After 18 years in detention, a Palestinian prisoner quarrels himself away from family

Atef Douglas-Nablus

There is no bouquet of flowers, no sweets sprinkled right and left, nor a reception as is usually the Palestinians' joy in releasing their prisoners from the occupation prisons, but a remote meeting and examination of the Coronavirus, and was transferred by ambulance to the prisoner's hometown, and then quarantine for fourteen days.

Thus the liberated prisoner, Tariq Dawla, 47, from Nablus, chose the method of his release and planned it a few days ago from inside his detention room in the Israeli occupation prisons to avoid the Corona virus, as he saw that another two weeks in the distance from the family did not diminish his freedom.

In the face of the appearance of the Corona pandemic to the public, many manifestations disappeared among the Palestinians, including the celebration of the liberation of the prisoners, and congratulations are limited to phone calls and through the communication sites, and the prisoners' initiatives with stone themselves received a popular and official welcome.

With strict measures, the prisoner Preventive Medicine Agency received a state and other prisoners on Tuesday afternoon at the Dhahria checkpoint near the city of Hebron, in the south of the West Bank. He was examined by Corona according to the established procedures, then he was transported by ambulance to his hometown in Nablus.

Self-initiative
Days before his release, the prisoner announced a state of his initiative to stone himself away from his family and limit himself to simple manifestations of reception to ward off harm to the citizens, and he says that he spent nearly half his life in detention to protect his people and now isolates himself to the same goal, "the struggle is not only with a gun."

Whereas, he was received at the headquarters of Nablus Governorate and from a limited number of personalities and citizens, the prisoner did not leave the state of the ambulance and from a distance he answered his father, peace and spoke to the media before he set out to his mother’s grave, which he died in prison and put a wreath of flowers and then left for his isolation.

Wearing his muzzle and wearing a Palestinian keffiyeh over his shoulders, he says that his joy in freedom is great, but that greater freedom will be for the recovery of his country and homeland from the "epidemic of Corona and the occupation epidemic."

The prisoner carried a state in his pocket with the message of the prisoners and told Al-Jazeera Net that since the announcement of the epidemic and recklessness the master of the situation in the prisons administration dealt with the prisoners, as they refuse to introduce methods of protection from sterilizers, gloves and masks for them.

Prisoners make their masks
He said that the prisoners are now making their masks with their own hands, and that there are others - especially those who are released - that they obtain in one way or another from the prison clinic. Protection.

He launched a state letter to the human rights institutions concerned with prisoners and global health institutions, and who he called the influential bodies to save the prisoners, especially the sick ones and the elderly, and said that there is no longer any justification for not releasing them, "either that Israel will treat them or release them."

In response to the occupation’s disregard for dealing with detainees under Corona, the prisoners are refusing to go to the prison clinic to receive treatment, as the occupation does not observe public safety measures from the virus, as is the case of the prisoner, Saleh Abu Makh, who has been imprisoned for 35 years and who is reviewing the prison clinic three times a day to take an insulin injection.

Close to five thousand prisoners are held in the occupation prisons, among them 41 female prisoners, 180 children and 430 administrative detainees. In addition, seven hundred sick prisoners, including 16 prisoners, are held in the Ramla prison clinic or "slaughterhouse" as the prisoners call it.

The occupation is not satisfied with refusing to provide the means to protect against the Corona virus, but is intransigent in releasing them, especially the patients, children, and the elderly, whose rulings are nearing completion and are estimated at about 1500 prisoners, according to the ability of Fares, the president of the Palestinian Prisoner Club, and he says that releasing them reduces the overcrowding in prisons and thus prevents the spread of prisons Infection between prisoners.

repressive measures
Fares adds to Al-Jazeera Net that the occupation responded to their demands to release these prisoners by arresting 357 Palestinians last March, including 48 children, and to impose "punitive" measures against the prisoners, including the withdrawal of the "cantina" (prison shop) necessary cleaners and sterilizers.

All that the Prison Administration did was that it stopped all visits by the family and lawyers to the prisoners and postponed all their courts. After pressures, prisoners of prisoners in Megiddo Prison and others in Ofer Military Prison near Ramallah were found after it was found that a prisoner was infected with the Corona virus after being released from there.

He said that the prison administration isolated only nine prisoners who were in contact with the injured prisoner, and that the examination was limited to taking their temperature without taking samples from them.

Fares called for the necessity of examining all prisoners in all sections of Ofer Prison, and that the prisoners should not leave their place of work for two weeks, and called on the prisoners to reduce the level of friction with the wardens, such as conducting a census in each room via cameras, and that the examination of the windows from outside without the prisoners enter the rooms.

As if history repeats itself by event and timing, during the Israeli invasion of Nablus in April 2002, Tariq Dawla was arrested and nobody knew of his arrest until he discovered his name on the lists of the International Committee of the Red Cross after a while.

It is the same silent scenario that is now being repeated with the release of the Corona pandemic, as the celebration manifested except for a sign in his name and some pictures of the captive were hung at the entrance to his house on the northern mountain in his city of Nablus.