On Tuesday night we heard Ziad, a man in his early 30s speak about his experiences being imprisoned and tortured by the Israelis. His first arrest was in 1995 when he was a student activist at Bethlehem University. As he said, “I was opposed to the occupation and I expressed my feelings against the occupation in peaceful demonstrations”.
He was taken in for “interrogation”, which meant “torture”. “They would try to get you to confess to something”, he explained. “They had various methods, the same as in Guantanamo. Strapping you to a small chair for hours. Tightly handcuffing your hands and then jumping on them. Clamping you into a bent over position that felt like it would break your back. Keeping you awake for days on end with no sleep and one song of hard rock playing over and over again in your ear. They take pleasure in torturing you.”
Torture is used to break your spirit he said and to get people to say anything to get it to stop. They also torture young kids, 11 – 14 who break down easier. Palestinians can be “tried” and “sentenced” as adults at 14; Jewish Israelis are considered adults at 18.
Ziad was held under what is called “administrative detention”, no charges and no specified time limit, although typically a person is held between 3 – 6 months and then the time is renewed. He described going to court with his lawyer, sitting silently watching the military judge and military lawyer talk back and forth, then deciding between themselves what would happen to him. All evidence is secret.
After about 3 months they released him. Ziad continued his activism and was arrested again in 1996, this time he was tortured for two months day and night. Once they did not let him sleep for a week. It was the worst experience of his life. They wanted him to confess to being a terrorist, he was not a terrorist and he refused to say he was. A year later he was arrested again and held for 8 days.
In 2000 after finishing his studies, he went to work for the human rights organization, Al Haq, taking the testimonies and reporting on human rights abuses in the West Bank and Gaza. In 2005 he was “arrested again” and tortured again. This time he was in prison for 2 years. Al Haq initiated a campaign to get him out.
He described going to the Israeli high court and the judge saying he was very dangerous, they could not let him out. A month later he went to the high court again and they released him. “How can I be the very dangerous and then suddenly free to go?” he said. “Their charges are so clearly false.”
He talked about getting out of prison after two years and spending a year to get his daughter to accept him. It was very hard for him, very hard to describe. At times while speaking, he seemed on the verge of tears. He said he is deeply angry – who would not be?
The Israeli system is bad, he said, right now it is very hard on the Palestinians, but eventually it will also destroy Israeli society. They are experts at torture; they have physical and psychological techniques.
There are between nine and eleven thousand Palestinian political prisoners. Their “crime” is resisting the occupation. Under international law, they have committed no crime as the Geneva protocols state that occupied people have a right to resist, including through armed struggle.
The Israeli army arrested 300 people in the West Bank last week. That is 300 more people who will be tortured.
He noted that a group of doctors for human rights had said, the problem with international law and human rights is that one cannot stop genocide or major human rights violations with a group of doctors. It has to involve governments.
Life in the Occupied West Bank and Gaza:
Eleven shot, one in critical condition after settler rampage in Saffa
8 April 2009
Saffa, a village sandwiched between Sourif and Beit Ommar and home to just over 2000 residents, has been the site of overwhelming Israeli military and now settler violence in the last week. Using the death of a teenaged settler on April 2 as a precursor (there has been no evidence that he was killed by someone from Saffa or the nearby villages) the Israeli military has been invading Saffa, declaring curfews, searching homes and otherwise harassing the residents of the entire village in acts of blatant collective punishment for several days. Roadblocks were erected in several different places on April 3 and three homes were taken over by Israeli soldiers, allegedly to ‘protect’ the Palestinian residents from anticipated violence from right-wing extremist settlers from nearby Beit ‘Ayn.
More: http://palsolidarity.org/2009/04/6077
Israel created ‘terror without mercy’ in Gaza
Rory McCarthy | The Guardian
7 April 2009
The Israeli military attacked civilians and medics and delayed - sometimes for hours - the evacuation of the injured during the January war in Gaza, according to an independent fact-finding mission commissioned by Israeli and Palestinian medical human rights groups.
Physicians for Human Rights-Israel and the Palestinian Medical Relief Society yesterday said their findings showed Israel’s military committed serious violations of international humanitarian law. In their 92-page report, compiled by five senior health experts from across the world, they documented several specific attacks, with interviews from 44 separate witnesses.
More: http://palsolidarity.org/2009/04/6008
900 dunums of Palestinian land confiscated in Qaryut village
7 April 2009
Israeli forces have started the construction of three new [illegal] roads around the village of Qaryut, located in the Nablus district of the northern West Bank. Qaryut is already surrounded on three sides by illegal Israeli settlements, and the new roads are being built to connect these settlements together and to nearby road 60. Road 60 has been closed to Palestinians since 2000, but has remained open to settlers and the army. The closure of this road has prevented access by farmers to a large amount of agricultural land which, according to Qaryut’s mayor, is now being used by Israeli settlers. Israeli authorities have recently confiscated an additional 900 dunums [225 acres] of agricultural land to build the three new roads. This land belongs to around 150 Palestinian families in Qaryut.
More: http://palsolidarity.org/2009/04/6006
A harsh reality for Palestinians
Ahmad Tibi | The New York Times
6 April 2009
JERUSALEM — The right-wing coalition of the new Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, does not bode well for Palestinians in Israel. With the appointment of Avigdor Lieberman as foreign minister, the extremists are going after the indigenous population and threatening us with loyalty tests and the possibility of “transfer” into an area nominally controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
Netanyahu’s intransigence vis-à-vis Palestinians in the occupied territories is certainly cause for concern. No less concerning is what the Netanyahu-Lieberman combination may mean to Palestinian citizens of Israel.
More: http://palsolidarity.org/2009/04/6004
Al-Fakhouri home demolished in East Jerusalem
6 April 2009
On the morning of 6 April, about 150 Israeli soldiers, police & border police came and woke up the 22 members of the Al-Fakhouri family in the Burj Al-Laqlaq neighborhood. The Israeli forces blocked all the entrance roads to the house and occupied three rooftops threatening to arrest anyone who got near the house being demolished.
Around 30 workers destroyed the house in a process taking about 5 hours. The workers left concrete rubble and other debris in the surrounding street. The family was told that for everyday the rubble was left in the streets, the family would be charged 600 shekels on top of paying for the demolition itself.
More: http://palsolidarity.org/2009/04/6044
Lost in the Buffer Zone
Eva Bartlett | Inter Press Service
6 April 2009
KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza - “They’re always shooting at us. Every day they shoot at us,” says Alaa Samour (19), pulling aside his shirt to show a scar on his shoulder. Samour said he was shot on Dec. 28 last year by Israeli soldiers positioned along the border fence near New Abassan village, east of Khan Younis in the south of the Gaza Strip.
More: http://palsolidarity.org/2009/04/5891
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