People's Democracy

Palestine: Third Intifada!

Yohannan Chemarapally

THE death of 30 years old Arafat Jaradat in an Israeli prison on February 22 and the continued incarceration of thousands of Palestinians has unleashed a new wave of anger in the occupied Palestinian territories. Jaradat’s funeral was attended by more than ten thousand people, including ministers from the Palestinian Authority (PA) and leaders from other Palestinian parties.

Palestinian groups across the political spectrum have been urging a tough response to the latest death of a Palestinian civilian in Israeli custody. In the protests that followed, there already have been casualties among the Palestinians. “Israel is killing our children with live fire,” the Palestinian Authority (PA) president, Mahmoud Abbas, said in a live broadcast to his people. He said that he would not allow Israel to “play with the lives” of the Palestinian people. Abbas called for an international enquiry into the circumstances leading to the death of the Palestinian prisoner.

SPATE OF CUSTODIAL

DEATHS IN PRISONS

Jaradat was in Israeli police custody for over a week before his tragic death. He was arrested for allegedly participating in a stone throwing incident in November last year in which an Israeli sustained minor injuries. An autopsy conducted on his body revealed many broken bones in his arms, spine and legs. His lips were lacerated and body badly bruised. “We know, and the Israelis know, that he was tortured to death. This matter can’t and will not pass quietly. We are talking about a healthy young man who was taken away from his family and children and then returned within a few days a dead corpse,” the Palestinian minister for prisoners affairs, Issa Qaraqaa said. He then went on to add that the claim by Israel that Jaradat died of natural causes is “a blatant lie.” The PA has accused the Israeli authorities of inflicting “extreme torture” on Jaradat. A month before Jardat’s death, another Palestinian, Abu Ashraf Dhra, died in an Israeli jail.

The Israeli Prison Services continues to claim that the prisoner died as a result of “cardiac arrest.” According to the Prisoner Rights Organisation — Adameer, since 1967, a total of 72 Palestinians have been killed as a result of torture and 53 due to medical neglect in Israeli prisons. 3000 Palestinians in Israeli prisons went on a hunger strike on February 24 to protest against the latest incident.

Jaradat’s death also coincided with the indefinite hunger strike that 11 Palestinian prisoners had started to protest against their incarceration without trial. One of them, Samer Issawi, recounted his story in a signed article published in the British daily, The Guardian. He has been in Israeli prison for most of his life, sentenced under laws which the Jewish state has inherited from the British colonial rulers. One of Issawi’s brothers was killed by Israeli forces while participating in a protest; four other siblings have been incarcerated for long periods in Israeli jails. Issawi, after spending ten year in jail, was rearrested after being released in a prisoner swap negotiated by Egypt. The Israeli soldier Gilat Shamit was released by Hamas in exchange for the freedom of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in 2011.

Many of the released Palestinian prisoners, like Issawi, were soon rearrested by the Israeli security forces on trumped up charges. Issawi has said that he will continue his hunger strike until “victory or martyrdom” as it was “the last remaining stone to throw at the tyrants and jailers in the face of the racist occupation that humiliates the people.”

APARTHEID LIKE POLICIES

IN OCCUPIED TERRITORIES

That Israel has been implementing policies akin to apartheid in the occupied territories has been common knowledge. The latest illustration of racist policies was the Israeli authorities the introduction in early March of a bus services exclusively for Palestinians. Israeli authorities have said that the bus service was introduced as the Palestinian passengers pose “a security risk” to the Jewish settlers in the West Bank. Jews and Palestinians have till now been using the same buses to commute to work from the West Bank to Israel.

Palestinians in the West Bank have been protesting almost daily for the release of the hunger strikers. More than a hundred Palestinians were wounded in clashes with the Israeli security forces on the day before the death of Jaradat. The protests have only escalated after that. The prime minister of the Hamas controlled Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, has supported the continuation of what he has described as the “prisoners intifada (uprising).” He said that his party would fight on all fronts and “pay the necessary price” to obtain the freedom of all the political prisoners. The PA does not want things to go out of control in West Bank. They fear that a general upsurge among Palestinians would be used as a pretext by Israel to further put off talks on a two-state solution.  

