PALESTINIAN prisoners have been hitting the headlines around the world with the escalating wave of hunger strikes for the release of high-profile prisoners in Israeli jails being held in ‘administrative detention’.
Bilal Kayed and the al-Balboul brothers, Mohammed and Mahmoud, are refusing food to fight for their freedom, putting their health – and their lives – at risk. Last week they were joined by a huge wave of solidarity hunger strikers in Israel’s jails, with 285 prisoners affiliated with the Islamic resistance movement Hamas going on hunger strike against their treatment by the Israeli Prison Service, and another 40 from the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine striking for the release of their comrade Bilal Kayed.
Kayed was in prison for fourteen-and-a-half years before his planned released was indefinitely delayed in June when he was kept in jail under the administrative detention rule – imprisonment without charge or trial. There has also been a massive outpouring of support from Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, who have set up protest camps demanding the immediate release of the prisoners.
‘My sons were against their sentences because Israel didn’t tell them why they were being imprisoned,’ said Sanaa al-Balboul from the camp in Bethlehem of her jailed sons. ‘So they decided to choose death over Israel’s prisons.’
‘My brothers didn’t do anything wrong. When I was in prison, I thought I would come home and hug them,’ said the sister of the prisoners, 14-year-old Nuran. It was her imprisonment earlier this year (she was released last month) for allegedly carrying a knife, which led Israel to bring her brothers in without making charges against them. ‘But Israel doesn’t want to give us freedom. Even though they released me, I can never be free until my brothers are,’ Nuran added.
The Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate has also started a campaign calling for the release of Omar Nazzal, an imprisoned journalist who started his own hunger strike last week. But even though Israel cannot control this huge, revolutionary movement in support of prisoners, either inside the prison walls or outside, the Knesset (Israel’s parliament) is passing further laws to imprison Palestinians – to be precise, Palestinian children beneath the age of 14.
The ‘Youth Bill’, as this infamous law is known, was passed last week, and allows for young Palestinians who are accused of involvement in ‘acts of terror’ to be held in a youth facility until the age of 14, and then transferred to prison. Prison sentences could also be imposed on children under 14 if they are convicted of murder, attempted murder or manslaughter, states the bill.
The bill was sponsored through the Knesset by Anat Berko of Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party. The bill is targeted at Palestinian children in East Jerusalem, where youth are in the front of an uprising which has been raging since last October against the Israeli occupation of Palestine and its capital city. Palestinian members of the Knesset criticised the bill, saying it is an attempt to take one section of the Youth Law, which deals with minors in the context of criminal law, and restrict it to ‘terror’.
They pointed out the lack of equal conduct between Palestinian youth and Israelis.
For example, Palestinian youth can be jailed under Israeli military law for up to 20 years for throwing stones, and Israeli settlers illegally resident in the West Bank can commit acts of violence against Palestinian people or property with defacto impunity, as the Israeli police rarely bring charges against settlers.
Palestinian children from the West Bank are subject to Israeli military law, which already allows the imprisonment of children as young as 12 years of age. This makes Israel the sole country in the world where children are systematically tried in military courts and subject to torture, inhumane treatment and punishment, according to a report by UNICEF.
Palestinian children are often arrested at night, blindfolded and transported to Israeli prisons outside of the West Bank. In 97 per cent of the cases, children have no access to a lawyer during the interrogation and their parents are prevented from being present, according to a report by Defence for Children International – Palestine.
Eighty six per cent of the children endure some form of physical violence following their arrest, including beating, kicking and violent shaking. At the end of the interrogation, the children are forced to sign ‘confessions’ in Hebrew, a language that most of them do not speak. The Palestine Legislative Council (PLC) on Thursday condemned the Israeli Knesset for passing bills that enforce racism, violate human rights and legalise crimes against the Palestinian people.
In a press release issued after the Knesset passed the bill, the PLC said the Knesset insists on discussing and approving bills that violate human rights. Describing the law as a violation of children’s rights, the PLC said choosing to remain silent in the face of such racism can only mean acceptance.
The PLC demanded the international parliamentary and other related bodies to reject such laws and impose harsh punishment on the Knesset, considering the grave violations it seems to approve. Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah released a statement last Friday denouncing the new law.
‘The new law shows a total disregard for children’s rights, when the children in question are Palestinians,’ said Hamdallah. ‘We need more laws to protect Palestinian children, not laws to criminalise minors.’ Israel’s treatment of Palestinian children is a violation of Article 37 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which states that no child shall be subjected to torture or cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment,’ said Jamal Dajani, Director of Strategic Communications and Media at the Prime Minister’s Office.
‘No child in the world – neither Palestinian nor Israeli – should be subject to violent interrogations, solitary confinement and death threats,’ Dajani added. Meanwhile, several dozen Palestinian women, including twelve minors, are currently being held in Israel’s HaSharon prison, according to a statement released on Thursday by the Palestinian Committee of Prisoners’ Affairs.
The committee said in the statement that 41 Palestinian women and girls are being held in the prison, with some suffering from deteriorating health conditions. According to prisoners’ rights group Addameer, some 10,000 Palestinian women and girls have been detained by Israeli forces over the past 45 years. In 2015 alone, Israeli forces detained 106 Palestinian women and girls, which according to the group represented a 70 per cent increase compared to detention numbers in 2013.
The group has also reported on the treatment of Palestinian women prisoners by Israeli prison authorities, stating that the majority of Palestinian women detainees were subject to ‘psychological torture’ and ‘ill-treatment’ by Israeli authorities, including ‘various forms of sexual violence that occur such as beatings, insults, threats, body searches, and sexually explicit harassment’.
‘These techniques of torture and ill-treatment are used not only as means to intimidate Palestinian women detainees but also as tools to humiliate Palestinian women and coerce them into giving confessions,’ the group stated.
It added that ‘while Israel’s prison authorities and military forces recruit women soldiers to detain, and accompany women prisoners during transfers, the female soldiers responsible for these procedures are no less violent towards Palestinian detainees than their male counterparts.’
