Israeli Prisons Are Basically Political Prisons

Israeli Prisons Are Basically Political Prisons

By Crystal Robert

The inmates are mostly Palestinians suspected, accused, and too often –based on coerced confessions- “convicted” of planning, abetting, or carrying out acts of resistances, whether peaceful or armed. Statistics for the total prison are unavailable, but the amount of inmates in maximum-security prisons serving long-term sentences is approximately 3,000; thirty Palestinian women are held in Neve Tertza. Lawyers estimate that until the recent uprising, some 20,000 Palestinians were jailed every year.
There are ten prisons within the pre-1967 borders:
· Kfar Yonak
· Ramle Central Prison
· Shattah
· Damun
· Mahaneh Ma’siyahu
· Tel Mond (for juveniles)
Nine prisons are located in the post-1967 Occupied Territories:
· Gaza
· Nablus
· Ramallah
· Bethlehem
· Fara’a
· Jericho
· Tulkarm
· Hebron
· Jerusalem
There are regional detention centers at:
· Yagur (Jalameh)
· Atlit, near Haifa
· Abu Kaber, in Tel Aviv
· Moscobya in Jerusalem (Russian compound)
There are also police headquarters in Haifa, Acre, Jerusalem, and Tel Aviv. The eighteen police stations throughout the state and the forty police outposts in the Occupied Territories are also used to detain suspects for interrogation and torture. Other military installations all over the country also serve as interrogation and torture centers. All prisoners agree that the worse of these is Armon ha-Avadon, known as the “Palace of Hell and “Palace of the End;” it is located at Mahaneh Tzerfin near Sarafand.
Detention camps with only tents for shelter have been erected to contain the large population of Palestinian prisoners brought from Lebanon during the 1982 invasion and the youths caught during the current resistance. Three detention centers have become notorious for their inhumane conditions and daily routine of torture.
No matter where the prisons are located, the conditions are pretty much the same. The Israeli prison authorities keep a rigorous segregation between people held on criminal charges and others convicted of “security offences”, the political prisoners.
Because only a small amount of Jews qualify as political prisoners, and only a small amount of Palestinians, especially those from the Occupied Territories are criminal offenders, this separation entails de-facto segregation between Jewish prisoners and Palestinian prisoners. No contact or communication is allowed and they are either in separate prisons or different wings of the same institution.
Distinctions are made between Palestinian detainees from the Occupied Territories post-1967 and “Israeli-Arab” inmates, who are Palestinians and Druzes residing in pre-1967 Israel and holding Israeli citizenship. The conditions of detention for inmates from the West Bank and Gaza are a lot worse than those of pre-1967 “Israeli” inmates.
Not all detainees from the pre-1967 Israel are allowed a bed or mattress. About 70% of these Israeli prisoners enjoy this privilege. They also are allowed to receive a visit every two weeks and send two letters every month. They get three blankets in summer and five in winter. As for the prisoners from the post-1967 Occupied Territories, they sleep on the floor, even during winter. They are allowed a rubber mat ¼” [0.5cm] thick, one visit and one postcard a month.
In European and American prisons, the average living space per inmate is 112.5 square feet [10.5m²]. For Palestinians detained in the West Bank and Gaza, the living space is one tenth of this area, or 16 square feet [1.5m²] per prisoner.
The Israeli prison bureaucracy is a law unto itself. When a citizen enters an Israeli jail, he loses all rights and becomes subject to wholly arbitrary authority of people selected for their harshness.
Among the 114 existing clauses in the Prison Ordinance (revised 1971), not a single clause or sub-clause defines prisoners rights. What the Ordinance provides is a legally binding set of rules for the Minister of the Interior. These rules are formulated by administrative decree, by no other than the Minister himself!
No provision stipulating obligations incumbent upon the prison authorities exists, or does any clause guaranteeing prisoners a minimum standard of living. In Israeli prisons, it is legally acceptable to cram twenty inmates in a cell no bigger than 15 feet [5m] long, 12 feet [4m] wide, and 9 feet [3m] high. The space includes an open lavatory, and inmates spend twenty-three hours every day in such cells!

