Mousa Abu Maria spent nearly five years, from 1999 to 2003, in Israeli prisons. He spent an additional 14 months, from 2008 to 2009, in administrative detention (without charge or trial). He, like current hunger striker Khader Adnan, was subjected to cruel and inhuman treatment and torture as part of his interrogation. In 2001, he shared a cell with Adnan.

Abu Maria, a member of the popular committee in the West Bank village Beit Ommar and co-founder of the Palestine Solidarity Project, spoke to Bekah Wolf about Khader Adnan, who is being held by Israel without charge and has entered his 55th day of hunger strike.

Bekah Wolf: How do you know Khader Adnan?

Mousa Abu Maria: We met in 2001 or 2002 in Askelon prison. He was an organizer in the prison, because it wasn’t the first time he’d been in jail. He used to lead classes about Palestinian history and the uprising. Prison was like a university in those times and he was one of the professors.

BW: What was he like as a person?

MAM: Most [foreign] people think if you have a beard or you’re a member of Islamic Jihad, you just sit and pray all day. Khader would joke around, just like anyone else. He’s my age, we were young, we were like any other young people. He would try to make us feel like we weren’t in prison, like we were in a dorm room. He was always organizing the prisoners, which of course got him in trouble with the guards. He was often put in solitary confinement, but would come out and continue what he was doing before.

BW: He began his hunger strike to protest how he was treated during his interrogation. He was held in stress positions, beaten and insulted. Is that similar to what you experienced?

MAM: This is what the occupation forces do to activists. They try to show how they have control over you. They want to say, maybe you had power [as an organizer] outside, but in here [prison] we have complete control. They would force me to sit with my hands cuffed to my ankles, on a tiny chair that was tilted over so that I was in a crouching position for hours, day after day. It is both very painful and a psychological torture. You can’t lift your head, you can’t look them in the eye. They want you to feel that you do not own yourself, that they own you, and you do not have any power to resist.

BW: What about the beating and insults? What is the purpose?

MAM: Again, it is just to show control, to break your will to resist. They know you have been an activist and that you have internal strength to resist. They have to break that from you. Sometimes it’s to try to get information from you but many times it is just to break your will. That’s why you go on hunger strike. It is the only thing you can control: what you eat, what you put into your body. It is the way to show that you can still resist. You are showing your captors and your comrades, but you are also showing yourself, giving yourself strength that you are still resisting, that they haven’t taken everything away from you.

BW: Khader is now striking to protest being in administrative detention. You were in administrative detention for 14 months. Can you explain what it is and why it is inspiring a man to die rather than live under such conditions?

MAM: First of all, I do not believe Khader wants to die. That is not in his mind. We all went on hunger strikes before, to protest conditions of our imprisonment. He is showing his commitment to resistance in the only way he can right now, with his own body.

Administrative detention is also a psychological attack on a person. You are held, without knowing what you are accused of, but most importantly, without knowing when the imprisonment will end. When you are convicted, you can accept in your mind what is happening, and put it aside, and plan and hope for the day when you are released.

Administrative detention does not allow you to do that. Because you never know when you will be released, you are in constant turmoil. Your family is also in turmoil. You remember when I thought I was going to be released. The guards told me to pack my things, and I sent a message to you through another prisoner that I was being released. They even drove me to the gate of the prison, with all of my things, and I thought, after 12 months, I was being released, I would see my wife and family again.

And then they said it was a joke, and put me back into the jeep and brought me back to the prison. It destroys your soul. Your mind can only experience so much loss of power before you start to destroy yourself. It takes a huge amount of strength not to fall into despair. This is a powerful reason for Khader going on hunger strike. I believe he needs to feel that they [occupation forces] are not in full control of him. They can control when he sees his family, when he will be released, all of that — but he has control over something now, something they cannot take away from him. The goal of any occupation force is to demonstrate their total power over the people, so that they will not resist. Khader is showing himself, and all of us, that the power to resist is always in our hands. Occupation forces cannot take that away from us.

