Letter to Reality Now about the West Bank Prisoner Hunger Strike

From the anarchist journal ‘Reality Now’, Winter 1984-1985, Toronto, Dish With One Spoon Territory, published also in ‘The Clarion: Toronto’s Independent Alternative’, November 1984

To; REALITY NOW

On October 4th I was reading the news about the prisoners on a hunger strike — who number 800 at Al-Jnaid prison in the west end of Nablus, the West Bank. This prison is a former hospital built in 1966 but never finished because of the Israeli occupation in 1967. Since that time until June 1984 it was under the control of Israeli military authorities who ordered this hospital to be transformed into a jail for Palestinian political prisoners.

As a former Palestinian prisoner from Nablus and a resident next to this new jail, I would like to inform readers about the conditions in the West Bank-Gaza jails.

One, prisoners are locked away in rooms twenty-three hours a day.

Two, there is no medical treatment available, all that is provided is just an aspirin pill for any infection or pain whatsoever; in other words you are left to die there — over 150 prisoners died there during imprisonment over the last 15 year occupation. Other prisoners suffer from permanent disabilities which are documented by the International Red Cross bureau in Jerusalem and available to anybody needing further testimony.

Thirdly, the dormitories are crowded with forty-five people in an area ten meters by seven, that is, one and a half square meters per prisoner sentenced for up to periods as long as twenty or thirty years with no parole.

Fourth, the food is so poor you run away from its smell. A prisoner’s diet is a breakfast of one slice of hard bread — left-overs from the military compounds, half a pat of margarine and the same of jam. Lunch is one slice of hard bread, 10-15 chick-peas, one tenth of a chicken or sometimes pork, even though Arabs tend not to eat pork like the Jews. Supper is the same bread, lentil soup, mainly water, one falafel ball, and 10-15 kidney beans. No eating utensils were available except for a plastic plate, not even a table or chair.

Five, the prison administration doesn’t allow books, writing paper, newspaper, magazines, television, radio or even a backgammon game.

Six, no more than one visit a month is allowed and only for half an hour each time even though parents endure difficult trips taking up to ten hours. Prisoners waiting for trial are not granted visits at all even though they may be spending six months or a year in “dead-time”.

These are the most important points but there is much more: beatings, interrogations, humiliation, and more still. I myself have permanently impaired hearing and digestive problems resulting from my imprisonment.

Not all the prisoners are members of the Palestine Liberation Organization, in fact a majority are not. They are kids, 15 and 16 years old who have been sentenced 2 and 3 years in jail because they raised their own flag or sang their national anthem, or spray-painted walls with messages.

On the other hand a zionist settler terrorist who participated in the killing of three students at Hebron University and who was also held responsible for the car-bombing of Nablus mayor Bassam Shaaka was sentenced to 18 months in a palace-like jail with TV, VCR, radio transmitter-receiver and a two-day pass to celebrate his birthday. Where is Israeli democracy and justice in the “benevolent” occupation of the West Bank-Gaza.

For those who wonder why I was in jail I’ll tell you why. I was imprisoned not because of participating in the PLO functions, or carrying out a military operation but just because I was protesting Jewish Defence League (JDL) and Gush-Emunim gangs taking over my father’s land to settle American and Soviet zionists.

I was in jail for four months, during which time I was in an underground cell for 24 days, beaten and humiliated, left without food for three days at a time, losing 70 pounds of weight. In contrast Myer Kahane, an American zionist settler who wants to expel me and my people, attempting to justify the killings and massacres of my people, gets elected to the Israeli parliament winning immunity from prosecution.

I wish my people will achieve peace and justice, to regain our dignity and freedom, and to rebuild our society in our own independent country. In particular I greet my brothers who are on a hunger strike now in the Al-Jnaid prison and wish them success in their protest.

Ahmad Samih Abou-Ali

Excerpts from ‘The Palestine Chronology’ by the Institute for Palestine Studies

Wednesday, July 27, 1983

Israeli Occupied territories: Birzeit students protest attack on Islamic college, IDF responds with tear gas, rubber bullets, automatic weapons fire, 4 to 8 students reported wounded.

Thursday, October 4, 1984

General strike observed in E. Jerusalem in solidarity with Jnaid prison inmates’ protest against deplorable conditions; prisoners suspend strike after police chief Bar Lev visits, promising improved conditions.

Monday, June 27, 1994

Palestinian prisoners at Jnaid prison stage 24-hr. hunger strike to protest refusal of Israelis to release them in accordance with 5/4 Cairo Agreement.

_{West Bank, Palestine, January 30, 2025}