The Kutler Report

The Kutler Report
By Crystal Robert

An extensive enquiry into the physical conditions inside the prisons located within pre-1967 Israel, written by Israeli journalist Yair Kutler, was published in Haaretz. Kutler concluded that life in Israeli prisons is “hell on earth.”
What he observed follows…
Kfar Yonah (the grave of Yonah): This detention center terrifies those who pass through its gates. It is also named Meurat Petanim (The Lair of Cobras.) The reception for those awaiting trial is really frightening.
Extremely cold and dam cells are “furnished” with shabby and filthy mattresses. The cells are so overcrowded that most inmates must sleep on the floor. The stench of human excretions, sweat and filth is absolutely overwhelming. A putrid odor floats in the cells all the time. In Wind D, three rooms are crammed with 12, 18, and 20 prisoners.
Central Prison of Ramle: One of the harshest prisons in Israel, Ramle was once used as a stable for horses. Later, it was used as a British police station. Overcrowded and stinky, it is packed with no less than 700 inmates. Many detainees do not have a few square meters, a small corner, or a bed for themselves. It is frequent to see one-hundred men lying on the floor.
Ramle counts twenty-one isolation cells (‘X’s). The sun never penetrates the isolation cells, which are totally sealed-off. Only a dangling bulb from the ceiling gives off some kind of light all day long.
There are also dungeons in Ramle! Dark and filthy, the stench is unbearable. There are no light bulbs. The sole light hitting the cells comes from a small opening in the door giving to the corridor. Before an inmate is placed in the dungeon cell, he is first stripped naked. He is being given a thorn and thin overall. He gets to use the toilet once a day. The rest of the day, he has to contain himself for another 24 hour period. He can urinate through a wire mesh in the door. No daily walk or shower is allowed.
Beatings are frequent at Ramle. Guards enjoy using the “blanket method” where a few guards cover the prisoner’s head and beat him until he falls unconscious. If an inmate wants to avoid solitary confinement, he must know how to live a life of self-abasement and of total submission.
Shattah: The stench can be smelled from a far distance. The overcrowding is beyond imagination. The cells are damp and dark and the air is suffocating. During the hottest period of summer, the prison is a blazing hell.
Sarafand: It sits behind a high wire fence that tourists can see when they pass by on the road from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, and five miles from Ben Gurion Airport, Sarafand covers ten square miles.
It is the largest army ordinance and supply depot. It is the repository of the Jewish National Fund and stores equipment for construction of new settlements, in pre-1967 Israel and the post-1967 Occupied Territories.
It is evident that there exists an inexorable relationship between occupation, settlements, colonization, and the system of torture visited on Palestinians. As the “torture center”, Sarafand has historical relevance.
Built prior to WWII, it served as the principal ordinance depot for Britain. It is known as one of the most notorious camp for detainees during the Palestinian uprising against the British rule and Zionist colonization of the land.
The old British Mandate buildings were taken over by Israeli authorities, their function unaltered and used for a new Palestinian detainee generation. During the British Era, both Israelis and Palestinians knew the center as the “concentration camp” and have been kept as such in use and character.
Nafha- A political prison: While they have not received the status of Prisoners of War, prisoner camps are being built for them. Its inhabitants have given it the term “political prison.”
Located eight kilometers in the desert from Mitzoe Ramon and halfway between Beersheba and Eilat, Nafha is a barren area with terribl sandstorms. Sand penetrates everything. It is extremely cold at night and the heat is unbearable during the day. Snakes and scorpions roam the cells.
In Nafha, a typical cell is 18 feet by 9 feet [6x3m]. Ten mattresses cover the floor leaving no other space. There is a primitive lavatory in a corner and a shower just above it. While one is using the toilet, others are washing themselves or doing dishes. Ten prisoners share this cell twenty-three hours a day.
Everyday, ten prisoners must walk half-an-hour daily in a small concrete yard 15 feet x 45 feet [5mx15m]. Many of the inmates are ill, after repeated torture sessions; the living conditions in Nafha are simply brutal. The more I keep digging into this, the more I wonder how a human being can remain sane while being submitted to such horrible living conditions…
The Palestinian people need the international community to step up and do what is right. We must ask for the unconditional release of all Palestinian political prisoners and this immediately. We absolutely need to raise awareness of this situation in the Western hemisphere where the mainstream media paints a different picture and make people believe that “Israel has the right to defend itself.” People seem hypnotized by these words and whenever I bring up this important issue to people, I get this “Israel has the right to defend itself” mantra….
On the bright side, people are finally becoming more receptive to our message… There has been some improvement during the last five years, due to several anti-Zionist groups that have popped all over the internet. They had not counted with the internet. Now, we have a way to connect in seconds globally and news travel at internet speed.