BW: Mousa, you were in jail for more than six years. You were beaten so badly during your interrogation for your first imprisonment that they had to take you to the hospital. You’ve had your house raided in the middle of the night several times, and any time you know they might take you away and put you in administrative detention again, even if you haven’t done anything. How do you continue working with the popular struggle? How do you keep resisting?

MAM: People like me, like Khader, like Bassem Tamimi [imprisoned organizer from Nabi Saleh], we made a commitment a long time ago to resist. We promised ourselves and our people that we would face the occupation and look it in the eye.

Of course, I do not want to go to prison again. I want to have a life with my wife and my daughter. We Palestinians are not robots, we are not living just to resist. We want to have a normal life, to laugh and joke and go to the park with our children. But we also want to keep our commitment to ourselves and our people: we will stand up to the occupation. We will not let them own us. Even if the only way to resist their control is to refuse them, to refuse their food, their water, their medical treatment, then that is what we will do. Khader Adnan is continuing the resistance to the very end. He is actually fighting for life, life with justice and dignity.

Bekah Wolf is a co-founder of the Palestine Solidarity Project, and has worked in the West Bank since 2003. She is married to Mousa Abu Maria.

Karmei Tsur settlers have also uprooted olive trees saplings which were planted last Saturday during the Beit Ommar’s weekly nonviolent protest, organized by the Popular Committee in the town, even though these saplings were planted outside the so-called security fence.

The project aims to raise awareness and support for small farming communities and Fair Trade practices across the West Bank. They planted 500 olive saplings in southern Hebron village al-Tuwani before the beginning the marathon on Saturday, which will run for five days. Israeli settlers have uprooted thousands of olive trees which were planted adjacent to each of Karmei Tsure colony, Bayt Ayn colony, Etzion settlements surrounding Beit Ommar over the past few years, but the popular committee together with the Palestine Solidarity Project replant whatever is uprooted to cultivate and protect the land from confiscation.

Israeli police detained three marathon-runners near Hebron on Saturday, including two French nationals, while they were running on their way to Beit Ommar to participate in the olive trees planting.
The two men were later released, but Palestinian Nasser Abu Farha, 47, will be facing a hearing in June on charges of organizing an illegal demonstration.

At yesterday’s demonstration, the protest organizers gave out about 700 olive trees to the farmers in the area and marched towards the Karmei Tsur settlement to protest peacefully against colonization by planting the. As they approached area, dozens of heavily armed Israeli Forces blocked their way and began pushing the activist and beating them. As the activists continued planting trees on the land, soldiers began shooting tear gas and sound bombs at the unarmed demonstrators. A Palestinian man, Saqqar Abu Maria, was hit with a gun butt on his head by soldiers and injured. Despite this repression, the demonstrators accomplished their aim of planting all 700 trees and expressed their resolve to continue to their actions until the occupation is ended.

The settlers wandered through Beit Za’tah and Alkarn neighborhoods before moving onto Wadi Esheikh area close to the illegal settlement of Karmei Tsur to the south of the village. During this provocative tour, the settlers blocked Route 60, the main road connecting Hebron with Jerusalem and the main avenue of transportation for Beit Ommar residents. Palestinian vehicles were prevented from moving in the area. Additionally, Israeli soldiers fired tear gas and sound bombs at Palestinian villagers as the settlers passed through their town. This recent provocation is a continuation of settlement harassment of Palestinians in the area. Another large group of settlers entered Beit Ommar less than one month ago and settlers routinely destroy farmland, stone vehicles, and attack an even kill Palestinians in the village. On January 28th, 2011, Yousef IKhlayl, a 17-year-old Palestinian resident of Beit Ommar, was killed by Israeli settlers as he was working his family’s farmland.

On Tuesday, January 31st, Yousef’s friends and family were attacked by the Israeli army as they marched towards the military watchtower at the entrance of Beit Ommar. Four people were injured after soldiers unleashed tear gas and sound bombs and began beating the demonstrators. One Palestinian activist had his nose broken and several others were roughly hit with the butts of the soldiers’ guns.

