months, new order
32. Ahmed Diab Burash, Ramallah, 4 months, new order
33. Ihsan Hassan Dababseh, al-Khalil, 4 months, new order
34. Essam Rashid al-Ashqar, Nablus, 2 months, extension
35. Mohsen Raafat Asfour, Ramallah, 4 months, extension
An Israeli occupation court convening in the Moskobiyeh interrogation center in Jerusalem ordered young Palestinian woman Batool Ramahi to 11 more days of detention, forbidding her from receiving a visit from a lawyer until 16 March.
Ramahi, 24, was arrested from her home in the village of Surda near Ramallah in a pre-dawn military raid on Sunday, 12 March.
Halaiqa’s arrest brought the total number of imprisoned PLC members to 10 and prompted protest in Gaza by PLC leaders affiliated with her Change and Reform bloc, associated with Hamas.
A Palestinian girl, Sondos Joulani, 17, was among 21 Palestinians seized by Israeli occupation forces on Sunday night, 12 March and Monday morning, 13 march. She was one of 11 people arrested in Jerusalem, including Karim Abu Tayeh, Ayman Abu Tayeh, Uday Abu Tayeh, Mohammed Abu Hammam, Mahmoud Abu Nabi, Hatem Shweiki, Wael Qarout, Wael Abu Ramouz, 15-year-old Musleh Naser Shehadeh, and Mahmoud Matar, the father of Ibrahim Matar, killed on Monday morning by Israeli forces.
Four more Palestinians from the town of Jiftlik were seized, including Ibrahim Abu Salem Dalakh, Mohammed Abu Gheith Dalakh, Nawaf al-Jahalin and Yasser Abu Hatab. In al-Khalil, three people were arrested, including Rabie Jawad Zaaqiq, Malik al-Jabari, and Salim Mahmoud Tarayreh, 48, the father of Issa Tarayreh, who was 16 years old in September 2016 when he was shot and killed by Israeli occupation forces.
Tareq Maher Zakarneh was seized in Qabatiya, Mohammed Ghazi Suleiman Abu Jaber in Tulkarem and Jumaa el-Desoki in Jalazone refugee camp.
Since International Women’s Day, an average of one Palestinian woman has been arrested by Israeli forces daily, including Joulani, Halaiqa, Ramahi, Souad Shyoukhi – whose brother was killed by occupation forces – and novelist Khalida Ghosheh, currently released on bail after being arrested and interrogated about her forthcoming novel, “The Jackal’s Trap,” looking at Palestinian collaborators with Israel.
On Saturday, 11 March, thirty members and supporters of Plate-Forme Charleroi-Palestine gathered in the afternoon to protest the LAW-TRAIN project.
Belgium, and specifically the judicial police and KU Leuven, are collaborating with the Israeli police in the LAW-TRAIN project, which aims to develop interrogation techniques, despite the fact that Israel is regularly condemned for its use of torture and inhumane and degrading treatment during its interrogations of prisoners.
The action came as part of the international Israeli Apartheid Week.
Over 200 universities, towns and cities around the world are participating in this week of action with a common theme: 100 years of colonialism in Palestine, 100 years of popular resistance!
During the symbolic action, the participants expressed their solidarity with the Palestinian prisoners and their resistance.
There are approximately 6,500 Palestinians in prison, including 69 women and 350 children.
These children are often arrested at night and can receive lengthy sentences. Children are prevented from seeing their parents for three or four months at a time, if not more. During these visits, they are denied physical contact between parent and child.
1000 Palestinian prisoners are ill and do not receive proper health care. In addition, some Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces and Israeli authorites refuse to return their bodies to their families.
Hundreds of Palestinians are held in administrative detention without charge or trial. Their detention can be arbitrarily extended, 6 months at a time. 75 Palestinians have been imprisoned for over 25 years and six for over 30 years.
The participants expressed their rejection of their government’s adoption of Israeli methods. In France, a Lebanese struggler, Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, who struggled for Palestine, has been imprisoned for 33 years despite being eligible for release since 1999.
They demanded: an end to the Belgian cooperation with Israeli institutions implicated in violations of international humanitarian law and human rights. The immediate end of the participation of the Belgian prosecutor’s office and judicial police and KU Leuven with Israeli police. The end to financing of such projects by the European Union.
Harassment by police in Charleroi
The action went well. At the moment the participants dispersed, they were stopped by the police for an identity check.
