[Pnews] Palestinian Prisoner's Day: How I survived a decade in Israeli prison

[Prisoner News]

middleeasteye.net
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/how-eid-christmas-helped-me-survive-decade-israeli-prison>
Palestinian Prisoner's Day: How I survived a decade in Israeli prison
Ameer Makhoul - April 16, 2023
------------------------------
[image: image.png]

Like thousands of Palestinians
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/palestine> who experienced
arbitrary arrest and detention by occupation
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/topics/occupation> forces, I was
incarcerated in an Israeli <https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/israel>
prison for nearly a decade. As Palestinians mark Palestinian Prisoner's Day
<https://www.birzeit.edu/en/palestinian-prisoners-day> on 17 April, I look
back on my ordeal which began on 6 May 2010.

I was arrested in a pre-dawn raid by armed police who stormed my house
after jumping over my fence and practically breaking down the front door.
As soon as they entered, they separated me from my wife and two daughters.
I was surrounded by several security agents, some of whom exposed their
faces while others hid behind masks. At that moment, I became a prisoner in
my own home.

A Shin Bet (Israeli Security) agent from Haifa named Barak (nicknamed
"Birko") gave me a menacing smile and said: "I told you months ago when I
summoned you for questioning that I would soon come and snatch you from
your bed and lock you in prison for a long time. And that I would do it
with a smile on my face."

And so it happened. The three judges of the District Court of Haifa
fulfilled a promise they made to the Shin Bet. And when one of the judges
was promoted to the Supreme Court, the Israeli media highlighted his
"achievements" - which included my case, over which the chief judge
presided and handed me a nine-year sentence.
Physical and mental torture

I would say that the first three weeks of my detention were the most
difficult.

The torture I sustained in the interrogation rooms of the Shin Bet
headquarters was not only physically scarring, but was also meant to break
my spirit.

The Shin Bet refers to this stage of interrogation as "the vacuum", a
torture
<https://www.addameer.org/sites/default/files/publications/webenglishbooklet_1.pdf>
technique that aims to suck the souls out of prisoners' bodies by
subjecting them to physical pain so unbearable that it destroys them
psychologically.

The conditions of confinement are equally considered torture
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/how-israel-high-court-enables-torture-palestinian-prisoners>
under international law. The Shin Bet cells were too cramped and narrow
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/how-israel-high-court-enables-torture-palestinian-prisoners>
for my body size and the walls were rough, with sharp protrusions, making
it impossible to touch them let alone lean up against them. The bare walls,
dim lighting and foetid odour all contributed to the mental torture.

<https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/how-israel-high-court-enables-torture-palestinian-prisoners>

How Israel's Supreme Court enables torture of Palestinian prisoners

The mattress was as putrid as the cell - thin and laying flat on the cold
floor - with a blanket but no pillow, forcing me to rest my head on one of
my shoes, which at least had a homely and familiar scent to it.

The air conditioner was constantly set to very low temperatures, making the
moments when they transported me to the interrogation rooms - blindfolded
and with my hands and feet shackled as I walked up a long staircase - the
only times in which my body did not shiver from the harsh cold.

Meanwhile, in the interrogation room, they employed the "Shabeh" against
me, a torture method that became known in the west as the "Palestinian
chair"
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/tamara-nassar/how-israel-tortures-palestinians>
after American occupation forces infamously used it on Iraqi detainees at Abu
Ghraib
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/abu-ghraib-and-decades-long-battle-for-justice>
prison. I was forced to sit on a small child-sized chair, fixed to the
floor of the room - facing the interrogator - with my hands and feet bound,
incapable of any movement.

The agents took away the leather jacket I wore at the time of arrest,
saying I was not allowed to dress in better clothes than what they were
wearing. They use the freezing air as torture, blasting the air conditioner
above my head and back, until I feel as if I am fading away or becoming
numb. By then, my body and mind are breaking down together, leaving me with
agonising pain.

Time is meaningless in the interrogation cells. There is no sunlight or
darkness, no window and no key for the heavy metal gate, so the prisoner
steals a tiny beam of light from the key slot. Day and night are
meaningless underground. The light is constantly dimmed, by design.
No Christian 'customers'

One day, I asked the prison guard for a book to read. After asking the
investigators, he replied that no books are allowed except for holy books.
So that is what I asked for. After consulting with the investigators again,
he said there is only the Quran. I immediately asked for it.

He again left to ask for permission before returning and saying: "You are
not Muslim, so you are not allowed to have the Quran." Accordingly, I
requested the Bible. The guard did his routine walk to the investigators,
returning maybe half an hour later (as I lost all sense of time). He said:
"There are no copies of the Bible. We don't have Christian customers."

Twenty-two days later, I was transferred to the Israeli Gilboa prison, a
maximum security prison in Bisan, a town located in the northeast of
occupied Palestine.

Standard prison procedures meant an immediate and forced interrogation with
the intelligence officer upon arrival. I was then given a prison jumpsuit,
which wasn't even my size.

I was placed in section one of the prison, which at the time was reserved
for prisoners from Jerusalem and other areas of 1948 Palestine
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/topics/palestine-48>. Once I entered the
unit and the gate closed behind me, all the prisoners rushed to greet me -
embracing me one by one - a tradition among prisoners.

