Linah Alsaafin published the following profile of hunger striker Bilal Diab, who has been on hunger strike for 60 days, in Al-Akhbar English on Friday, April 27, 2012. Addameer has also released a profile of Diab: http://www.addameer.org/etemplate.php?id=462
Even as a young boy, Bilal Thiab despised authoritative oppression. He refused to listen to adults telling him off for innocent mistakes and later that personality trait solidified into one that openly challenged the men in uniform trampling on people’s freedom.
Thiab was just 18 years old and a high school senior when he was first arrested by the Israeli occupying army in October 2003 from his village of Kufr Rai. He was sentenced to prison for seven and a half years for what Israel called his “political activism in the Islamic Jihad group.”
When he was arrested, he defied the Israeli soldiers’ commands to look at the ground instead of at their faces, and when he refused they threatened to shoot him. Thiab was unshaken, and replied scathingly that either way, death is inevitable. These comments caused a significant amount of distress for his mother who was listening in on the exchange from the other room, confined there by the soldiers.
After his release in February 2010, life was never the same for Thiab. He was arrested for short periods of time and was repeatedly summoned by the Israeli intelligence for interrogations, which usually lasted for days. One interrogation in May lasted for seven days. Thiab was also arrested by the Palestinian Authority for 28 days, a subject his mother, 65-year-old Umm Hisham is not keen to discuss.
“There is no point in talking about this now,” she murmured, turning away with one hand on her face. “We need all the support we can get, from President Mahmoud Abbas and [Prime Minister] Salam Fayyad.” She looked up with a worn out smile. “He went on hunger strike for 14 days after the PA arrested him.”
Adjusting to “freedom” after prison was a hardship in itself, especially since Thiab found himself being constantly called for interrogations by Israel and intermittently, by the PA.
“He wanted to live his life the way he imagined, but couldn’t because the occupation stole any meaning of life from him,” Umm Hisham said. “He has such a strong respectable character, but he was denied leading a life any young man of his age should be able to, such as starting a family, going to wedding parties outside the village, and visiting other towns and cities.”
Thiab’s restricted freedom of movement was illustrated emphatically in January 2011, after he tried to go to Jenin to visit his sister-in-law after she had given birth to twin boys. A flying checkpoint was waiting for him just outside Kufr Rai, and he was subsequently strip-searched and detained for several hours before being sent home again. “He left prison for a bigger prison,” Umm Hisham underlined.
After apprenticing as a barber, Thiab opened a barbershop in his village. Barely 12 days later, he was taken away by Israeli forces yet again for interrogation, during which they goaded him and made fun of his profession. When he returned home, he never went back to his barbershop again.
On 17 August 2011, Thiab was hanging out with four of his neighbors on his brother’s roof. It was in the middle of the month of Ramadan, and the villagers have a habit of staying up late during the holy month. At 1am, sound bombs suddenly went off around the house, and the courtyard was rapidly swarming with a special unit of Israeli soldiers, all dressed in civilian clothes. Another group of soldiers, this time easily distinguishable from their uniforms, made their way up to the roof and detained all of the five young men. The soldiers then rounded up all the women and children into one room. Isam, one of Thiab’s brothers, was handcuffed in a different room, and the soldiers kept stomping on his body. The soldiers released the four men who were with Thiab, but handcuffed and blindfolded him and proceeded to drag Thiab on his knees to where the army jeep was standing, about 200m away.
Thiab went on 14 days of hunger strike in solidarity with Khader Adnan, and later for another 12 days in solidarity with Hana Shalabi. When the Israeli Prison Service (IPS) renewed his detention for another six months at the end of February 2012, Thiab immediately began his hunger strike with his friend and fellow inmate Thaer Halahleh. They were separated and placed in different cells, and when it became clear they were not going to end their hunger strike the IPS moved them both to solitary confinement. On March 28, Thiab and Halahleh were hospitalized, and are currently in the Ramle prison hospital.
Jamil Khatib, the lawyer for Thiab and Halahleh and other hunger strikers who have also been hospitalized, last visited them on Wednesday, April 25.
“On the 59th day of his hunger strike, Bilal’s health is at a very dangerous level,” Khatib stressed. “He has lost 25kg, has difficulty speaking, a low blood sugar level, and constant pain in his stomach. His hair is falling out, and suffers from frequent dizziness in addition to falling unconscious at times. He is very weak, and can’t move on his own.”
On Monday, April 23, the Israeli military court rejected Khatib’s appeal to release both Thiab and Halahleh. The next day, Khatib appealed to the High Israeli court in Jerusalem and demanded two things: to process the appeal as soon as possible, and to transfer Thiab and Halahleh to court in ambulances, not military jeeps.