On January 28th, 2011, settlers from Bat Ayn, one of five Israeli settlements built on illegally taken from the Palestinian residents of Beit Ommar, rampaged through the village and shot 17-year-old Yousef while he was on his family’s farmland with his father. To date, no settler has been investigated, let alone arrested and charged, for his murder. The lack of justice in Yousef’s case is part of a wider pattern of impunity under which settlers are allowed to steal from, terrorize, and even kill, Palestinians in the West Bank.

As the demonstrators approached Route 60 at the entrance of the village, dozens of Israeli soldiers blocked their path and attacked the gathering with tear gas, sound bombs, and beatings. Israeli Forces used wooden clubs to strike at activists, and four demonstrators were injured. Yousef Abu Maria had his nose broken, Emad Abu Hashem was hit in the forehead with a club, Ahmad Abu Hashem was hit in the head with a soldier’s rifle butt, and Jamil Shuhada, an Executive Committee member for the PLO, was beaten with clubs and rifle butts.

The demonstrators remembered Yousef’s murder with the following demands:
1. Try the murderers of Yousef Ikhlayl (the settlers came from Bat Ayn, one of five Israeli settlements built on land stolen from Beit Ommar villagers. To date, no settler has been arrested, let alone investigated, for Yousef’s murder.)
2. Dismantle the Bay Ayn settlement
3. Open the closed military roads around Beit Ommar which prevent farmers from reaching and cultivating their lands.
4. Free all Palestinian political prisoners.
5. Remove the Israeli military watchtower and checkpoint at the entrance of Beit Ommar and allow area residents freedom of movement.

On 28 January 2011 at 6:30am, Yousef Ikhlayl, 17, went with his father Fakhri to their farmland on the outskirts of the West Bank village Beit Ommar, where they prepared the land around their grapevines. At approximately 7am, two groups of Israelis from the illegal settlements Bat Ayn and Kiryat Arba were taking a “hike” in the privately-owned Palestinian agricultural land belonging to the residents of Beit Ommar (“Palestinian killed in clashes with settlers near Hebron,” The Jerusalem Post, 29 January 2011).

There was no indication that the settlers were planning on shooting. Yousef’s father reported that the first shot fired by the settlers hit his son in the head. The settlers then began shooting in the air and the surrounding areas to prevent others from approaching, as his father screamed desperately for help.

Yousef was carried to a car that drove him out of the agricultural valley and to the main road, where an ambulance “rushed” him to the hospital in Hebron, passing two Israeli military checkpoints on the way. At the hospital, Yousef was put on a respirator, though he had no brain activity. He passed away soon after.

At his funeral the following day, as is common practice with the Israeli military involving martyr funerals, soldiers numbering in the hundreds invaded Beit Ommar and attacked the funeral with tear gas, rubber-coated steel bullets and even live ammunition, as the Palestine Solidarity Project reported (“Funeral of Yousef Ikhlayl attacked by Israeli military, dozens injured,” 29 January 2011).

The murder of Yousef Ikhlayl, the impunity with which the settlers acted and the military’s behavior at the funeral are common occurrences in the occupied West Bank. The death of a Palestinian, even a child, is rarely noted and quickly forgotten in much of the world. The killing of Yousef was, however, a profound event for myself, the Palestine Solidarity Project (PSP, the organization I co-founded) and popular resistance in the Hebron district as a whole.
Never safe

PSP began farmer-accompaniment programs in the areas surrounding Beit Ommar — particularly the areas near Bat Ayn settlement — in 2006. We did so because of the extreme violence and the regularity with which settlers from this colony would attack farmers, particularly in the Saffa valley near where Yousef was killed.

Yousef was a regular participant in all of our activities, including demonstrations, farming actions, summer camps, English classes and even a photography workshop we held in 2010. He was a fixture at PSP events, volunteering to set up for conferences and often babysitting my young daughter as we held meetings and tours for international activists. I have vivid memories of Yousef carrying my baby, Rafeef, around the yard of my house, pointing out tree leaves and flowers while my husband, PSP co-founder Mousa Abu Maria, and I met with international delegations and the local popular committee.