We explained that this was a symbolic action that had ended. We left again in small groups, and headed to a bistro to drink and eat together when we were stopped again for a second time.
Five minutes later, three young people who were on their way called us on the telephone to tell us they had been stopped by the police. We joined them. 15 police officers and a dog encircled them.
One of the police said: “A group that is moving and carrying a political message, it is normal that there is a control.”
The “political message” was nothing other than the keffiyehs that the three young people were wearing while walking on the Place du Manege. We recalled the previous Police Order concerning us, in which they claimed that wearing a keffiyeh is an appeal for violence or hate.
This harassment is outrageous and yet another attack on the right to expression for Palestine in Charleroi. We will not allow this to happen.
Stop LAW-TRAIN! Stop the harassment by Charleroi police!
Palestinian prisoner Jamal Abu Leil ended his hunger strike on Sunday, 12 March in an agreement that he will be released after the end of his current administrative detention period, in August 2017. Abu Leil, 50, had refused food for 25 days and had been transferred to multiple prisons while held in solitary confinement.
A Fateh leader in Qalandiya refugee camp, Abu Leil has been imprisoned since 15 February 2016 in administrative detention without charge or trial. Jawad Boulos, of the Palestinian Prisoners Society, said that he had visited Abu Leil in Ramon prison and that he extended thanks and appreciation to all who supported him in his battle against administrative detention.
Abu Leil is a member of the Popular Committee in Qalandiya camp and an administrator of the Qalandiya youth center. He is a former member of the Fateh Revolutionary Council. He is one of over 600 Palestinian prisoners held without charge or trial under indefinitely-renewable administrative detention orders.
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network congratulates Jamal Abu Leil and salutes all of the Palestinian prisoners behind bars struggling to achieve freedom and end injustice.
Protesting Palestinians in Ramallah came under attack by Palestinian Authority security forces this morning, including the father of slain Palestinian youth activist Basil al-Araj, journalists and former prisoners, such as Khader Adnan. Later in the evening, PA police also attacked a march in Dheisheh refugee camp near Bethlehem demanding an end to security coordination and honoring al-Araj.
The demonstration was called in protest of PA security coordination with the Israeli occupation, under which al-Araj and his comrades were initially imprisoned by the PA after a court hearing was maintained for charges against al-Araj and his comrades for Sunday, 12 March. Their arrest was touted as a significant achievement for PA-Israeli security coordination in April 2016.
Al-Araj was shot down by Israeli occupation forces on Monday morning, 6 March, resisting until the end. The prominent youth activist had gone underground following his release from PA prison after a hunger strike; four of his five comrades imprisoned with him have since been seized by Israeli occupation forces and ordered to administrative detention without charge or trial. All six were charged by the Palestinian Authority with “unlicensed possession of a weapon.” Despite the imprisonment of four of the young people – Haithem Siyaj, Mohammed Harb, Mohammed al-Salameen and Seif al-Idrissi – and the assassination of al-Araj, the trial was scheduled to go forward as planned, sparking calls for protest and action.
Ma’an News reported that at the hearing in the Ramallah Magistrate’s Court, only the sixth former PA prisoner, Ali Dar al-Sheikh was present. Lawyer Muhannad Karajah had previously requested that charges be dropped against the four imprisoned Palestinians, and that the judge requested documented proof that the four were held in Israeli prison. When Karajah presented that proof in the court session today, rather than dropping the charges, the judge rescheduled the trial for 30 April, reportedly stating that “the four may be out of Israeli prison” by that time, as they are imprisoned without charge or trial under administrative detention. Further, Karajah said, the judge dropped charges against al-Araj only when his death certificate was presented in court, as the charges “expired” upon his death.
Palestinians protesting outside denounced the trial, which was also condemned by a number of Palestinian political organizations, including Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The protesters were violently attacked by PA police shooting tear gas canisters directly into the crowd, using rubber bullets, and hitting protesters with batons. At least 11 were injured, including Mahmoud al-Araj, the father of Basil al-Araj, who was taken to hospital after being beaten amid shouts from participants that he was the father of the martyr. Several more were detained for a few hours, including former hunger striker Khader Adnan.
Multiple journalists reported that they were barred from covering the protest and some reported the breaking of their equipment, including reporters for Palestine TV, Watan and Roya TV. The attack on journalists was condemned by the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate and several other media organizations. Palestinian human rights organizations and NGOs also widely condemned the attack on the protest, urging accountability for the security forces.