[image: Palestinian prisoners mural]
An artist works on a mural painting honouring Palestinian prisoners who
escaped two weeks earlier from Israel's Gilboa prison, in Gaza City, on 18
September 2021 (AFP)

Moving from the Shin Bet solitary cells to general population prison felt
like coming back home, although not the family one. With my fellow
prisoners, I began to feel the need to create meaning for my individual and
collective life in detention.

One time, in cell number nine, section one of Gilboa prison which was
supervised by the prisoner Maher Younis
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-man-freed-decades-police-ban-celebrations>
- who was released in January of this year after 40 years of imprisonment -
I volunteered to prepare lunch or dinner. While making mujadara, a lentil
and rice dish I am good at, I chopped and fried all four onions I found in
the cell. When I was done cooking, I was proud of myself and my meal, only
to realise minutes later, to my horror, that I caused a food crisis by
using up all the onions at once, which were supposed to last for another
half a week for the eight prisoners in the block.

As the days passed, the Shin Bet guard's words continued to haunt me. What
did he mean by "we don't have Christian customers"? Why didn't he leave it
at saying there is no Bible, rather than mentioning the lack of Christians?
Nothing happens by chance with the Shin Bet.

The interrogators are trained to weaken the "customer", in their words, by
stressing that you are alone, there is no one with you, there is no one
like you, you are a stranger to the prisoners because you are a Christian
and so you will spend the prison term estranged from the other prisoners.
Caged holidays

A strange scene is captured during the holidays in prison: there are
prisoners rejoicing in the yard surrounded by high walls, the Israeli flag
in the centre, and a roof built of iron grills that cut the sky into small
squares as though they were pieces of a puzzle needing assembly to complete
the scene. Zooming out, the prisoners are celebrating the holidays in one
big cage.

The Muslim holidays of Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha are celebrated
collectively, and preparations for them begin days before the date with the
talent of making cakes from scratch out of what is available in the
commissary - showing hospitality to all 120 prisoners in the unit - and
cleaning the yard and scrubbing down the cells with soap and water.

The holiday would begin at 6am but by 7am it was already over. As a social
event, the feast started with prisoners going out into the prison yard,
shaking hands, embracing and offering wishes of liberation such as "next
year at home", "next Eid with your loved ones", and "freedom is near".

The barber would shave the head of all the prisoners a day or two before
that, and each prisoner would wear his best outfit and any available or
smuggled cologne - only if it is of high quality. Some of the old prisoners
kept colognes for more than 10 years when it was still possible for their
families to bring them.

Finally, once all the prisoners arrive at the yard, the Eid prayer and
sermon would begin.

Meanwhile, the jailers observe, record and make sure that the sermon does
not deviate from the text that the prisoners presented to the
administration before - under the pretext of preventing incitement.
Prisoners, however, pay no attention to the jailers. Following that, the
prisoners come together in a big circle for the holiday greetings - shaking
hands, embracing and congratulating each other.

Then it is time for refreshments prepared by the prisoners or purchased
from the canteen, and thus the rituals come to an end. During this time,
the prisoners are able to visit each other in the cells, and sometimes it
is possible to organise visits between prisoners from the different units
if the jailers permit. The political factions also organise delegations of
their members to exchange visits and offer official holiday greetings.

When the visits are over, the prisoners return to the cells and the holiday
comes to an end.

I would participate in the whole event by going to the yard and offering
greetings. When I would pass by the prisoner Nader Sadaka, we would start
laughing, as I am a Christian from Haifa and Nader is from a Jewish
Samaritan sect from Nablus. He is serving a life sentence for his role in
the Second Intifada.

When all prisoners gather, there is room for joy. But Christmas hits
differently - no other prisoner celebrates Christmas but me. One day I
wrote to my family: "Before prison, I would wish for the holiday to last
for days, but here I wished it to pass as fast as the light or to not
happen altogether." Holidays are a time of happiness, but in prison, they
would fill me with sadness.

I was the only Christian, though at times we were two, so the Christmas
circle was meaningless. All I could think about on Christmas Eve was my
family: my wife, Janan, and my two daughters, Hind and Huda.

I was wondering what each one was thinking: my wife's feelings of
loneliness, how they'd spend the holiday, and how I could tell them that
they looked beautiful and dressed nicely.

I thought about how I wouldn't be there to prepare Christmas dinner or
breakfast the following morning - things I have mastered and loved doing.
But most importantly how would I hug each one? None of this was possible
except in my imagination. Nevertheless, I would remember the Shin Bet
guard's deliberate message of not having Christian "customers" so I decided
to celebrate Christmas.

<https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/israel-palestine-thirteen-braids-prison-escaped>

The thirteen braids that escaped an Israeli prison

My origin is from the village of Al-Boqai'a in Western Galilee, an ancient
village dating back a few thousand years. Its residents were mostly Druze,
as well as Christians, Muslims, and Jews (Arab Jews) who considered
themselves Palestinian.