Yousef was quite familiar with the Israeli settlers from the area and their potential for violence. Perhaps it was because of this familiarity with them that he did not run when they arrived in the area. He had been with PSP dozens of times as we accompanied other farmers to their land, as settlers watched from the hillside or hurled rocks at us from hundreds of meters away. Perhaps he assumed this time would be no different; but maybe it would have been different if we had been there with his family. I wonder about what he thought when the settlers approached. I have often thought in the last year if things would have been different if international activists had been there; if I had been there.

Our farmer-accompaniment program in the area throughout the years, though it had led to literally dozens of arrests of Israeli and international solidarity activists, was completely successful in deterring settler violence during the accompaniment.

In the end, the settlers roamed the area freely, shooting at residents and youth who began throwing stones for two hours. Two hours before Israeli soldiers, who are responsible for the security of Area C — 60 percent of the West Bank under Israeli military control — could persuade the residents to return to their homes.

The aforementioned Jerusalem Post article adds that twenty settlers were detained at the scene by the military — a highly unusual occurrence, possibly due to the presence of international and Israeli activists who had arrived in the area after the shooting — but were all released the same day.
Israeli impunity

During the two hours that the settlers stayed in the area, PSP activists arrived and began taking pictures of them to provide to the Israeli police responsible for investigating attacks by settlers on Palestinians in the West Bank. Shortly after the murder, Yousef’s father and the activists who took the pictures went to the Israeli police station (located in the settlement Kfar Etzion, next door to Bat Ayn) and filed a formal complaint.

Yousef’s father provided the photographs to the police and even identified a few individuals he saw closest to him and his son when he was shot. In a democracy, one would think this level of evidence, combined with the heinousness of the crime, would lead to a thorough investigation and speedy indictment. But, as we all well know, that is not what happens when settlers attack Palestinians.

In December 2011, Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights organization that monitors the criminal accountability of Israeli civilians and Israeli military forces in the West Bank, released an updated report on the rate of which Israeli civilians are prosecuted for crimes committed against Palestinians in the West Bank.

Yesh Din discovered, after researching the progress of 700 individual complaints filed with the Israeli police in the West Bank by Palestinians, that 91 percent of all complaints end with the investigation being closed without an indictment, including 85 percent of cases involving violence. The most common reason for closing a case (which can be done either by the police or by the police prosecutor) is “perpetrator unknown,” though a full 2 percent of all cases were closed because of a “lack of public interest,” which begs the question, “which public?” (“Updated data monitoring hundreds of investigations: 91% of cases closed without indictments,” 15 December 2011).

The report reveals that only 7.4 percent of cases involving settler crimes committed against Palestinians from 2005 to 2011 actually ended in an indictment. The statistic regarding crimes committed by Israeli military personnel against Palestinians, which are investigated by a separate entity, is a negligible 3.5 percent ending in indictments.

Yesh Din’s full report shows a series of failures, from the process of filing an initial complaint, to the police investigation, to the process inside the prosecutors’ office for initiating an indictment. In Yousef Ikhlayl’s case, Yesh Din discovered that while an investigation was conducted by the police (which may have only constituted the interview with Yousef’s father) and the file was turned over to the prosecution, the case has inexplicably been stalled for months because the prosecution’s office has refused to assign the case to an individual attorney, a step necessary before a final decision can be made on whether an indictment will be handed down.

It is obvious that individual justice for Palestinian victims of settler crimes — even when the victim is an unarmed child — remains elusive. Perhaps, as was suggested in an op-ed that appeared in Israeli daily Haaretz about the murder of Mustafa Tamimi, knowing the individual perpetrator, and pursuing a case against the individual, only serves to alleviate the responsibility of the system as a whole (“A courageous Palestinian has died, shrouded in stones,” 13 December 2011).

However, violent, ideological settlers, and their counterparts in the Israeli military, will only continue to act with total disregard for the basic human rights of Palestinians if they are assured that they will not face consequences. The death of a civilian, particularly a child, should result both in a black mark on the society that condones it, as well as the prosecution of the individuals responsible.
A call to action

Yousef Ikhlayl’s murder was overshadowed by world events taking place in January 2011. Activists and sympathetic journalists alike were focused on the massive uprising in Egypt that had just erupted, as well as other developments during the Arab uprisings. Beit Ommar, Yousef’s hometown, had fallen into the background as settler violence had decreased in previous months and the demonstrations in Nabi Saleh were gaining attention.