Speaking several hours later, Mahmoud al-Araj spoke at a press conference alongside Adnan, saying that the attack on the protest was an attack on his son the martyr, as well as a violation of the rights of the people and of the freedom fighters. He noted that a sit-in was being called for 4 PM tomorrow, Monday, 13 March in response to the attack on the demonstrators today. He also said that he would file a complaint against the security services, with lawyer Karajah. Farid al-Atrash, of the Independent Human Rights commission, said that the events today were a crime, and that anyone who gave orders for the attack on civilians must be held accountable.
Shortly after he spoke, a march in Dheisheh refugee camp near Bethlehem demanding an end to security coordination in honor of al-Araj was attacked by PA police, who fired on the crowd with rubber bullets and shot tear gas canisters into the march. People in the camp reported that a child was injured by rubber bullets fired by PA police inside the camp.
The protests were accompanied by actions elsewhere in Palestine and in Arab and international cities. In Gaza City, student organizations gathered to denounce the assassination of al-Araj and demand the Palestinian Authority stop security coordination and arrests against the Palestinian resistance.
In London, protesters gathered outside the Palestinian Mission, demanding an end to security coordination and attaching a large banner bearing Basil’s image to the building’s railing. The protesters, mainly young Palestinians, recalled al-Araj’s life and commitment to struggle and denounced the PA’s role in his arrest, persecution and eventual assassination.
Meanwhile, in Brussels, demonstrators came together outside the Palestinian Mission to the EU, Brussels and Luxembourg to denounce PA security coordination and remember al-Araj. Several protesters were personal friends of al-Araj, and recalled their interactions and experiences with him as well as his commitment to struggle. One participant, Hala, recalled her own interactions with al-Araj while reviewing today’s events in Ramallah. Writer and researcher David Cronin discussed in detail the role of the European Union and the United States in PA security coordination with the Israeli occupation, while Charlotte Kates of Samidoun noted the connection of security coordination with the imprisonment of Palestinians in Israeli jails. In Berlin, Palestinian activists gathered outside the Palestinian mission to Germany to denounce the PA’s ongoing security coordination with Israel and demand real action after the killing of al-Araj.
Meanwhile, in Amman, protesters gathered outside the Palestinian Embassy, waving their shoes at the embassy and holding signs and posters saluting al-Araj as they demanded an end to security coordination.
Palestinian novelist Khalida Ghosheh was released in Jerusalem on Saturday, 11 March on a payment of 10,000 NIS in bail ($2722 USD) with an unspecified future court date after hours of interrogation by the Shin Bet.
Israeli occupation police invaded her Jerusalem home in the morning on Saturday, telling her she was under arrest and taken to interrogation. In an interview with Quds News, she said that the subject matter was her forthcoming novel, “The Jackal’s Trap,” focusing on Palestinian collaborators with Israeli occupation forces. She said that the interrogators claimed that her novel poses a threat to collaborators working with the occupation, saying that the novel reflects her own experiences and aims to warn young people about ways the occupation may attempt to compel them to become collaborators.
As Ghosheh was released and awaits charges and a trial for writing a novel about the Israeli occupation, six more Palestinians were seized in military raids in the early morning hours of Sunday, 12 March. Among those taken by Israeli forces include Palestinian journalist Musab al-Said of Bir Zeit, as well as Osama Fuqaha, a Palestinian student and a member of Bir Zeit University’s student council.
Also seized by occupation forces was Batal al-Ramahi, 24, a young woman from the town of Surda near Ramallah, Ali Mohammed Sa’adat from Huwwara near Nablus, and two young people, Muhtadi Ayyash and Salah Attia, from the town of Biddu in Jerusalem.
Belgian students stopped attempts to shut down Israeli Apartheid Week events at their universities, holding a wide range of events and actions that frequently focused on the struggles of Palestinian political prisoners between 6 and 11 March.
Zionist organizations had attempted to block the participation of Palestinian-French former political prisoner and researcher Salah Hamouri, directing complaints at university administrations and demanding his voice be silenced. Despite these attempts, all IAW events in Belgium went forward as planned despite attempted disruptions.
