On the 64th anniversary of the occupation of Palestine, and as the Palestinian people enter the 64th year of dispossession and exile, the Vancouver Coalition to Commemorate Al-Nakba is organizing 2 events to commemorate the Nakba, stand against the continuing Nakba, and call for the right of return for Palestinian refugees and freedom for Palestine. 64 years after the Nakba – the war of 1948 in which over 800,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes and land and the state of Israel created on that land – Palestinians continue to struggle for their right to return, for freedom from occupation, for justice, and against the Nakba that continues today.
Save the date now and plan to be part of these 2 important events!
Tuesday, May 15 6 PM – 10 PM Free Community Supper: Sharing Stories, Creating Resistance Unitarian Church, 949 W. 49th St. Vancouver
This community supper will bring together the community to share stories, creative work, and discussions about indigenous resistance, continuing Nakba, and struggles for freedom. The program will include talks by Palestinian and Indigenous activists and community members, Palestinian music, and a short film by Palestinian director Sobhi al-Zobaidi. Childcare is available. We request RSVPs for attendance, and for childcare, to nakbavancouver@gmail.com in order to ensure we have enough food! No one will be turned away.
Saturday, May 19
2 PM MARCH OF RETURN: MARCH FOR PALESTINE Gather at Clark Park (14th and Commercial) at 2 PM, March to Grandview Park Rally at Grandview Park
March and rally commemorating the Nakba, standing against the continuing Nakba, calling for justice, freedom and return for Palestine! We will also stand against Canada’s complicity and its own genocide of indigenous people. Creative actions welcome! This is a family friendly march.
The Vancouver Coalition to Commemorate Al-Nakba includes the Alliance for People’s Health, Arab Students Association – UBC, Boycott Israeli Apartheid Campaign, Canada Palestine Association, CPSHR – Canada-Philippines Solidarity for Human Rights, Canadian Boat to Gaza, CanPalNet, Canadian Union of Postal Workers, Independent Jewish Voices, No One Is Illegal – Vancouver Unceded Coast Salish Territories, RAGA (Race, Autobiography, Gender & Age Studies) Centre at UBC, Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, Seriously Free Speech Committee, Simon Fraser Public Interest Research Group (SFPIRG), Solidarity For Palestinian Human Rights-UBC (SPHR-UBC), SANSAD – South Asian Network for Secularism and Democracy, Stopwar.ca. To join the coalition or for more information please contact nakbavancouver@gmail.com.To join the coalition or for more information please contact nakbavancouver@gmail.com.
Jordanian prisoner in Israeli jails, Hamza Osman Aldababsh, was transferred from Mejiddo prison to Shata prison on April 27, 2012 after being strip searched and humiliated during the transfer process, in retaliation for his participation in the hunger strike in the occupaion prisons. Former prisoner Fuad al-Khafsh, director of the Ahrar Centre for Prisoners, reported that all of his clothing and belongings were confiscated, yet he continued to express his commitment to the hunger strike until the demands of the Palestinian prisoners are met. Aldababsh also said that “the depth of the conflict of the occupier is not simply a conflict between the Palestinians and Zionists, but between the whole Arab nation and this occupation.”
In his comments, he urged the Jordanian people to stand in solidarity with the prisoners on hunger strike, in his message conveyed by Khafsh, saying “There is no difference between Jordanians and Palestinians, they are one people, one nation and one body, and Jordanian political prisoners in the prisons of the occupation is woven into the fabric of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement.” Hamza Aldababsh was captured in mid-July 2011 during a visit with relatives in the West Bank, kidnapped and taken to Petah Tikva where he was tortured under interrogation.
Former prisoner Samer Abu Sir reported that Israeli prison administration forces attempted to bargain with imprisoned patient Akram Rakhawi in Ramle hospital, saying they would provide him with inhalers and oxygen if he broke his hunger strike. Rakhawi refused, saying that despite his heart disease, shortness of breath, and diabetes, he woould not break his strike.
He also reported that Jumana Abu Jazar, 11, has launched a hunger strike in solidarity with her imprisoned father, the Fateh representative in the strike’s leadership. Jumana has spoken to Palestinian and Arab media in the past about her situation – her mother is dead, and she lives with her grandfather in Rafah. Her father is serving a 19-year sentence in occupation prisons, and she is one of the victims of the Israeli policy of denying family visits to prisoners in the Gaza Strip. Abu Sir noted that the leadership of the prisoners rejected a proposal by the Israeli prison officials for Gaza families to see their imprisoned relatives via video conferencing, demanding ordinary visits like all other prisoners.
