Palestinian Prisoner's Day... This is how 410 Jerusalem prisoners drank the bitterness of detention and intimidation during arrest and interrogation

Occupied Jerusalem

- "Ahmed Habibi, we all love you, my life";

With these words, the Jerusalemite mother Maysoon Manasra received her captive son Ahmed in the courtroom in the city of Beersheba a few days ago, and Ahmed responded by waving to attend twice before he was led outside the hall.

It took many hours for Ahmed to reach the hall, handcuffed, and for many hours his mother, who was exhausted by the distance, waited to meet him, but the jailer did not care about her pain and longing, and he did not pay any attention to Ahmed, who suffers from a complex psychological condition.

The session was adjourned after Ahmed's case was transferred to the "Third" committee to discuss his early release. His lawyer said that the court had dropped the label "terror file" for this prisoner;

Which will open the door to consider the request for early release.

Ahmad returned to his solitary cell in the isolation ward of Eshel Prison and his mother returned to the family home in Beit Hanina, with complex questions in her mind and unanswered, as well as in 410 homes in Jerusalem where mothers, wives, fathers and children drank the bitterness of the prison journey and courts that are shackled and colored. Brown on her throne forcibly.

A picture showing the arrest of a young man from Bab Al-Amoud a few days ago (Al-Jazeera)

Jerusalem prisoners in prisons

And the commemoration of Palestinian Prisoner’s Day, corresponding to April 17 this year, passes while he is languishing in the occupation prisons, according to the head of the Committee for the Families of Jerusalemite Prisoners, Amjad Abu Asab, 410 prisoners - men and women - of the blue ID holders in Jerusalem, and they are distributed in Ramon prison, Megiddo, Ashkelon, Hadarim and the Negev. And Eshel, Damon, Shatta, Nafha, and Ofer.

The number of Jerusalemite women in prisons is 13;

The youngest of them is the 14-and-a-half-year-old girl, Nafth Hammad, in addition to 40 minors languishing in Damoun and Megiddo prisons. In addition to the sentenced detainees, about 100 detainees at the Al-Maskobiya Interrogation Center, west of Jerusalem, were arrested in connection with the recent events in the city.

The Jerusalemite prisoner, Wael Qassem, is considered the longest prisoner in Jerusalem, as he is serving a sentence of 35 life imprisonment, in addition to 50 years, equivalent to 3,515 years, and the occupation authorities accused him of being responsible for a commando operation that killed 35 Israelis.

The prisoner, Shorouk Dwaiyat, has the longest sentence among the prisoners, as she was sentenced to 16 years in prison after being accused of attempting to carry out a stabbing attack in 2015.

Among the prisoners of Jerusalem, whom Abu Asab was keen to discuss about their health and humanitarian conditions that require their urgent release, the two prisoners, Ahmed Manasra and Ayman Al-Kurd, were mentioned, in addition to the mother, Israa Jaabis.

Amjad Abu Assab: The occupation authorities follow an iron fist policy to intimidate and intimidate prisoners (Al-Jazeera)

In addition to these, Abu Asab said that a group of prisoners whose health condition requires them to take large quantities of medicines, and they suffer from diseases that exacerbate prison conditions, including Alaa Al-Bazian and Ali Dana.

Not far from the ugliness of prisons and the darkness of their cells, Abu Assab spoke about the qualitative change in the nature of arrests and releases in the city of Jerusalem, especially after the martyrdom of the Jerusalemite Muhammad Abu Khdeir in the summer of 2014.

He said that the occupation authorities have since decided to use the policy of the iron fist by applying more force during arrest and investigation to intimidate and intimidate Jerusalemites in preparation for controlling them, because it has been proven through experience that the people of the city had fear taken out of their hearts after the incident of burning this boy.

Consequently, "the Special Forces and the undercover forces deliberately use excessive force during arrest by breaking down the doors of houses, beating their residents severely, and blindfolding the detainees' eyes so that they feel from the first moment of arrest that they are going towards the unknown."

Regarding the reasons for the arrest, Amjad confirmed that those he met at the Al-Maskobiya investigation center during the hours of his arrest last week, were arrested while they were sitting at the Al-Amoud Gate drinking tea and coffee, or they were on their way to pray and observe i'tikaf at Al-Aqsa Mosque.

He stressed that the occupation these days wants to condemn the religious, the observant and the retreating, but rather it wants to condemn the month of Ramadan, because the Jerusalemites are spread in mosques, streets and alleys of Jerusalem until late hours of the night.

The occupation of all this force, according to Abu Asab, aims to create repulsive factors in order to empty Jerusalem so that it can control Al-Aqsa and establish the alleged temple.

The moment the child Ahmed Manasra entered the central courtroom in November 2016 (Al-Jazeera)

Ramadan rituals in prisons

The commemoration of the Palestinian Prisoner’s Day this year coincides with the beginning of the third week of the blessed month of Ramadan, and the holy month has special rituals inside prisons, which he spoke to Al Jazeera Net, the liberated Jerusalemite prisoner Malik Bakirat.

Concerning prayer times and how the prisoners know the dates of fasting and iftar, Bakirat said that they receive a copy of the monthly prayer times from abroad and, in turn, write manual copies of them with the number of department rooms to provide a copy for each room.

In the event that the captive was in isolation, where he was deprived of the simplest personal belongings, Malik said that he used to estimate the time of the call to prayer in appreciation of his time in his solitary cell.

The liberated Jerusalemite prisoner Malik Bakirat: The prisoners are deprived of the simplest personal belongings during the month of Ramadan (Al-Jazeera)

Despite the harsh conditions of detention;

The prisoners insist on following rituals that distinguish the holy month from the rest of the year. They are active in the confectionery industry, which Malik asserted had developed and remained primitive in its development, with the prison authority continuing to prevent the introduction of flour, one of the most important components of the confectionery industry.

"We replaced semolina flour, and we were saving cheese, one piece of which was distributed to each prisoner a week, to make kunafa for the whole department. And our saying that we always consoled each other with is that all that was put on sugar in prison is sweets."

He concluded his speech by saying that the prisoners are preparing for the month of Ramadan with what is available, such as sorting out two food committees, one for preparing breakfast and the other for suhoor. Ramadan.