In the month of Ramadan in 1987, the sound of Tarawih prayers in central Gaza gave the Palestinian prisoners in Saraya prison a lot of hope, and broke the monotony of their usual days in prison. However, there are those who find in the sound of prayers and the loudness of the call to prayer an opportunity to extract more than hope. They were six prisoners who used the sound of prayer to drown out the sound of the iron guard "deploying" on the bathroom window of Room 7 in Section B on the second floor of the prison. Indeed, the six prisoners worked for seven days to cut the iron of the small net, and then were able to get out with their slender bodies from its small hole in the early hours of the morning of Friday 17 May of the same year.
This incident remained one of the most famous incidents of Palestinian prisoners escaping from the Israeli occupation prisons over the years of the Palestinian struggle, until it was brought back to memory these days by the success of six Palestinian prisoners in escaping from the high-security Gilboa prison on September 6. At a time when it was believed that the technological equipment and equipment that fortified Israeli prisons would prevent escapes at the present time.
However, the most important thing is what followed the "Freedom Tunnel" operation, as the Palestinians call it, as the incident that came months after the outbreak of the Sheikh Jarrah file, the settlements and the Gaza war did not create Arab momentum that boosted interest in the Palestinian cause after it had subsided during the past decade, but rather created a situation among the Palestinians. A new interest in the freedom of detainees and prisoners, who previously lost interest in them under the weight of the belief that it is impossible to struggle behind bars. Once again, the prisoners and detainees returned to the fore with their names after they had been mere numbers for years, and the story of each of them returned with its personal details.
Despite the arrest of all the prisoners who were freed from prison restrictions, and Tel Aviv’s revenge on them with repression and abuse, it is certain that the occupying state lost a lot during this tour, after Palestinian, Arab and international attention brought the prisoners’ issue back into the spotlight, as if the year 2021 refuses to end without it returning. Life to the Palestinian cause with all its pillars, from the prisoners in the prisons of the occupation to the rockets of the invading resistance, and from the homes of the Palestinians in the West Bank to the Arabs of 48 at home.
Occupation prisons after the Freedom Tunnel
Imad al-Din al-Saftawi, 58, was one of the prisoners of the "Great Escape" operation from Saraya prison in 1987, and he said in an interview with the "Midan" website that the decision to escape from prison is a dangerous decision, because the prisoner is at every stage of planning. He is threatened by any mistake that will destroy his entire plan, and the danger continues after his escape and the repercussions that follow on the fugitive prisoner and the total number of prisoners remaining behind bars in general. Al-Saftawi, who was re-arrested in 2000 and released on December 12, 2018, says that after each escape attempt, the Israeli prison administration practices various types of revenge against the prisoners through severe repression and disturbing the usual situation inside the prison, in order to spread repressive messages that they are not It is still in control, and out of a desire to deter the temptation to escape inside the prisons.
Al-Saftawi, with whom we spoke after he ended contact with some prisoners inside the occupation prisons, states that the prisoners with heavy sentences are convinced of the principle “I get out (run away) today and die tomorrow (tomorrow) and do not stay in prison”, as their fate in the end is linked to a prisoner exchange deal It may not come, and therefore obtaining even one day of freedom is better than surrendering completely to the prisons of the occupation. For his part, "Nahed Al-Fakhoury", director of the "Prisoners Information Office", says that Operation "Freedom Tunnel"It caused a major breach in the severe security system of the occupation, and prompted the Israeli Prison Administration and the security forces behind it to pour out its anger on the prisoners, in an attempt to cast its failure on them and hold them responsible for the escape process. They were transferred from Section 3 in Gilboa Prison (north) to Shata Prison (next to Gilboa Prison), numbering about 90 prisoners, to be severely beaten and abused.
According to Al-Fakhouri, the occupation launched an unprecedented violent attack that included extensive movement, closing prison facilities such as the library and the canteen (the prison canteen), reducing the hours of going out to the squares, and confiscating some of the prisoners' belongings. The most dangerous of all is the dissolution of the occupation by the Palestinian organizations that organized life inside the prison, in addition to distributing the prisoners of the "Islamic Jihad" movement, to which the majority of the fugitive prisoners belong, in separate prisons.
Although the Israeli occupation does not need an incident or a security gap inside prisons or any other justification to start the series of repression against the movement of prisoners, since the first moment of Operation “Freedom Tunnel,” says Amina Al-Taweel, spokesman for the Palestine Prisoners Center for Studies, It was expected that the prison administration would start implementing a series of severe penalties on prisoners, such as tightening guard and intensifying daily security checks, and then isolating and separating through movement in the ranks of prisoners to prevent them from being settled in one room, as well as withdrawing dozens of items from the canteen and imposing heavy fines with tightly preventing them. Communication with the outside world.
What do prisoners have inside prisons?
