Ramallah -

The bloody events of the Negev prison, which date back to October 21, 2007, are still engraved in the memory of the former Palestinian prisoner, Sufyan Jamjoum, from the city of Hebron (south of the West Bank).

On that day, the prison in the Negev desert (south of the country) witnessed the widest wave of Israeli violence against Palestinian prisoners, during which a prisoner was martyred and hundreds were injured as a result of the Israeli forces’ attack on them, which prompted the prisoners to respond by burning two sections of the prison.


Negev incident

At the time, Jamjoom had a "hard" foot injury, while he was under administrative detention by military order without charge or a release date. This was the next arrest for his temporary freedom after a 13-year prison sentence.

Jamjoom tells Al Jazeera Net the incident of prisoners resorting to burning their sections in the Negev prison on October 21, 2007, and says, "A large force of the occupation army and the (Israeli) Prisons Authority tried to storm the prison to conduct a strict night search, and the section I was in was attacked, so I confronted them. Intense resistance from the prisoners led to an escalation of events in the prison in general.

The forces of repression were "heavily armed, as Jamjoom said, and the prisoner Muhammad al-Ashqar, from the village of Sidon in Tulkarm Governorate (northern West Bank), was martyred on that day. Events erupted and the sounds of the takbeer rose, and the prison administration was unable to control the situation.

At this time, "the section we are in and another section next to" was burned, says Jamjoum, and flames rose and came on tents, mattresses and blankets, and the prisoners - including hundreds of injured - were transferred to cells and other sections without treatment.

Israeli repression units stormed one of the prisoners' sections in Ofer Prison in January 2019 (Israel Prison Service)

Repression and retaliation

The events of October 2007 were not the first and not the last in the confrontations between Palestinian detainees and their jailers, although the method of burning the sections causes losses and injuries among the prisoners, but it is a stark expression of the proverb "me and my enemies."

On March 18, 2019, prisoners burned 13 rooms inside Raymond Prison (south) in protest against the installation of jamming devices in order to disable cell phones smuggled to prisoners, during which a number of them suffered burns and cases of gas suffocation, and the burning of rooms led the occupation to reverse its plan.

On March 26, 2020, prisoner Ayman Al-Sharbati (from Jerusalem) set fire to the guard room in Nafha Prison, protesting against the policy of neglecting prisoners and the infringement of their rights.

Yesterday, Wednesday, a state of great alert prevailed in the Negev prison after the prisoners set fire to Section 6, in response to the repression and abuse carried out by the prison administration against them after 6 detainees escaped from Gilboa prison.

The Palestinian Prisoners Club reported that the prisoners in Section 7 of Raymond Prison also burned rooms in the prison, in refusal to continue the oppression and abuse against them.

And if some of the fires are caused by the prisoners, there are fires outside their control, such as the fire of Megiddo Prison (in the center of the country) on January 17, 2005, which killed the prisoner Rasem Ghara (27 years), from the town of Kafr Malik in the Ramallah governorate, and was the result of an electrical short. .


collective punishments

Immediately after the announcement of the escape of 6 Palestinian prisoners from the Israeli Gilboa prison last Monday, the occupation prison authorities began a series of collective punishments inside prisons, and against the families of some prisoners, according to Palestinian sources.

The penalties extended to achievements that were originally rights of prisoners that they obtained after battles and hunger strikes, including factional representation, abolishing the “cantina” (a grocery store from which prisoners buy their needs), and reducing the “fuora” (the period of going out to the prison yard), all of which are reasons that led to the escalation inside prisons.

Fouad Al-Khuffash: A deterrent, provocative and feasible way to respond to the serious violations against prisoners (Al-Jazeera Net)

Why burn rooms?

The question here: Why do Palestinian prisoners resort to burning their rooms, tents, or cells in Israeli prisons?

The answer: It is a deterrent, provocative and useful means in responding to the serious violations against them, according to researcher Fouad Al-Khuffash, director of the Ahrar Center for Prisoner Studies, which is closed by an Israeli decision.

Al-Khuffash added that the prisoners inside the prisons have different forms of resistance and protest steps in response to the violations and practices of the Prisons Authority.

He explains that the steps have classifications that depend on the seriousness of what they are exposed to. The simple daily violations are responded to by the prisoners by returning meals and refusing to stop at their daily counting time.

As for major violations, such as the isolation of prisoners or the escalation of administrative detention, the response to them is a long hunger strike.

But when the violation is “serious” and crosses the red lines, and the captive movement wants to deliver strict messages of protest to the prison administrations, the prisoners resort to options, including: dissolving the organization (a committee representing the prisoners of each Palestinian faction, such as Hamas prisoners and Fatah prisoners...), and “after that, no one is responsible for any prisoner.

The dissolution of the organization causes confusion to prison administrations, and may push any prisoner to do any work, and this is what happened in Gilboa prison when the prisoner, Malek Hamed, threw one of the warders with hot water last Tuesday.

The other option is if the violations escalate - Khuffash says - "burning the rooms, including them and those in them, and this provokes prison administrations, and it is a form of advanced protest."

Prisoners resort to it if their dignity is transgressed, as happened in recent days when prison administrations tried to take revenge on the prisoners of the Islamic Jihad movement and divide them individually among the rest of the prisoners' rooms after a group of them succeeded in escaping.

Researcher Al-Khuffash says that prison authorities set penalties for prisoners in such cases, but in return they submit to prison administrations their demands.

The number of Palestinian prisoners at the end of last August was estimated at 4,650 prisoners, who are languishing in 23 Israeli prisons and detention and investigation centers, including 40 female prisoners, about 200 minors, and 520 administrative detainees, according to a report by the Palestinian Prisoners Club.