Israeli Apartheid Week 2017 in Belgium focused strongly on the struggle of Palestinian political prisoners, in part because of LAW-TRAIN, an EU-funded research collaboration that brings together Belgian judicial police and prosecutors and KU Leuven with the Israeli National Police, Ministry of Public Security, Bar-Ilan University and Spanish police and prosecutors to study interrogation techniques. A growing campaign across Belgium has included protests in multiple cities, including at KU Leuven’s academic convocation, as well as a delegation by prominent human rights lawyers and scholars to Palestine to look at the impact of Israeli interrogations on Palestinians. Israeli interrogations are infamous for their use of torture, abuse and ill-treatment against imprisoned Palestinians, including Palestinian children.
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network participated actively in the week of events across Belgium. Charlotte Kates, international coordinator of Samidoun, spoke alongside Salah Hamouri at the University of Antwerp on Tuesday, 7 March, at KU Leuven on Wednesday, 8 March and at Universite Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) on Thursday, 9 March. At all of these events, she spoke about the LAW-TRAIN program and its implications for complicity in torture, racism and apartheid.
Kates also focused on the situation of Palestinian student prisoners and the targeting of Palestinian students for arrest and imprisonment for their involvement in student organizing and activities, noting the political importance of student elections for Palestinians. She highlighted the importance of international solidarity with Palestinian political prisoners specifically as leaders of the Palestinian national liberation movement, as well as noting the complicity of the European Union in the ongoing imprisonment of Palestinians by the Israeli occupation. She made remarks at these events highlighting the Israeli assassination of Palestinian youth leader Basil al-Araj, dedicated to struggling against Israeli apartheid, quoting his famous remark that “If you are an intellectual, you must be an intellectual in the struggle.”
Hamouri provided a thorough overview of the current and historical situation of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, emphasizing the experience of arrest, interrogation and imprisonment. He discussed the large-scale use of administrative detention, imprisonment without charge or trial as well as the Israeli military courts that convict over 99 percent of the Palestinians brought before them. He provided a political analysis of the situation of Palestinian prisoners, as well as discussing his own experience behind Israeli bars.
Other events during Israeli Apartheid Week in Belgium also focused on the struggle of political prisoners, including several screenings of the film “3000 Nights,” a feature film by Mai Masri about the life of an imprisoned Palestinian woman, and a Palestinian evening at UCL-Alma which included a Skype conversation with Mariam Barghouthi, a formerly-imprisoned Palestinian youth activist. Salah Hamouri spoke alongside Alexis DeSwaef, the director of the League for Human Rights in Belgium and a participant in the human rights delegation to Palestine that studied LAW-TRAIN in an evening event in Louvain-La-Neuve on 8 March.
The focus on Palestinian prisoners during Israeli Apartheid Week was not restricted to Belgium. Across the border in Maastricht, the Netherlands, Students for Justice in Palestine – Maastricht hosted Samidoun’s Kates on 8 March for a presentation on Palestinian political prisoners, anti-BDS repression and EU complicity. Kates provided an overview of the situation of Palestinian political prisoners today, including key statistics, as well as situating their struggle in the context of the Palestinian movement against colonialism and attempts to suppress it. She emphasized the importance of raising the level of activity in solidarity with Palestine in response to attempts to suppress BDS activism and organizing, particularly noting the role of the right wing in allying with Zionism and attacking Palestinians and Arabs, not only in Palestine but also in Europe, and emphasizing the role of the Palestinian movement as part and parcel of struggles against racism, fascism and oppression. She also discussed the growing international campaign to boycott Hewlett-Packard (HP) products, noting the company’s involvement in Israeli checkpoints, prisons, settlements and the Apartheid Wall and dismissing claims that HP technology “improves” checkpoints for Palestinians, as such technology is in fact perpetuating occupation and colonization.
Israeli Apartheid Week events in Belgium were organized during the week at the ULB (Universite Libre de Bruxelles), KU Leuven, University of Antwerp, Universite catholique de Louvain (UCL) Alma, University of Ghent, and UCL in Louvain-la-Neuve, as well as a closing cultural event at Le Space. Additional events are planned in the coming days at the University of Ghent, KU Leuven, Saint-Louis University, and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), including a mobilization on 16 March at KU Leuven protesting the university’s involvement in LAW-TRAIN.
Protests and actions in a number of cities stood in solidarity with Palestinian political prisoners struggling for freedom, with a number of events focusing on the struggle of imprisoned women as part of International Women’s Day events and actions.