Khatib says that a deal to exile both prisoners in return for an end to their hunger strike wasn’t officially presented to him by the Israeli intelligence, since he has made it clear to them that he will not negotiate on this condition. Furthermore, Thiab and Halahleh have made it clear that they refuse to be exiled anywhere outside their own villages.
“I expect them to continue with their hunger strike, on the path that Khader Adnan spearheaded,” Khatib said. “They are determined to hunger strike until freedom or martyrdom. This is their latest message to us. They also ask for more positive support and for a clear strategy from media and organizations in covering their case.”
Azzam, another of Thiab’s brothers, is on his 30th day of hunger strike in solidarity with his brother, regardless of the fact that he is carrying out a life sentence since 2001.
“Bilal is the youngest of my 13 children,” Umm Hisham said. “His father died when he was 8 months old, so he was always spoiled by his brothers and sisters. I ask everyone, anyone whose human rights means something to them, to help us, to release Bilal, to free Bilal.”
Abuse and torture of women in Israeli occupation prisons
Russia Today ran an important story on April 27, 2012, detailing Palestinian prisoners’ experience with torture, oppression, and humiliation in Israeli occupation prisons, looking at the causes of the hunger strike.
The RT article details women’s experiences, particularly women’s experience with abuse, torture and poor health care during pregnancy and childbirth. This reflects a paradigmatic example of the deep impacts of mass imprisonment on Palestinian health. Sami Kishawi takes up these themes, and in particular the gendered structures of oppression used against Palestinian women in detention and occupation prisons, in an important article at Sixteen Minutes to Palestine.
Surviving Israeli jail: Torture, humiliation and giving birth by Nadezhda Kevorkova
Thousands of Palestinians are on hunger strike in Israeli prisons – for over a week, they have been protesting against indefinite detention without charge and alleged ill-treatment. Some of those who got out, told RT about their life behind bars.
Human rights groups in the West Bank say 2,000 Palestinians have been on hunger strike for more than a week, and others are ready to join next week. At the moment there are an estimated 5,000 Palestinians in Israeli jails. Each year, 700-800 minors are arrested, and in all, 20 per cent of Palestinians have experienced Israeli prison.
Yahya as-Sinwar was arrested in 1988 and sentenced to 462 years in prison. He served 23 years and is now 50. He is one of the founders of Hamas and the Islamic University of Gaza.
Israel accused him of organizing and leading Hamas internal security unit MAJD and killing Palestinian traitors who spied for Israel. As-Sinwar says that they had no choice, because these people put the resistance movement in jeopardy.
Speaking about his years spent in an Israeli jail, as-Sinwar says different kinds of torture were routine practice.
“They kept me awake for 10 days in a row. Whenever I dozed off, they would pour ice-cold or boiling water on me – depending on their personal preferences. They would tie my arms behind my back, throw me on the floor, a prison guard would sit on my stomach or chest, apply pressure to the groin – the pain was excruciating,” Yahya as-Sinwar recollects.
According to as-Sinwar, the Shabak [Israeli General Security Service] handles torture during the investigation, and the Shabas [Israeli Prison Service] tortures sentenced prisoners. “They have two departments – Nahshon and Metzada – which are responsible for the total psychological destruction of a person. These methods are not used anywhere else in the world.”
He says Israeli prison guards could tie a prisoner to a child’s chair and make him balance on it for days; put a person in an ice box (after this the person’s limbs are usually amputated).
“They have this form of torture when they tie a prisoner’s hands and leave him hanging for 24 hours. Or they suffocate the prisoner, watch him turn blue, let him breathe for a bit, and then repeat this several times,” as-Sinwar told RT. “When they tortured my close friend, they beat him on the back of the head with tightly rolled newspapers. A person has terrible headaches afterwards, becomes hysterical, all the internal organs get damaged.”
According to as-Sinwar, these kinds of torture leave no marks and even a very keen doctor would find it very difficult to discover any signs of abuse.
“They study the prisoners and come up with something especially humiliating for this particular convict. For a Palestinian it is easier to die than suffer humiliation – they know it very well and humiliate our people in a very cruel way.”
As-Sinwar says the prisoners could not get proper medical treatment in custody: “After long hours of waiting in pain, all you get is not a doctor but a nurse without any experience who gives you one cure for all conditions – a painkiller. They don’t care if a prisoner lives or suffers terrible pain.”
As-Sinwar believes hunger strikes are the only way for Palestinian prisoners to express their protest.
“Prisoners in Israel get 10 per cent of the amount of food served in the prisons of other countries. After many days of hunger strikes convicts look like the walking dead. Prison guards have to carry them to interrogation sessions on stretchers, and throw them on the stone floor in their prison cells.”
