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Kristen Ess Reporting From Palestine

by Flashpoints
Kristen Ess is an independent journalist working for the Palestine News Network (http://www.palestinenet.org) which offers up to the minute reporting from Gaza and the West Bank. This and other audio files will be posted at http://www.radio4all.net
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These and past stories can be read in the PNN archives: http://www.palestinenet.org/english/Archive/Main%20Archive.html

ISRAELI SETTLEMENTS NOT ONLY ILLEGAL, BUT OUTPOSTS OF TORTURE
Palestine News Network
7 November 2003

As the frequency of IOF abductions of Palestinians grows at a truly alarming rate, the Palestinian Prisoners Society has come out with its latest report. Israeli settlements, all of which are illegal under international law, are also hosting interrogation centers, or torture chambers.

Teenagers Beaten and Threatened with Electric Cables in Ma’ale Adumin Settlement

Two teenaged Palestinian political prisoners, 15 year-old Ala Ibrahim Khalil Zain, and 15 year-old Yousef Khalil Mtear from Al Azaria in Jerusalem are being tortured. They both spoke with Mohammad Al Shedfan, a lawyer from the Palestinian Prisoners Society who was able to meet with them in Israeli Atzion Prison.

Israeli soldiers took them handcuffed and blindfolded after breaking into their homes and smashing many of the contents on 16 October 2003. They were severely beaten and not allowed to go to the bathroom. In the interrogation center in the Ma’ale Adumin Settlement, Israeli interrogators went at the teenagers with electric cables and threatened they would be electrocuted if they did not admit to accusations against them. Terrified, they said whatever the Israelis wanted them to.


After Severe Beating in Atnael Settlement Man Given Candy

The 21 year-old Palestinian political prisoner, Ahmed Salami Mohammad Raba’i, from Hebron is being tortured. Fahami Al Ouyai, a lawyer from the Palestinian Prisoners Society met with Raba’i in Al Meskobia Prison. Raba’i reported being beaten severely with the back of guns, sticks, fists, and being kicked on all parts of his body in Atnael Settlement. IOF took him from his home handcuffed and blindfolded and immediately began beating him. The lawyer said the signs of brutality appeared clearly on his body.

Raba’i also says that after he was transferred to Al Meskobia Prison, he was held in the same position for hours at a time without being able to move, for four days in a row. IOF forbid the young man to sleep, but sometimes he fell asleep in the interrogation chair handcuffed and shackled. Afterwards Israeli soldiers forced him to stand in the same stretched position for 15 to 18 hours per day, for 12 days in a row. Raba’i also told the lawyer that prison guards put him in isolation for 18 days and after suffering from severe kidney problems, he was finally transferred to see an Israeli doctor who handed him three pieces of candy and said, “This is your treatment.”

Israeli Prison Guards Walk on Palestinian Political Prisoners in Spiked Boots

Twenty-three year old Palestinian political prisoner Ashraf Hassan from Nablus is being tortured. Hossam Younis, a lawyer from the Palestinian Prisoners Society, met with him in Beiteh Tikva Prison. Hassan told the lawyer that the soldiers who arrested him 22 September 2003 beat him in critical places on his body. He said they threw him on the ground and started to walk over his body with their spiked boots and beat his head against the wall many times.

Upon requesting treatment for some of the injured prisoners, Hassan reported to the lawyer, the soldiers tied him to a pole and began beating him.

Israeli High Court Approves Torture

Palestinian political prisoner, 28 year-old Iad Wadia Tofiq Abu Zahara from Nablus is being tortured. Palestinian Prisoners Society lawyer Hossam Younis met with him in the Beita Tikva interrogation center. Zahara told him the IOF began interrogating him on the ground immediately after they took him from his home, blindfolded and handcuffed, on 15 September 2003. Israeli soldiers beat him and hit his head against the Israeli military jeep. Israeli soldiers also beat Zahara with a stick in front of his family and threatened them that if he did not confess they would return and blow up the family’s home. The prisoner Zahara has clearly outlined his treatment to the lawyer after IOF transferred him to Beita Tikva.

1) In the first days the interrogators beat his face, stomach and back many times even though he told the interrogators he had had heart surgery, and that half of his left lung was removed, and he was still experiencing pain in his chest and the beating and pressure could cause him to die.