In Milan, Italy on Friday, 10 March, Fronte Palestina organized a protest in solidarity with imprisoned Palestinian journalist Mohammed al-Qeeq, then on his 33rd day of hunger strike. Later in the day, al-Qeeq ended his strike in an agreement securing his release on 14 April. He is imprisoned without charge or trial under the Israeli policy of “administrative detention,” under which nearly 600 Palestinians are detained. Administrative detention orders are indefinitely renewable, and many Palestinians have been imprisoned for years at a time under such orders.
The Milan protest also focused on the Israeli assassination of Palestinian youth leader Basil al-Araj, shot down in a hail of Israeli occupation forces’ bullets in a home in El-Bireh on Monday morning, 6 March. Al-Araj was widely known for his involvement in a range of activities, including protests, demonstrations, youth organizing projects and oral history work; he resisted the occupation soldiers until his last breath. He and five of his comrades were imprisoned by the Palestinian Authority for five months in 2016, in a case touted as an example of security coordination with the Israeli occupation; today, four of his comrades are held without charge or trial under administrative detention. Israeli occupation forces continue to refuse to return his imprisoned body to his family for burial. In cities across Europe, North America and the Arab world, Palestinian youth are organizing protests to demand an end to PA security coordination and the return of al-Araj’s body on 12 and 13 March.
As part of International Women’s Day actions in Paris and Israeli Apartheid Week activities, CAPJPO-EuroPalestine brought together around 40 people to participate in the Women’s March in Paris on 8 March, holding the images and names of Palestinian women political prisoners held in Israeli occupation prisons.
Installed PluginsAmong others, they higlighted the cases of women and girls, including lawyer Shireen Issawi, student Shorouq Dwayyat, teen Malak Salman, severely injured Israa Jaabis, administrative detainee Sabah Faraoun, and longest-held Palestinain woman prisoner Lena Jarbouni. The group chanted for justice and freedom for Palestinian women prisoners, denouncing the torture to which they were subject and saluting their resistance.
Meanwhile, in Manchester, Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! Student society at Manchester University gathered outside the Student Union on Wednesday, 8 March to highlight the struggles of Palestinian women prisoners and demand freedom for all imprisoned Palestinians. Protesters focused on the imprisonment of Lena Jarbouni, the longest-held Palestinian political prisoner and a leader in the Palestinian prisoners’ movement, calling for her release.
On International Women’s Day, Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network salutes the women of Palestine, struggling behind bars, throughout Palestine and in exile and diaspora, for the liberation of Palestinian people and Palestinian land. Palestinian women have always been leaders and strugglers in all aspects of working for the freedom of their people, in the streets and in the fields, educating children and raising families, leading in all forms of struggle and playing a key role as political leaders of the Palestinian national liberation movement.
As we mark International Women’s Day 2017, there are 55 Palestinian women political prisoners in Israeli jails, held in HaSharon and Damon prisons, continuing to struggle behind bars. There are 12 minor girls being deprived of their families and education in HaSharon prison; 16 are mothers whose children have been taken from them by Israeli occupation. Over 15,000 Palestinian women have been imprisoned since 1967, and since 2000, over 1400 Palestinian women have been arrested and imprisoned.
In addition, all aspects of Palestinian women’s life are deeply impacted by the mass imprisonment of Palestinian men. Over 800,000 Palestinians have been imprisoned since 1967 and 1,000,000 since 1948; 40% of Palestinian men in the West Bank and Jerusalem have spent time in Israeli prison or detention. Palestinian women are the mothers, wives, daughters, sisters, lovers and friends of Palestinian male prisoners. They make homes for themselves and their children, denied access to their husbands and fathers. They fight against the denial of family visits and ongoing cutbacks, restrictions and sanctions that deny them even a visit across a glass wall over a telephone.
And the wives, sisters and mothers of Palestinian prisoners are leaders of the campaigns to support them, at every demonstration at the International Committee of the Red Cross for freedom for the prisoners, speaking to media, demanding their rights and the freedom of their loved ones. Palestinian women – current former prisoners and the relatives and partners of prisoners – are powerful leaders in the Palestinian prisoners’ movement and all actions to support the prisoners’ freedom, both inside and outside prison walls.