Abu Sir also called to expand the activities on April 17 for the International Day of Solidarity with Palestinian Prisoners, noting that of course it is not enough to have one day, the 17th of April as a day of the Palestinian prisoner for solidarity and to stand alongside the captives behind the bars of the occupation. He said that this day of action is a strong support for international solidarity mobilization and engagement with the issue of prisoners, and a tool to put pressure on international institutions, in particular the United Nations.
The Leadership Committee of the Prisoners’ Hunger Strike issued a second statement about the continuing open hunger strike, emphasizing that the strike will continue until their demands are achieved and stating their willingness to die to achieve a decent life for themselves and their sisters and brothers.
The Committee released a Statement No. 2 (see Statement No. 1) from the prisons of the occupation, as follows:
Statement No. 2 Issued by the Higher National Leadership Committee of the Prisoners’ Struggle
This is the moment of truth, where hunger grips our bleeding wounds. This is a call of duty that only the weak or cowardly can ignore. We are facing a real massacre committed by the Zionist jailers against our individual and collective rights, where we are confronted by torture and abuse on a daily basis, around the clock, in an attempt to force all of the hunger strikers to break the strike.
We are at a crucial and dangerous stage, and inspired by our hunger and our pain, speak to your conscience and affirm the following:
First, we will continue our strike. We will not go back, except by achieving our demands. We will not be defeated by their crimes and cruelty as we draft a vision for a decent life.
Second, we will take qualitative and unprecedented steps if the Prison Service continues to refuse our demands, and we will not announce these steps until the moment of implementation.
Third, we call on the masses of our people in the beseiged Gaza Strip, the brave West Bank and all of Palestine, and our families at home, to organize mass rallies and marches toward Israeli checkpoints in order to confront the occupation.
Fourth, we expect our Arab brothers and sisters in Egypt and Jordan to encircle the embassies of the Zionist entity in order to force it to respond to our demands.
Fifth, we call upon the free people of the world and the Arab and Muslim communities in all countries of the world to implement rallies, protests, occupations and sit-ins at Israeli embassies as an expression of solidarity with the prisoners’ cause and to expose the crimes of the Zionists.
Sixth, we value highly the reporting of Palestinian and Arab satellite channels in their coverage of our strike, including Al-Jazeera, that is consistent with the pulse of our nation and its identity, as well as al-Aqsa TV, al-Quds TV, and call upon the Arab and Palestinian media to exercise their duty to our just and humanitariian cause.
Seventh, we are looking forward to an important and active Egyptian role in support of our cause and we appeal to the ruling power in sister Egypt to do all in its power to compel the Zionist entity to commit to our demands, including ending the policy of solitary confinement and isolation and the abolition of the “Shalit law.”
Finally, We swear to continue to strike until our demands are met, no matter what the cost. We believe in our right to a dignified life even if we fall as martyrs. Our dignity is the greatest cost; we are committed before God; we must live with dignity or die.
Higher National Leadership Committee of the Prisoners’ Struggle April 28, 2012
The following letter was written by Ahmad Sa’adat from his isolation on the eighth day of the Karameh Hunger Strike, and smuggled out to the world. It calls for support for the hunger strike on Palestinian, Arab and international levels:
Dearest Umm Ghassan, and all my loved ones;
Ghassan, Amal, Iba, Loay, Sumoud, Yassar, and my whole family;
Do not worry, my health is much better than in the previous hunger strike, and I am confident it will remain so. Thank you for your continual support to my position in this hunger strike. As is the case in every strike, they took all of our electrical appliances, canteen, clothing…we only have left prison clothes, some change of underwear, pajamas, towels, soap and toothpaste.
All of us have lost about 5-7 kilograms in weight, but everyone is in good health and most importantly, high morale, and are determined to continue the strike. We are confident of victory, relying on the justice of our cause and our demands, and the support of the masses of our people, our nation, and the free world – individuals, organizations and institutions – standing, as always alongside our just struggle.
These demands include a number of legitimate human rights under international law, including abolition of solitary confinement as a dangerous form of torture with no security or legal justification and contrary to international humanitarian law and all international conventions that prohibit torture. We are also demanding an end to the prohibition of family visits to the prisoners from Gaza for more than seven years, as well as interference with family visitors from the West Bank under the pretext of ‘security reasons’, and demanding that such visits be allowed for extended as well as immediate family.
What we need from the masses of the people, political forces and institutions is to raise the voices and the call of our just demands of the prisoners with a unified voice, and not subject the cause of the prisoners to internal disputes or the management of division.
This strike includes participation from all political forces and factions, without exception, and the best gift from the political forces supporting us is to implement agreements for unity, on which the ink is not yet dry. Such unity is an essential foundation, the most important pillar to achieve our just national goals.