2) They made him sit on a low chair without a back and commanded him to bend backwards. While he was doing this one of the interrogators put his hand on the chair between his legs and pushed down so that he felt his back would break.

3) The interrogators pressed on his handcuffs into his hands until he felt all the blood stayed in his hand and fingers.

4) Soldiers ordered him to sit on his fingertips for more than one hour.

5) The interrogators used racial slurs against him and threatened to demolish his house and arrest his family, especially his mother. They threatened to break his back, which they said would paralyze him.


6) He complained to the Israeli court about what has been happening to him, about how they are torturing him. When he returned to the interrogation center prison, the interrogators threaten him that if he insists on continuing with his complaint in the court another time they will torture him even more. They also told him they have permission from the high court, 'to press on him as hard as they want.' He withdrew the complaint to escape the torture, and, he said, to win a few hours sleep.


He later requested to be interrogated again so that he could have the chance to try to withstand the torture in order to only tell the truth, but he was denied.

Sick Prisoner Resorts to Hunger Strike in Order to Get Treatment

Bilal Salam Ajarma from Ramallah told the Prisoner Society Lawyer Maknun Al Hashin in Meskobia Prison that he has stopped eating for three days because his health situation is so bad. IOF have held him in Al Meskobia prison for 75 days. IOF transferred him to Hadasa Hospital in Jerusalem with heart, head and stomach pain on 2 November 2003. The doctor recommended an x-ray but they did not do so, and Israeli prison officials transferred him back to the prison without a checkup or any treatment.


IOF SNATCHES AIDA CAMP RESIDENTS FROM THEIR BEDS
Kristen Ess for PNN
9 November 2003

At 2:30 in the morning, Israeli Occupation Forces snuck into the home of Shadi Mohammad Al Barmil in Bethlehem’s Aida Refugee Camp. His neighbor says, “They came without a sound, not a sound from them at all to Shadi's house. They knew the door to the house was unlocked. They knew exactly where he was sleeping. They knew everything, everything.” Al Barmil is in his mid-20s.

His mother is sitting on the couch crying. She says, "He was in his underwear. Just his underwear." She looks straight ahead and says, "I want to know where they took him."

It is common for parents to not know the whereabouts of their children after Israeli soldiers take them. A Palestinian policeman says, "Usually after three days the Israelis let them call their house to say which prison they're going to." Before the prison, for the unknown three days, Palestinians are often taken to interrogation centers.

At the same time IOF were sneaking into Al Barmil's home, another group of Israeli soldiers blew up the door of Samiir Al Amir’s parent’s house. They smashed through their home and grabbed Al Amir. He is in his early 20s, and is a volunteer working with the children of the Aida Refugee Camp. He is adept at the traditional Palestinian dance, Dabka.

Hours later, his cement block house is empty. A window frame is pulled out. Shards of glass stick out from the broken pains of the other window.

IOF invaded the town of Doha, next to Bethlehem. They took Amar Ferargi and his brothers. A Bethlehem resident reports, “They took all of the boys from the house.”

Of the ten people taken, IOF released seven. They were all family members of Ferargi and Al Amir. Al Barmil, Ferargi, and Al Amir remain in unknown locations.

A Palestinian security source says, “The Israelis called the [Palestinian] Authority [in Bethlehem] and said, ‘we’re coming in to get some people, so watch out for us.’”

Several explosions were heard throughout the sleeping Bethlehem area between 2:30 and 3:30 in the morning.

RECENT AUDIO:
KPFA Radio November 10th, 5th, 4th:
Recent interviews regarding Palestine at http://www.flashpoints.net/

CKUT Radio November 10:
Struggle Against the Deportation of Palestinians in Montreal
http://www.radio4all.net/proginfo.php?id=8078

TUC Radio October 23:
Amira Haas: Suicide Bombers and their Families http://www.radio4all.net/proginfo.php?id=8048