Palestinian women like Ihsan Dababseh and Sabah Faraoun are currently held in administrative detention, imprisonment without charge or trial. Just three days ago, Ihsan Dababseh was ordered to six months in administrative detention; this is her third arrest by Israeli occupation forces. Seized in a violent pre-dawn military raid on her home in the town of Nuba, she had been released in July 2016 after 21 months in Israeli prison; she previously spent two years, from 2007-2009, in Israeli prison. Each time, she was accused of membership in Palestinian Islamic Jihad, like all major Palestinian political parties designated as a prohibited hostile organization by Israeli military order. This time, she was not even charged, or tried – instead she was ordered to indefinitely-renewable imprisonment with 650 fellow Palestinians. During her first arrest, Israeli soldiers filmed themselves as they danced around her, blindfolded, to post on social media; during her second imprisonment, she was ordered to isolation with four other women as punishment for raising the Palestinian flag on Nakba day, 15 May.
While Dababseh was seized again just three days ago, Lena Jarbouni has been imprisoned since 2002. Excluded from the 2011 Wafa al-Ahrar prisoner exchange due to her Israeli citizenship, Jarbouni is the longest-serving Palestinian woman political prisoner and has been jailed since 2002. A leader inside the prisons, she is the elected representative of women in HaSharon prison and an advocate for the educational rights of jailed minor girls. She has participated in multiple collective hunger strikes and protests and been thrown in solitary confinement for her continued defiance.
There are over a dozen minor girls in Israeli prisons whose education has benefited from Jarbouni’s persistence and dedication. Among them is Natalie Shokha, 15, whose letter to her family spoke on behalf of the “flowers,” the minor girls held as Palestinian political prisoners. “We are the twelve flowers. We live together through bad and good times….They will not imprison the scent of jasmine in a flower.” Natalie is serving an 18-month sentence in prison alongside her friend Tasneem Halabi, also 15. The two girls were accused of “possession of a knife,” an increasingly common charge against imprisoned children.
While Palestinian women are on the front lines of struggle behind bars, former Palestinian prisoners continue to lead in the movement for justice and liberation. The International Women’s Strike united women across the globe in a collective expression of rejection of the struggle for liberation, fighting imperialism, racism, austerity and neoliberalism. The call for the Strike was led by women like Rasmea Odeh, a former Palestinian prisoner and survivor of sexual assault and torture at the hands of occupation forces during her interrogation in 1969. Odeh was imprisoned for ten years before being released in a prisoner exchange with the Palestinian resistance; since coming to the United States, she has been an organizer and a leader among women and the Palestinian community in Chicago. Odeh was one of a group of women who initiated the call for the Strike and was relentlessly attacked by pro-Zionist forces seeking to silence and suppress the call for liberation for Palestine in the women’s movement. In Chicago, she received two standing ovations as she delivered a resounding speech to the International Women’s Day rally.
In New York City, Palestinian activist and lawyer Lamis Deek, one of the strike’s national organizers, rallied thousands to demand freedom for Palestine and its people. As the march took the streets, Palestinian flags led on the front banner as women chanted against sexism, racism and imperialism. Palestinian women, Arab women and women in solidarity with Palestine played leading roles in building the strike and marching, with organizations like Al-Awda NY, NYC Students for Justice in Palestine, Labor for Palestine, Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network and many others.
In the days that have followed International Women’s Day, Israeli occupation forces have continued to target Palestinian women, seizing novelist Khalida Ghosheh, parliamentarian Samira Halaiqa and former prisoner Souad Shyoukhi, the sister of fellow prisoners and of her young brother, shot down by Israeli occupation forces.
Photo: Bud Korotzer/Desertpeace
At the same time, Palestinian women continue on the front lines of resistance, whether in diaspora and exile or inside Palestine, demanding justice, freedom, return and liberation. As we mark 100 years of colonization in Palestine and 100 years of Palestinian resistance, women have always been an integral and leading part of the Palestinian revolution. Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network salutes the movement of Palestinian women and their leadership in the ongoing and daily struggle for national and social liberation.
Good evening everyone. My name is Rasmea Odeh, and along with my friends Barbara Ransby, Angela Davis, and five other organizers from the U.S. and around the world, I signed the article that called for the women’s strike on this day. I am a Palestinian, and I have dedicated my life to the liberation of women and of my people in general.
I want to talk tonight about my homeland of Palestine, and about my adopted homeland of the U.S., because there are clear similarities. Israel’s government today is more right wing than ever, and it continues to target my people with racist policies, political imprisonment, stealing of land, and killing. An Israeli soldier just recently received only 18 months for killing a Palestinian who was wounded and lying on the ground unarmed. He probably won’t even serve the entire sentence, because Palestinian lives are not worth much to the Israeli government.