In conclusion, I salute and thank all of the Palestinian, Arab and international forces standing beside our just struggle.
Forward to victory!
Ahmad Sa’adat
April 24, 2012
Eighth day of hunger strike
TULKAREM, (PIC)– Mrs. Ikhlas al-Sweis, wife of isolated prisoner Abbas al-Sayyed, expressed great fears for her husband’s life because he joined the hunger strike while he is in very bad health specially after being beaten unconscious, a few weeks ago, by occupation soldiers in Jalbo’ prison causing him serious injuries.
Al-Sweis told the PIC correspondent: that Sayyed was still suffering from injuries sustained in three assaults on him by Israeli occupation soldiers during in the course of last month because he refused to give samples for DNA testing.
She stressed that Sayyed joined the hunger strike on 18 April, just one day after a mass hunger strike was declared by the prisoners, because he did not know that the strike started except when a lawyer visited him on 18 April, when he immediately declared his hunger strike.
She added that the prison administration punished him by confiscating electric equipment from his cell including his television and radio sets.
Abbas al-Sayyed is serving 36-life sentences plus 200 years accused of helping Abdel-Basit odeh to carry out an attack against occupation in 2002.
GAZA, (PIC)– Medical sources said on Saturday that the ex-detainee Assaad Fahmi Abu Salah, 50, was transferred to intensive care in Beit Hanoun hospital, north of the Gaza Strip, after his health deteriorated due to his open hunger strike in solidarity with his detained sons.
Abdullah Kandil, the spokesman of Waad association for free detainees, affirmed, in an exclusive statement to PIC, that Abu Salah was transferred yesterday evening to hospital after his health deteriorated because of his hunger strike in solidarity with his sons, his brother, and his brother’s son.
He pointed out that the ex-detainee, who had participated in many activities in solidarity with the Palestinian prisoners, has many health problems.
The PIC had met previously the ex-detainee Abu Salah in a solidarity activity last Thursday where he said “I have four of my relatives in the occupation prisons, and I will continue the hunger strike until their release”.
Abu Salah expressed deep concern about his relatives, saying that the prisoners’ families have no idea about their sons’ conditions.
He condemned the Arab and Muslim world’s passive position towards the prisoners’ issue, calling for more support for the prisoners’ just demands.
Prisoners of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in Mejiddo prison rejected an offer by Israeli prison officials to end the isolation of Ahmad Sa’adat on the condition that they end their hunger strike on Saturday, April 28, reported Fuad al-Khafsh of Ahrar Centre for Prisoners.
Israeli prison officials approached PFLP hunger strikers in Mejiddo, offering to end the isolation of Sa’adat, the General Secretary of the PFLP, who has been held in isolation cells for over three years. Sa’adat’s isolation was one of the main triggers of the September-October 2011 hunger strike among Palestinian prisoners that inspired the ongoing wave of hunger strikes. This open-ended hunger strike, which launched on April 17, Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, began with 1600 hunger strikers and has grown by hundreds daily, with a thousand more expected to join in the coming week. It includes prisoners from all Palestinian political parties and factions, and demands an end to isolation, end to administrative detention, and access to family visits, education and media.
In response to this offer, the PFLP prisoners refused to end the strike, saying that “the issue of isolated prisoners is a single case and cannot be divided. It is not for the end of isolation of Sa’adat only but for all prisoners.” Khafsh said to Safa agency that Israeli occupation officials have presented similar offers to prisoners fom different factions in an attempt to foment disunity among the prisoners, and has failed in such attempts.
Dylan Collins published the following profile of Thaer Halahleh in the Palestine Monitor, Saturday April 28, 2012:
Kharas, occupied West Bank—Two year old Lamar Halahleh has never met her father outside of a prison cell. In fact, she wasn’t able to lay eyes upon him until she was nearly half a year old.
Thaer Halahleh, Lamar’s father, has not only spent the last two years in the Israeli prison system, the 33 year-old has actually been detained for the majority of the past nine years due to Israel’s exploitive practice of administrative detention.
Photo by Dylan Collins
“The only way she [Lamar] knows her father is through pictures,” says Lamar’s mother and Thaer’s wife, Shireen. “She has hundreds of pictures of Thaer. When she goes to sleep at night, she tucks his picture into bed with her.”
Always held without charge or trial, Thaer’s only officially stated wrongdoing has been his affiliation to Islamic Jihad, a political party officially outlawed by Israel.