Life Behind Bars in Israel

Life Behind Bars in Israel

By Crystal Robert

Palestinian and Arab prisoners serving high sentences are held at this facility, along with detainees awaiting trial. Ashkelon Central Prison is located South of Tel Aviv; the facility is set up with an interrogation section and a solitary confinement wing.
During the first intifada (1987-1994), Israel arrested some 175,000 Palestinians. Our brother, Qandeel Kamel IIwan died on February 24th, 1988, from medical negligence…
According to the Israeli Human Rights Organization B’tselem, as much as 85% of Palestinian prisoners have been tortured during investigation. Almost all detainees are subjected to some form of torture or mistreatment. Common methods include: severe beatings, punching and kicking; being handcuffed for long periods of time in contorted positions, for example to a small chair or a pipe hanging from the ceiling; exposure to very loud music, sounds, or screaming; sleep deprivation; denial of food, water, and use of toilet; psychological threats and pressure to collaborate; hooded with a heavy, dirty sack sometimes soaked in urine and smeared in faeces; sexual abuse or threat of sexual abuse; solitary confinement; denial of medical treatment for injuries received during arrest, such as bullet wounds.
There are 24 detention centers for holding Palestinians: 14 prisons and military camps, 5 detention and holding facilities, and 5 interrogation centers. 19 of these facilities are outside of the Gaza Strip and of the West Bank. This means that the prisoners are illegally transferred, outside of the Occupied Territories, in violation of the 4th Geneva Convention.
Many detainees are held for years without ever facing charge or trial. All detention centers are extremely crowded. Detainees often sleep on wooden planks covered with thin mattresses. The blankets are often torn, filthy, and insufficient for the amount of detainees. The food is not only inadequate, but also insufficient for the number of detainees. Because access to toilets is restricted, prisoners are often forced to urinate in bottles inside their cells.
Poor sanitary conditions are notorious within Israeli prisons. Even denial of adequate medical treatment is used to pressure detainees into collaboration!

In a series of 60 interviews with ex-detainees from the Bethlehem area in 1994, 90% of the interviewed people claimed that the administration uses the denial of medical treatment to recruit collaborators. Given these statistics, I wonder if Qandeel died because of medical negligence and why? Was he refusing to “collaborate”? I am still working on finding his file, somewhere. He died exactly 20 years ago and it is difficult to find any data before 1989.
A former prisoner said that detainees were so well aware that Israeli prison hospitals use the threat of withholding treatment to force detainees, that they are reluctant to sick treatment for fear of being a suspected collaborator.
We can safely say that Israeli prisons are essentially political prisons. Their population consists mostly of Palestinians who are suspected, accused, and occasionally (though through coerced confessions) “convicted”. Convictions range from carrying out, abetting, or planning acts of resistance whether peaceful or armed. The number of prisoners in maximum security prisons serving long sentences is about 3,000. 40 police outposts in the Occupied Territories are used to detain, interrogate, and torture subjects. Military installations throughout the country also serve as interrogation and torture centers.
Prisoners are often being denied visitation rights, and the administration doesn’t provide any explanations for these illegal acts. Some detainees spend 5 years or even more in solitary confinement. During this time, they are repeatedly transferred from one detention facility to another. Again, no explanation is being given from the administration. There are times when isolated prisoners are not even allowed to communicate with other detainee. They are repeatedly attacked and violated by the soldiers. All these procedures are in direct violation to the 4th Geneva Convention, the international law, and to basic principles of human rights.
The food given to detainees is bad and insufficient, forcing the detainees to buy their own food from the prison canteen, sold at an outrageous price. Knowing all this, it is easy to conclude that harsh living conditions, abuse, deprivation from basic human rights, solitary confinement for extended periods constitute the life of Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons.The Detainees Media Office started a campaign. Several institutions and parties were contacted in order to arrange protests against the violations. Several human right groups were also contacted and asked to pressure the Israeli Prison Authorities to improve the conditions of the detainees and provide them with basic human rights guaranteed by the 4ht Geneva Convention and by in