The Israeli Internal Secret Service (Shin Bet) routinely holds Palestinian detainees in isolation for long periods during which they are interrogated in cells that remain lit throughout day and night. An Israeli human rights group, B’tselem, has supported the demand of the Palestinian Authority (PA) for an independent international investigation of the circumstances leading to the death of the prisoner. Two weeks before the killing of Jaradat, the Israeli High Court had rejected a petition by another Israeli human rights organisation, Adalah, against the Shin Bet. The human rights group had demanded that the Shin Bet comply with the requirement of the UN Convention against Torture (UNCAT) to which Israel is a signatory. In May 2009, the UNCAT had condemned Israel for exempting Shin Bet interrogations from video or audio recordings. In 2012, the Israeli parliament extended the exemptions by another three years.

The UN peace envoy to West Asia, Robert Serry, has called for an independent enquiry into the death of the Palestinian in Israeli custody. He warned that the mounting tensions could precipitate a deadlier round of violence in the occupied territories. “The United Nations expects the autopsy to be followed by an independent and transparent investigation into the circumstances of Jaradat’s death, the results of which should be made public as soon as possible,” the UN envoy said.

The chairman of the Palestinian Prison Society, Qadura Fares, has also warned that the worsening conditions for Palestinians could lead to a third Intifada. The first Intifada lasted from 1987 to 1993 and the duration of the second Intifada was from 2000 to 2005. “The situation in the prisons, the economic plight and the stalled peace process are pushing people to the brink, but I would like to believe that we are still far from that,” said Fares.

A PERMANENT

STATE OF SIEGE

The Palestinian minister for prison affairs has predicted that the “popular resistance activities would continue,” adding that the tension within the prison system was “a reflection of the strained situation on the ground.”

In an apparent bid to defuse tensions, the Israeli authorities released 120 million dollars of tax and customs revenues that they were withholding from the PA. Israel collects tax and custom duties on behalf of the Palestinians and has habitually been refusing to disburse them for long periods at a time. This has contributed to the financial problems the PA is facing. Salaries of civil servants and government employees are invariably delayed.

The Palestinians in the occupied territories are living under a permanent state of siege. Since the 1967 war, 80 per cent of all adult males in the occupied territories have been arrested at some time or the other. Israeli military law gives the authorities the right to detain any individual for up to eight days without framing any charges. Prisoners can be held for 60 days for interrogation without recourse to legal help. If the military commander of the region decides that the suspect is “a national security threat,” then a prisoner can be held for six months without the authorities having to give any reasons. The charges can be renewed indefinitely. Some ten per cent of the 8000 Palestinian prisoners currently in jail are under “administrative detention” — the euphemism for being jailed without any charges. Even Palestinian children who are over the age of 12 are being arrested by the Israeli authorities. For Israeli Jews, only those 18 and above are considered to be legally adults.

A report released by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) on March 6 details the systematic abuse of Palestinian children by Israeli authorities. The UN organisation estimates that 700 children aged between 12 and 17 are arrested every year by Israeli security forces in the West Bank. The UNICEF has given many instances of the Israeli security forces inappropriate use of force against children. The UNICEF report said that this amounted “to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment according to the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention against Torture.” The report accused Israel of “blindfolding children and tying their hands with plastic ties, physical and verbal abuse during transfer to an interrogation site, including the use of painful restraint.”

Such practices, the report went on to add, “appear to be widespread, systematic and institutionalised.” The report said that Israel has made “some positive changes” in the way it treats Palestinian juvenile prisoners. It noted a 2010 Israeli military order that requires the police to inform the parents of the children who have been arrested and to inform minors that they have a right to consult a lawyer.