‘Painful March for Freedom’: The Triumphant Legacy of Palestinian Prisoners

By Ramzy Baroud

“As quickly as I left jail, I went to Nael’s grave. It’s adorned with the colours of the Palestinian flag and verses from the Holy Quran. I advised my little brother how a lot I liked and appreciated him, and that, sooner or later, we’d meet once more in paradise.”

The above is a part of a sworn statement given to me by a former Palestinian prisoner, Jalal Lutfi Saqr. It was printed two years in the past within the quantity ‘These Chains Will Be Damaged’.

As a Palestinian, born and raised in a refugee camp in Gaza, I used to be all the time conversant in the political discourse of, and regarding, political prisoners. My neighborhood, like each neighborhood in Gaza, is populated with numerous former prisoners, or households whose members have skilled imprisonment prior to now or current.

Nevertheless, beginning in 2016, my relationship with the topic took on, for the dearth of a greater time period,  a extra ‘educational’ method. Since then, and to date, I’ve interviewed scores of former prisoners and members of their households. Some have been imprisoned by Israel, others by the Palestinian Authority. I even spoke to prisoners who skilled the brutality of Center Japanese prisons, from Iraq, to Syria, to Egypt and Lebanon. A number of notably unfortunate ones have endured a number of jail experiences and have been tortured by males talking totally different languages.

Some prisoners, now fairly outdated, have been imprisoned by the British military, which colonized Palestine between 1920 and 1948. They have been held in line with the 1945 so-called Protection (Emergency) Rules, an arbitrary authorized code that allowed the British to carry as many rebelling Palestinian Arabs with out having to supply a trigger or interact in due course of.

This method stays in impact to this present day, because it was adopted by Israel following the top of the British Mandate. Following minor amendments in 1979, and the renaming of the legislation into the “Israeli Regulation on Authority in States of Emergency”, that is primarily immediately’s so-called ‘Administrative Detention’. It permits Israel to incarcerate Palestinians, virtually indefinitely, primarily based on ‘secret proof’ that isn’t revealed, even to the protection lawyer.

These ‘emergency’ legal guidelines stay in place, just because Palestinians by no means ceased resisting. 1000’s of Palestinians have been held with out proof or trial in the course of the First Palestinian Intifada, the rebellion of 1987. Most of them have been saved in horrific dwelling circumstances, in tent cities within the Naqab Desert.

Based on the Palestinian Fee on Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs, round a million Palestinians have been imprisoned between 1967 and 2021. Presently, lots of of Palestinian ‘administrative detainees’ are held in Israeli prisons, an act that violates worldwide legislation on varied counts – holding prisoners with out trial or due course of, and transferring prisoners to enemy territories, the latter being a stark violation of the Fourth Geneva Conference of 1949.

In fact, respecting worldwide legislation has by no means been Israel’s strongest swimsuit. In truth, Israel continues to intentionally ignore worldwide legislation in quite a few facets of its unlawful navy occupation of Palestine, rationalizing such actions on ‘safety’ grounds.

Palestinians are additionally doing what they do greatest, resist, below the harshest circumstances and by each means obtainable to them. Tellingly, the strongest of such resistance takes place inside jail partitions, by gaunt trying, and sometimes dying starvation strikers.

Khalil Awawdeh, a 40-year-old Palestinian from a village close to Al-Khalil (Hebron) is the most recent prisoner starvation striker to make historical past, by merely refraining from consuming for 180 days. His weight has dropped to 38 kilograms, after shedding over 40 kilograms whereas on starvation strike. The photographs of his half-naked, skeletal physique have been deemed ‘graphic’ and ‘offensive’ to some social media customers, and have been eliminated as quickly as they have been shared. On the finish, he might solely whisper a number of phrases. Although barely audible, they have been full of braveness.

On August 31, Awawdeh ended his starvation strike, after reaching a take care of the Israeli jail administration to launch him on October 2. His first phrases after that settlement have been hardly these of a dying man, however of a triumphant chief: “This resounding victory extends the collection of nice victories achieved by the mighty and honorable individuals of this nation.”

These phrases, nevertheless, weren’t distinctive. They carried the identical sentiment communicated to me by each single freed prisoner I’ve interviewed lately. None have any regrets, even those that spent most of their lives in darkish cells and in shackles; even those that misplaced family members; even those that left jail with power illnesses, to die quickly after their launch. Their message is all the time that of defiance, of braveness, and of hope.

Awawdeh is neither the primary, nor the final prisoner to endure these life-threatening starvation strikes. The technique could also be defined, and understandably so, because the final resort or as acts of desperation by people who’re left with out options. However for Palestinians, these are acts of resistance that show the ability of the Palestinian individuals: even in jail, handcuffed to a hospital mattress, denied each primary human proper, a Palestinian can combat, and win. Awawdeh did.

When Jalal Lutfi Saqr discovered that his brother Nael was killed by the Israeli military in Gaza, he was a prisoner in Israel. He advised me that the very first thing he did when he discovered of his brother’s loss of life was kneeling down and praying. The next day, Jalal spoke to the mourners in his Gaza refugee camp utilizing a smuggled cellphone by telling them, “Ours is a protracted and painful march for freedom.

“A few of us are in jail; others are underground, however we’ll by no means stop our combat for our individuals. We should stay dedicated to the legacy of our forefathers and our martyrs. We’re all brothers, in blood, within the battle and in religion, so let’s stay united as one individuals, as brothers and sisters, and keep on, regardless of the heavy losses and super sacrifices.”

Jalal’s name on his individuals was made twenty years in the past. It stays as related immediately, because it was then.

– Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He’s the writer of six books. His newest guide, co-edited with Ilan Pappé, is “Our Imaginative and prescient for Liberation: Engaged Palestinian Leaders and Intellectuals Converse out”. Dr. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Analysis Fellow on the Heart for Islam and World Affairs (CIGA). His web site is www.ramzybaroud.internet