In the U.S., we are living in a time that is worse than the few years after the September 11th attacks. The Muslim Ban tries to keep people from six Arab, African, or Muslim countries from entering the U.S. for many months. Other policies threaten undocumented Mexicans, Central Americans, and other immigrants with mass detention and deportation. Still other policies are criminalizing protests and making it easier for police to get away with committing crimes and killing Black people. An 18 year old Black young man, Ben Keita, was found hanging from a tree in Washington State in January, and African and South Asian men have also been recently murdered in hate crimes.
Israeli and U.S. policies make it easy to target our people, but Palestinians are resisting these attacks in Palestine, and here in the U.S., we are all resisting Trump’s attacks on immigrants, Black people, Arabs and Muslims, and others.
I want to end by telling you a little bit about my own story. Articles in the Chicago Tribune, New York Times, New York Post, and other newspapers are attacking me because of my participation in this day of action. They are calling me a terrorist because members of the Israeli military tortured and sexually assaulted me into a false confession almost 50 years ago.
On International Women’s Day in 2017, I am here to say that I am a survivor of sexual assault, and I testified to the United Nations about it in 1979. I have been convicted in the U.S. based on this torture evidence, but I won my appeal and am going to a re-trial on May 16th. Before that, please join us in Detroit on April 4th for a pre-trial hearing. Sign-up sheets for t he trip are on our table in the back. This is a time of resistance of women and all people in Palestine, the U.S., and across the world. And I am resisting too!
Thank you.
Rasmea Odeh – #InternationalWomensDay March 8, 2017
18 March is the Day of Revolutionary Political Prisoners and the 146th anniversary of the Paris Commune. On this occasion, an evening of solidarity will take place at the Local Sacco Vanzetti in Brussels. The evening will include interventions by political prisoners, a presentation by Kevin Rashid Johnson (prisoner, member of the New Afrikan Black Panther Party – Prison Chapter) and discussions and screenings about political prisoners. With a bar and a vegan buffet.
Israeli occupation authorities issued 35 administrative detention orders between 1 and 12 March, reported Palestinian lawyer Mahmoud Halabi of the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society.
Over 200 universities, towns and cities around the world are participating in this week of action with a common theme: 100 years of colonialism in Palestine, 100 years of popular resistance!
There are approximately 6,500 Palestinians in prison, including 69 women and 350 children.
Hundreds of Palestinians are held in administrative detention without charge or trial. Their detention can be arbitrarily extended, 6 months at a time. 75 Palestinians have been imprisoned for over 25 years and six for over 30 years.
They demanded: an end to the Belgian cooperation with Israeli institutions implicated in violations of international humanitarian law and human rights. The immediate end of the participation of the Belgian prosecutor’s office and judicial police and KU Leuven with Israeli police. The end to financing of such projects by the European Union.
Five minutes later, three young people who were on their way called us on the telephone to tell us they had been stopped by the police. We joined them. 15 police officers and a dog encircled them.
This harassment is outrageous and yet another attack on the right to expression for Palestine in Charleroi. We will not allow this to happen.
Palestinian prisoner
Protesting Palestinians in Ramallah 
In Berlin, Palestinian activists gathered outside the Palestinian mission to Germany to denounce the PA’s ongoing security coordination with Israel and demand real action after the killing of al-Araj.
Meanwhile, in 
Palestinian novelist 
In Milan, Italy on Friday, 10 March, 
As part of International Women’s Day actions in Paris and Israeli Apartheid Week activities, CAPJPO-EuroPalestine brought together around 40 people to participate in the Women’s March in Paris on 8 March, holding the images and names of Palestinian women political prisoners held in Israeli occupation prisons.
Among others, they higlighted the cases of women and girls, including lawyer 
Full report and photos in French: 
Meanwhile, in Manchester, 
18 March is the Day of Revolutionary Political Prisoners and the 146th anniversary of the Paris Commune. On this occasion, an evening of solidarity will take place at the Local Sacco Vanzetti in Brussels. The evening will include interventions by political prisoners, a presentation by Kevin Rashid Johnson (prisoner, member of the New Afrikan Black Panther Party – Prison Chapter) and discussions and screenings about political prisoners. With a bar and a vegan buffet.