“Our prisoners are dying,” said Gaza student Khaled Shehab from the Islamic University. “We won't wait until the death of another prisoner to move in solidarity with all the detainees,” he added, joining thousands attending growing demonstrations in the Gaza Strip. It is not lost on young people in Palestine acting in support of Palestinian prisoners that many who have spent years in Israeli jails were their age when they were originally imprisoned. While there has recently been a spotlight on the 219 Palestinian children currently detained by Israel, it is often forgotten that the majority of detainees arrested are young, in their early 20s. Some have spent the entire decade of their 20s removed from their parents, their families and communities, a young person's life defined by Israeli prison walls. Mohamed Al-Adini explained his story late at night in the tent erected outside the Red Cross offices in the Gaza Strip, where some Palestinians were on hunger strike in support of those striking in Israeli prisons. He was arrested aged 20 in June 2003, just short of concluding a two-year office management course at a college in Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza. He was imprisoned for nine years and released in the prisoner swap deal, after which he was able to complete his course at the University of Gaza aged 31. “There were some classes in prison but we were often prevented from going. So we organised our own ‘internal education' where any prisoner with an academic background, such as languages, history and law, would teach the other prisoners. It depended on the cell we were in, but classes were generally around 10 to 12 students. I taught history and Palestinian issues.” Al-Adini knew many students and academics on long-term prison sentences. Yasser Namrouiti visits the solidarity tent in Gaza regularly. He was studying at the Al-Quds University when he was arrested in 1987. He didn't see freedom again until 24 years later when he was released with Al-Adini in the Gilad Shalit swap deal. Karim Younis who remains incarcerated after 31 years, was a student when arrested in 1983 and was attending classes at Ben Gurion University on the day the Israeli army raided his house. He is now a prison representative and the author of two books. His personal and historical writings from prison have reached and inspired many who support him and the other 4,800 Palestinian detainees. Al-Adini does not appear bitter that his education was taken away and is enthusiastic about the rise in student solidarity. “I am so pleased that students in Gaza have rallied around the cause of the prisoners,” said Al-Adini. “They are using different languages to express our cause through Facebook and other media, which is something we have never been able to do before.” Shehab shares Al-Adini's certainty that the youth of Palestine have a crucial role to play in the resistance against occupation, which is why many student leaders have been a target for Israeli arrests and incarceration. “Youth and young people are strongly involved in resistance against occupation. Israel arrests them to stop resistance. They want to destroy the educational life for the students. They are aware that students can expose them and their crimes to the world, especially now that so many are communicating directly to Western audiences.” He cites other Palestinian students from Gaza such as Malaka Mohamed and Shahd Abu Salama whose blogs and reporting on the prisoners in the English language have amassed many followers globally, with frequent updates on individual stories of prisoners and the ordeals and injustices they face. The day after 30-year-old Arafat Jaradat was killed after six days of Israeli detention last Monday, Majeda Sabbah, Shehab and other students immediately organised a demonstration, calling for united support for all Palestinian prisoners. “Arafat didn't just die,” said Sabbah. “He was killed under the systematic torture that takes place in Israeli jails.” “We are here to show our support for all the hunger strikers and all the political prisoners. The sons of Palestine sacrificed their freedom and belief for others, like Samer Issawi who is now in a critical condition after a hunger strike of over six months. We young people in Gaza support them, which is why we mobilised quickly as soon as we heard about Arafat. We can't wait for the parties to move. If we didn't act for a united struggle then no one would.” Most Palestinian families contain someone who has been detained in Israeli jails or is currently incarcerated. “My uncle was a prisoner,” said Shehab. “He spent 25 years in Israeli prisons and was recently freed in the prisoner swap deal. He joked that over time they changed the prison door three times while he remained in the same room.” For relatives of current detainees in Israel, the struggle can never go away. It is a double agony, for those on the inside and those on the outside. The last hunger striker that won his freedom was Akram Rikhawi, who in his ninth year of incarceration refused food for 104 days. “When I was released I could not recognise Samah, my 11-year-old daughter,” Rikhawi told us. Samah was just two-years-old when he had last laid eyes on her. “My wife was allowed to visit me once in that time and my mother also once. I learned of my mother's death on prison radio a month after she passed away.” Al-Adini said that it was being away from his family and friends that hurt most in prison. “I would send letters to my mother. I would tell her that if she wants me to be okay, just smile. Your smile is what gives me strength in what I would tell her.” The fight of the hunger strikers goes on. Samer Issawi, now weighing just 44 kilos, was recently moved to Haifa Hospital after a serious deterioration in his health. Ayman Sharawna was moved to the Soroka Israel Hospital in Beersheba last month, briefly falling into a coma after which for a period he was unable to move, suffering severe pain in several parts of his body. Hana Shalabi, a female detainee released after a 43-day hunger strike in March 2012, was in attendance at Sunday's demonstration and she described to some of the students what Issawi and Sharawna were going through. “I'm sorry for the death of Jaradet, sorry for his family in the West Bank. Sadly, I'm not surprised; this is not a new thing with over 210 prisoners who have been killed in Israeli prisons since 1967. By my experience on hunger strike I feel what they feel. You can't sleep because of the pain; you can't speak, you can't move, there's hair loss, pains in the stomach and joints, you can't see well, there are heart irregularities, palpitations and migraines. Soon your body, like mine, can't accept water.” At the time of writing Issawi and Sharawna are among 178 prisoners who are being held under what Israel defines as “administrative detention”. This open-ended imprisonment without formal charge has been condemned by major international human rights groups. The self-sacrifice of Issawi, Sharawna and other detainees has struck a chord with young people across Palestine who are absorbed in the struggle for life and dignity of the hunger strikers. They want immediate action. “When students and young people become more aware and start writing about Israel's crimes it's a disaster for Israel. We want to deliver our message all over the world. Palestinian prisoners don't enjoy basic human rights or dignity. They're not treated as human beings. We demand the Israeli government release the hunger strikers.”
The writer is a Gaza-based activist with International Action for Palestine and a teacher at Al-Aqsa University.