Thaer’s most recent arrest came on 26 June 2010 during a midnight raid on his home in the small village of Kharras, near Hebron in the occupied West Bank. Nearly 50 Israeli soldiers stormed the Halahleh’s home. Without knocking, the armed forces kicked down the door, made the women and children go outside in their bedclothes, and proceeded to search the house with two dogs for nearly an hour.
After a thorough search of the house, the troops then told the family they had an order to arrest Thaer. When asked why, the officer in charge responded that Thaer was a “threat to the public.”
Thaer had only just recently ended a year long stretch in administrative detention. He was home for all of about 14 days before being re-arrested and presented, yet again, with three- month administrative detention order.
Like all other administrative detainees, Thaer is being held on ‘secret evidence’ and has never been officially charged nor convicted of anything.
Cyclical and ambiguous arrests have plagued the lives of Thaer and his family. Every one of his four brothers, and even his father, has been held in administrative detention at some point. Thaer himself has been arrested 8 times and spent a collective six and half years total in administrative detention.
Thaer’s most recent administrative detention order has been renewed every three-months. The uncertainty of his detention’s length has been nerve racking to say the least. Thaer’s wife, Shireen, argues neither she nor Thaer, nor Thaer’s lawyer know whether the order will be renewed until the day it concludes. Shireen reveals that several times, Thaer has been directed to collect his belongings and prepare to go home only to be turned back at the gates of the prison with a renewed three-month detention order.
How to Fight Ambiguous Detentions
Thaer’s detention was most recently extended in January for a period of six-months. Left with little other options and encouraged by Sheikh Khader Adnan’s recent 66-day feat in protest of administrative detention, the exact same directive that has controlled Thaer’s life for the past nine years, he too entered into his own open-ended hunger strike on 28 February while in Al-Naqab prison.
Saturday 27 April 2012, Thaer entered into his 60th day with out food.
“He is determined,” said Thaer’s older brother Mohammed. “He will either be set free or become a martyr.”
When asked if they thought Thaer would be willing to accept an exile deal similar to the one Israel reached with hunger striker Hana Shalabi, through which she had been exiled to Gaza for the following three years, his family responded with a resounding no. “It was good for Hana,” says Thaer’s Uncle Wahib, “but Thaer would never agree to anything of the sort.”
On 28 March, Thaer was transferred to Israel’s Ramleh medical prison along with another hunger striking prisoner, Bilal Diab. According to Addameer, both men have been held in isolated cells in the general prison section. Despite numerous requests, Addameer lawyers have been denied access to Thaer and Bilal since their transfer.
Despite his rapidly deteriorating condition, Thaer Halaleh’s appeal against his administrative detention was rejected by an Israeli military judge at the Ofer military court on Monday 23 April.
Thaer’s wife Shireen has little faith in receiving justice from the Israeli military court system. “How can we have any faith in the court hearings. How can we believe that a just verdict will be reached when we are barred from even attending the trial, when the entire trial is conducted in Hebrew, and when the only people present are the Israeli judge, the Israeli translator, the Israeli prosecutor, and the mukhabarat [Israeli secret service]?”
Power in Numbers
Approximately 1,200 Palestinian prisoners from all political factions began a unified open-ended hunger strike on 17 April 2012 in commemoration of Palestinian Prisoners’ Day and in protest of Israel’s exploitive use of administrative detention as well as its poor treatment of Palestinian prisoners.
Since its beginning, the movement has only been getting stronger.
In an April 25th update published by Addameer the estimated total number of prisoners on hunger strike had risen to nearly 2,000, a number which has most certainly risen since and has plans to increase in the coming days.
In Hasharon prison, six female prisoners have announced they will enter into the open-ended hunger strike on 1 May 2012. An additional 120 prisoners in Ofer prison are expected to join the hunger strike on 29 April.
The movement—“The War of Empty Stomachs”—has been effectively launched. It is, perhaps, a last resort by Palestinian prisoners to finally obtain just and fair treatment.
Thaer Halahleh, having reached his 60th day without food along with his compatriot Bilal Diab, is at the movement’s forefront.
Their demands, as well as those of the other active “Empty Stomach Warriors,” are neither absurd nor inappropriate. They are simply demanding a fair judicial process and improved living conditions but are risking their lives in the process.
On the 64th anniversary of the occupation of Palestine, and as the Palestinian people enter the 64th year of dispossession and exile, the Vancouver Coalition to Commemorate Al-Nakba is organizing 2 events to commemorate the Nakba, stand against the continuing Nakba, and call for the right of return for Palestinian refugees and freedom for Palestine. 64 years after the Nakba – the war of 1948 in which over 800,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes and land and the state of Israel created on that land – Palestinians continue to struggle for their right to return, for freedom from occupation, for justice, and against the Nakba that continues today.