Cells space of 1.2 by 0.8 m
All the fences in the neighborhood around Ayman Hatem Afif al-Shakhshir’s house in Gaza are covered with citizens’ wishes of health and well-being to him. He spent 19 years in an Israeli prison out of the 550-year term he was sentenced to, and was released in exchange for Corporal Shalit. Ayman Hatem Afif al-Shakhshir stems from a well-known Palestinian family. He was arrested at the age of 28. His three daughters grew up, and two of them got married and had children without him around.
Ayman was the head of one of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas. He was arrested on charges of taking part in assaults on Israeli military personnel deployed in Gaza.
“None of the detainees had a single visitor for five years since 2006. My father died without seeing me once in the last 10 years of his life. It was only through the Red Cross that I occasionally received letters – it was the only way to keep in touch with the family, while my children were growing up without me,” says Ayman.
He says his cell was not fit to hold people.
“It was a tiny cell measuring 1.2 by 0.8 m where one person could not lie down, or stand up or stretch his legs, it had no furniture, and food was given once a day, and it’s so bad you couldn’t eat it. I know three prisoners who spent 25 years each in such cells.”
“Israeli propaganda is advertising their prisons to the world as if they were five-star hotels – but this is all lies. And what they say about prisoners having the opportunity to complete their education in Israeli schools is also a lie.”
Ayman himself got his Bachelor’s degree in Social Defense through the remote education program from Gaza University. “Now prisoners are denied any education opportunities whatsoever. A whole system to break the prisoners’ will is in place, they get denied everything a person needs to feel connected with the outside world,” he says.
Ayman is convinced that meaningless imprisonment terms of many times a lifetime are given with the sole purpose of breaking the prisoner’s will.
“They want a person to sit in this stone well and know that this is where he is to die. But they are hugely mistaken. Each Palestinian has a hope for help from God, and there is no taking this away.”
Yahya as-Sinwar with his wife (Photo: Nadezhda Kevorkova, RT)
Giving birth with hands and feet tied
Samar Isbeh was arrested when she was 22 following a student protest. She was sentenced to 2.5-year term in prison. She is now 28, and lives in Gaza, while her own and her husband’s families live in the West Bank.
“I was arrested three months after my wedding. I was the head of the student council at the Islamic University. We organized a protest against occupation. I was arrested in my husband’s home in Tulkarm. Two days later my husband was arrested too and sentenced to 9 months in prison, although they had nothing to charge him with whatsoever,”says Samar.
Samar Isbeh (Photo: Nadezhda Kevorkova, RT)
She has now been deported to the Gaza Strip and is denied entry to Tulkarm, so she can see neither her husband nor her children.
“I was in my fist weeks of pregnancy when I got arrested. I went through every kind of torture. They tortured me in an underground cell for 66 days. They made me balance on a children’s chair, they kept me in a freezing cold disciplinary cell,” says Samar.
“My hands and feet were tied when I was going through labor. They C-sectioned me, not because I required it but simply out of hatred. They let me have the child but treated him as a prisoner, too. They gave us no milk or diapers, or only expired ones. I was kept in terrible conditions during and after I gave birth. I wasn’t allowed to go out for fresh air. The only medicine they ever gave me and my child for any condition was Paracetamol.”
Pregnant on Hunger Strike
Patima Zakka is 42. She was released from an Israeli prison in exchange for a video tape featuring Gilad Shalit during his captivity. The video was passed by Shalit’s captors just before Patima was due to stand trial, and she was released one day short of the hearing. That is why she never received a sentence.
Patima Zakka with her son (Photo: Nadezhda Kevorkova, RT)
Patima had been charged with conspiring to suicide-bomb a bus full of Israeli military personnel. The prosecution had demanded a 12-year prison sentence for the mother of eight.
“I did not know I was pregnant before I got arrested,” says Patima. “A nurse found that out while I was in detention. My eight children were left without me at home. No one had instructed me to blow up anybody. It is true that they [Israelis] had killed my brother and a number of relatives – but that is the case with most people in Palestine.”
Patima says she was put through the full sequence of interrogation techniques.
“They tortured me while I was pregnant,” she says. “They kept me in an ice-cold cell, relocating me from one cell to another time and again. They wanted me to have a miscarriage. This mistreatment got me to the point of bleeding.”
This prompted Patima to go on hunger strike. She lasted 21 days.
“They did not leave me a choice,” she explains. “Allah be praised, I did not have a miscarriage. My son was born in jail. His name is Yusef.”
“The obstetrician yelled at me and treated me like I was an animal,” says Patima. “She refused to put me on an IV, and she denied me anesthesia. She was calling down terrible curses upon me. But you know, a punishment ensued for her right away: she hit her head real bad right in my cell. Allah helped me. She told me, “You are a terrorist, and your child will be a terrorist.” But I delivered my beautiful Yusef. And the real terrorists are those medics in Israeli prisons.”
Nadezhda Kevorkova, RT