The people of the village used to celebrate all holidays and visit each
other during all of them. This familiarity and solidarity between people
have deep roots in Palestine and the culture of its people.

For me, the Christmas tradition meant refraining from going out for early
morning exercise, which I adopted throughout my prison term, and wearing
the most elegant clothes - relatively speaking, as the prison forbids
shirts, belts, thick jackets, blouses with hats and even interferes with
shoes.

Contrary to Muslim holidays which were held collectively in the morning, at
noon on Christmas Day and without prior notification, dozens of fellow
prisoners from all Palestinian political factions would come to my cell
(which fits about eight people), to convey holiday greetings with gifts
they would purchase from the canteen and postcards with greetings, designed
by the prisoner, the creative artist, Samer Miteb, from Jerusalem, who had
been sentenced to 24 years.

Then, in the middle of the crowd, young men would start to raise the sound
of Arabic songs from an old tape recorder with headphones invented by the
prisoners, to make space for the singing and dancing floor, celebrating
Christmas and celebrating me, lifting the spirit and bringing joy to the
people.

One prisoner owned two smuggled candles that he held onto for 12 years. My
friend Bashar Khateb lit the 12-year-old candles for a minute and then blew
them out, saving them for another future joyful occasion.
'We are all Palestinians'

In 2017, the Israel Prison Service dismantled what they called the section
of Arabs of Jerusalem and the Palestinians of 1948, and I was transferred
to the Nablus section. There is a story behind the naming of the sections
and the distribution of prisoners.

Over the course of five decades, the prisoners were held in prisons without
any geographical affiliations. Succeeding the Oslo Accords of 1993, the
prisoners of Jerusalem and 1948 Palestine were separated into a section of
their own.

I told a fellow prisoner that we are from the same people, culture,
affiliations, and the same Arab civilisation, so there are no differences
between us

Later on, after building the separation wall in the West Bank and
surrounding cities with checkpoints, settlements and military bases, the
occupation sought to create local and regional Palestinian identities at
the expense of a unifying Palestinian identity.

As the West Bank formed one spatial and geographical continuity of
Palestinians, throughout the first and second Intifadas, and the borders
were relatively open to the Palestinians of 1948. Along the construction of
the wall, Palestinians became isolated from each other.

A whole generation has grown up after the wall and all it saw in front of
it was the wall and its narrow horizon. Seeking to engrave the wall in the
minds of the young Palestinian generations, occupier Israel opted to create
contradictory local identities, instead of one inclusive identity.

This is the case in the West Bank, Gaza, and 1948 Palestine, and this is
the same in the prisons. Initially, the Prison Service separated the
prisoners of Fatah and the PLO movement from prisoners affiliated with
Hamas.

In an effort to further isolate incarcerated Palestinians, the Prison
Service divided them by region: separate units for prisoners from Nablus,
Jenin, Tulkarem, Bethlehem, Hebron, and so on. This division constituted a
tool of control and hegemony by the occupier.

Palestinian Orthodox Christians struggle against two colonialisms

In the Nablus unit, my peers welcomed me warmly, as I them. There, I
maintained my daily regimen of morning exercise, reading, and university
education for the prisoners who were accepted to study in a special course
provided by Al-Quds Open University, as well as preparing a number of them
for the graduation exams approved by an academic committee of prisoners.

Also, due to my knowledge of the Hebrew language and the Israeli procedural
system, I would help prisoners compose letters and complaints, and
challenge their cases and other abuses. A plastic table outside became my
"office" for such requests.

I never liked to be referred to by my sectarian or religious identity - we
are all Palestinians after all. Yet, the prisoners created this identity
for me in a positive, humane, and curious manner. Once, I was walking with
a 42-year-old prisoner who had spent 22 of those years behind bars. He said
to me: "No offence, but I have never spoken in my life to a Christian
person. In Nablus, they have become few, and I live in a village on the
outskirts of the city. So, excuse my question, but are your habits similar
to our habits in terms of eating, socialising, joy and sadness?"

Honestly, I liked the question due to the sincerity of the asker. I told
him that we are from the same people, the same culture, the same
affiliations, and the same Arab civilisation intertwined with the Islamic
civilisation, so there are no differences between us. He thanked me and
started apologising, so I stopped him, and we then talked about how the
occupation and the coloniser wants us to have clashing identities, not
harmonious ones.

The prisoners used to call me al-Hajj Abu Hind, or al-Hajj Ameer, which is
a common tradition in calling elderly prisoners. I kept pace with that and
used to respond normally until the prisoner Salah al-Bukhari from Nablus
noticed that, and alerted the prisoners that I was not a Muslim. He
initiated everyone calling me "Father", out of respect, as in the church
tradition.

When I asked him not to repeat that, it was too late. The nickname had
already spread and I no longer had control over it. He still jokes about it
to this day inside prison, when calling me from smuggled phones - a
reminder of the reality of life in an Israeli jail.

*T*
*he views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not
necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East
Eye.____________________________________*

Ameer Makhoul is a leading Palestinian activist and writer in the 48
Palestinians community. He is the former director of Ittijah, a Palestinian
NGO in Israel. He was detained by Israel for ten years.
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