RECENT WEB ARTICLES

Hanadi Loubani and Jennifer Plyler, November 10: Occupation, Patriarchy, and the Palestinian Women’s Movement
“The irony is that the international NGO industry (that is dominated by the West) is also dominated by a liberal paradigm, which cannot include national liberation priorities in its rationale. So in helping to build the foundations for a state, NGOs have done so from a strictly humanitarian focus, without recognizing that the Palestinian people are an occupied people, and that the lack of state infrastructure is in fact a direct result of foreign occupation. Thus, NGO initiatives have sought to address the symptoms, not the cause.”
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=12&ItemID=4482

Kelly, November 4: Medical Workers Attacked in Nablus
“Jeeps and hummers stationed at the entrances to the camps shot rubber bullets, tear gas and live ammunition at groups of children in the streets. A mosque filled with men, women and children at prayer was gassed with a particularly strong version of tear gas, causing many people to require hospitalization.”
http://www.palsolidarity.org/reports/writings/4Nov03_03_28_57NablusKelly.htm

Gabriel Ash, October 31: The 1.5 State Solution
“Just as the world learned about the secret Geneva Accord, supposedly a groundbreaking blueprint for a comprehensive peace between Israel and a future Palestinian state, the parents of two Palestinian children in Rafah learned of their children's death at the hands of brave Israeli pilots. Hence, the accord, even before anyone read it, had already helped the Israeli "peace camp" fulfill its traditional diplomatic role, deflecting international attention from the horrible things Israel does, to the pious chants that accompany expressions of Israeli hopes for peace.”
http://www.yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid=1645&mode=thread&order=0

THE APARTHIED WALL

PENGON Photo and Map Gallery
New Stage of Separation Barrier: This Stage will Trap 102,000 Palestinians in Enclaves
http://www.btselem.org/English/Separation_Barrier/Update.asp

http://www.pengon.org/wall/photos1.html

Global Solidarity for Nov 9th Strengthens the Call to Stop the Wall!
PENGON/Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign, November 10th, 2003 http://www.stopthewall.org/

Michael F. Brown, November 10: Correcting CNN's measurement of Israel's Apartheid Wall
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article2157.shtml


Other Resources:

Recent reportbacks, daily news and diaries from Palestine:
http://www.palestinenet.org/english/
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/diaries.shtml
http://www.jewsagainsttheoccupation.org
http://www.palsolidarity.org/reports/journals_reports_main.php


Weekly report on Israeli human rights violations in Palestine:
http://www.pchrgaza.org/

Torture and illegal detention of Palestinian political prisoners:
http://www.ppsmo.org/e-website/

Remembering Edward Said - EI Article and links
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article1974.shtml

The Meaning of Rachel Corrie - Of Dignity and Solidarity, Edward Said
http://www.palestinemonitor.org/Activism/The_Meaning_of_Rachel_Corrie.htm

Hic Road Map. Quo Vadis?, Gabriel Ash
http://www.yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid=1427&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

Under Cover of Righteousness, Shulamit Aloni
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=22&ItemID=3202

Threats of Forced Mass Expulsion, Amira Hass
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=22&ItemID=3077

Five-part series advocating ethnic cleansing in the name of a homogenous religious state with the usual, lies, distortions, euphemisms. 'Transfer' of Palestinians has become a common topic in Israeli political and academic discourse.
http://www.gamla.org.il/english/article/2002/july/b1.htm

Native American radio show comparing the struggles of Palestinians and Native Americans posted at http://www.nativeamericacalling.com/nac_past2003.shtm#february (February 11, 2003)

For news and analysis from Palestine:
http://www.pengon.org/
http://www.flashpoints.net/
http://www.between-lines.org
http://www.electronicintifada.net
http://www.ccmep.org
http://www.rafah.vze.com
http://www.imemc.org
http://www.palestinechronicle.com
http://www.palestinemonitor.org/
http://www.almubadara.org
http://www.karameh.net
http://www.sphr.org
http://www.ismcanada.org
http://www.gush-shalom.org/
http://www.zmag.org/meastwatch/meastwat.htm
http://www.radio4all.net/

To get involved in Palestine solidarity in the US:
http://www.sustaincampaign.org
http://www.justiceinpalestine.org
http://www.al-awda.org
http://www.jewsagainsttheoccupation.org
http://www.palsolidarity.org
http://www.pafny.org/
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Angie
Sat, Dec 6, 2003 10:45PM
flashpoints
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