The community of Beit Ommar and the Palestine Solidarity Project have called for an international day of action on Saturday, 28 January, to commemorate the one-year anniversary of Yousef’s death and ensure that he will not be forgotten.

People all over the world will hold demonstrations in front of Israeli consulates, and will plaster their cities with posters of with his face (which can be found on the website).

We are calling for an end to Israeli impunity, and the world to remember that behind statistics and policy reports, the victims of Israel’s murderous policies are real, live people. It is imperative that the international community not only hold Israel accountable for its criminal acts, through movements including boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS), and solidarity work in Palestine, but also to humanize the victims of these crimes. Yousef Ikhlayl was a goofy, quiet and dedicated boy. He had a sheepish smile and made my daughter laugh. We will not forget him.

Bekah Wolf is a co-founder of the Palestine Solidarity Project, and has worked in the West Bank since 2003. Further details on the day of action to demand justice for Yousef Ikhlayl can be found on the PSP website, www.palestinesolidarityproject.org. PSP can be followed on Twitter at @PalestinePSP.

Last year, over 300 Palestinian, international, and Israeli women attended the first conference in Beit Ommar. Please consider donating towards the cost of this conference and supporting women organizing against the occupation. Links to the Center’s Paypal account can be found below:
http://www.center4freedom.org/support/

The following is the full invitation from the Center for Freedom and Justice:

The Second Conference of Palestinian and Israeli Women

To mark the
101st International Women’s Day

This is the second year that we, Palestinian and Israeli women, do not obey the unlawful and immoral apartheid laws imposed by the Israeli Occupation Governments on the Palestinians in the occupied territories. Our conference aims to preserve, maintain, and reinforce the Palestinians human rights under occupation.

This year we will again come together for a day of discussion and shared experiences. We will be presenting different viewpoints of our joint civil disobedience activities as part of the ongoing non violent popular resistance against the occupation.

We invite everyone who sees herself as a partner in our cause to attend the conference, and to play a part in the firm political covenant between us that we continue to maintain despite all those who wish to destroy it.

Saturday 10 March 2012
10:00 a.m. start – ends at 16:00 p.m
There will be full simultaneous translation – Arabic, Hebrew, and English during all discussions. A vegetarian lunch will be available.
The full program will be published and distributed closer to the date.

We look forward to see you there!

For more information, please contact:
center4freedom@gmail.com

Israeli forces protected the settlers and fired tear gas and rubber bullets towards Beit Ommar residents. Later, soldiers detained Ahmad Ibrahim Al-Alami at the entrance to Beit Ommar.
An Israeli army spokeswoman said she was looking into the report of the teen’s detention, but said soldiers had earlier fired warning shots after four Palestinians approached the soldiers escorting a “group of hikers enjoying a coordinated hike with the Israeli army near Beit Ommar.”

Additionally, demonstrators chanted against the occupation and waved flags. Among the demands issued by the Popular Committee in Beit Ommar were:

1. Our rights to use this road which is built on a Palestinian land.
2. Our rights to enter freely to Jerusalem which is a Palestinian city without the need to have Israeli security permission.
3. Our rights to move freely on our roads without Israeli apartheid occupation military checkpoints, all the checkpoints (at least 450 in the West Bank alone) have to be removed from Palestinian land.
4. We demand an end to the colonization, apartheid and occupation of our lands in general.

As the activists began playing football, dozens of heavily armed Israeli soldiers attacked the protesters to suppress the peaceful protest by pushing and beating participants. The demonstrators remained steadfast and continued to chant and assert their demands despite this aggression. At a certain point, Israeli soldiers detained Mousa Abu Maria, an organizer with the Beit Ommar Popular Committee and the Palestine Solidarity Project. Mousa was put in a military jeep, but the rest of the demonstrators demanded that he be released immediately. After some time, the soldiers gave in to the demands of the crowd and Mousa was released.

Organizers of the protest asserted that they will continue to carry on their peaceful protests until they have achieved their ultimate goal, ending the occupation and gaining their freedom.