The rapid Israeli arbitrary measures prompted the prisoners’ movement to take an advanced step to defend the prisoners, the most prominent of which was the announcement by the movement’s officials that the jailers, prison directors and the Israeli officers who carried out the attacks had become the targets of the prisoners, which means that each prisoner has the right to deal with the jailer who targets the prisoners in the way he sees fit. According to what the director of the "Prisoners' Information Office" Nahid al-Fakhouri told us, it is an escalation aimed at mobilizing inside prisons as well as increasing pressure on the Israelis. Al-Fakhouri added to Meydan that this step comes before the major strategic step represented in the open strike inside the occupation prisons, which will take place soon in the event that the prison administration does not respond to the prisoners’ demands and insists on punishment, as the prisoners prepared a plan for the strike, and there is even a handwritten notice sent The prison administration is about to start a strike.
Al-Fakhouri notes that the power cards on which the prisoners rely in these movements are embodied in the first place in their steadfastness, determination, and determination to extract their rights at all costs, stressing that they can force their Israeli jailers to retreat and achieve gains from behind bars. We can note through the history of the captive movement, in which about 260 prisoners sacrificed their lives to extract their rights, that improving the life conditions of prisoners was usually achieved through an open hunger strike battle in prisons. Dignity”, in which the captive movement was able to force the occupation to install a public phone inside prisons in order to communicate with their families, in addition to a number of demands, most notably ending the policies of isolation and administrative detention, and a group of demands related to facilitating visits to their relatives.
Amina al-Taweel, also a liberated prisoner, adds that the occupation will explode on many fronts sooner or later because of what is happening inside the prisons: There will be escalating fronts in the West Bank, Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, and among the prisoners themselves, which is a very costly matter financially, security and psychologically.”
In addition, the occupation fears that its prestige will fall in front of its citizens if it retracts its penalties and descends from the tree as if someone burying his head in the dirt, which is rejected by the current government and the prison administration, especially after the disgrace that has already befallen Israel as a result of the relative success of the Palestinian resistance in overcoming the Iron Dome during The last war, and what led to the fall of a future government like that of Netanyahu.
Amina Al-Taweel adds that the situation has reached the point of the occupation trying to delude the prisoners that it will try to ease the penalties and gradually return to the facilities if they remain calm: “But this is rejected by the captive movement now, as they are tired of those promises, and since 2014 they have been subjected to more restrictions with the beginning of each year ".
Palestinian prisoners in the spotlight
As of June 30, 2021, there are about 4,850 prisoners inside the occupation prisons, including 41 female prisoners, 225 children and minors, and 540 administrative detainees. The escalating solidarity with these prisoners following the recent escape is creating a state of tension and anxiety that has reached the highest political levels in the occupying country, just as the pressure of international public opinion in solidarity with the case of Sheikh Jarrah did. Majed Al-Arouri, a human rights researcher, believes that the prisoners have great power today because of the widespread state of sympathy for their causes, which was reinforced by the Internet and the means of communication.
Al-Arouri believes that this sympathy for the prisoners that Israel is currently facing is relatively new, which explains the retaliatory measures on its part, as in the past, demand issues such as salaries and visits dominated the political issues of prisoners, but now it seems that “the theory of focusing on the material demands of prisoners has collapsed after The recent escape incident, and that there is a qualitative development in the public's view of the prisoners, which the Israeli authorities are aware of."
Al-Fakhouri adds that there are more strengths in the prisoners’ file, and that it derives its strength from the national consensus on it from all factions and from various segments of the Palestinian people. taken against them, and another factor is the Israeli fears of an explosion in the situation in the West Bank, the occupied interior and Gaza, as the state of congestion outside the prisons may push the occupying power to think carefully before taking any new punitive measures; For fear of slipping into the scenario of last summer, especially at home, when the Arabs of 48 rose up in an unprecedented manner for many years.
Amina Al-Taweel describes the situation inside the prisons, saying that the prisoners are betting on their steadfastness first, and on the national and popular solidarity with them, and that they are talking today to the occupation with a “mouth full” because they believe that the resistance is behind them, and adds: “The presence of a local, Arab and international consensus is one of the elements of strength, A large segment of world public opinion today believes that the occupation violates international conventions and norms in dealing with prisoners, and deprives them of their rights guaranteed by international laws.
Ultimately, and at a time when Israel believes that Operation “Freedom Tunnel” is a failure and a major failure of its security services, it is trying to limit the crisis to the scope of the prisoners’ file, but the changes coming from inside and outside prisons pose many challenges that will put the occupying state on a hot plate, And it will restore the momentum that fainted for a while regarding the Palestinian issue after it flared up last summer. As for the Gilboa prisoners, they achieved most of their goals and the goals of their fellow prisoners as soon as they exited that tunnel, which was in fact nothing but a hole in the wall of narratives that the occupation spent many years building. It doesn't matter that they are arrested again now, the battle was not about their personalities anyway.