Ramallah -
On the third anniversary of the martyrdom of his older brother in early 2021, Osama Al-Tamimi was arrested from his home in the town of Deir Nidham, north of Ramallah, and charged with attempting to kill an Israeli settlement after throwing stones at her vehicle on the settlement road that surrounds his village.
During the past 22 months, Ofer Military Court held more than 10 hearings for his trial, which has not yet been decided. The Occupation Prosecution, which demanded a 7-year prison sentence, also demanded a fine of $56,000 to pay compensation to the settler who was injured, which the family absolutely rejects, according to the father’s father. The Captive, Firas Al-Tamimi.
Al-Tamimi says to Al-Jazeera Net: "This settlement cannot be accepted under any circumstances. This is a betrayal of my captive son and his sacrifices."
In comparison, Al-Tamimi the father talks about the martyrdom of his eldest son, “Musab” in 2018, who was not yet 17 years old, and how the family, in cooperation with an Israeli human rights institution, filed a case with the Israeli court to prosecute the soldiers who shot at him even though he did not pose a threat to them, The Israeli court rejected it, on the grounds that the killing of the "teenager" was out of necessity justified by law.
Regarding the family's fears of holding Osama for additional years for not paying the fine, the father said: "We are dealing with enemies who can reverse his release for any other reason, but this does not mean that we compensate the settlers who stole our land."
The injured settler lives in the settlement of Halamish, which the occupation confiscated two thousand dunums of the lands of Deir Nidham village to build, including the lands of the Al-Asir Al-Tamimi family.
The position of the Tamimi family may not coincide with the positions of all the families of the prisoners, who seek to reduce prison sentences for their children, especially those who face not high sentences, which made the Palestinian institutions that follow up on prisoners’ cases announce their refusal to pay these fines.
fines and compensation
These fines take two forms. The first is what the family of the prisoner al-Tamimi refused, which is direct compensation to the settler affected by the process with which the prisoner is accused, through a bilateral agreement between him and the prisoner’s family, which in turn pays sums of money in exchange for his waiver as a result of his injury or damage to his property, including vehicles or homes.
The second is that the court imposes sums of money on the captive, especially prisoners who are proven to have carried out operations that result in deaths or injuries of settlers and other occupation soldiers, and these fines are replaced by additional detention periods, if simple.
If the phenomenon of financial settlements between residents and settlers is new, the imposition of fines along with sentences issued against prisoners is not the case.
It began dramatically during the second intifada, but doubled to reach very high amounts, as in the ruling of the prisoner, Assem al-Barghouti, issued in 2020 with 4 life imprisonment and a fine of $4.5 million.
The head of the Palestinian Prisoners Club, Qaddoura Fares, told Al-Jazeera Net, "So far, there has been disregard on the part of the people in dealing with these fines, but we read them in contexts that are more dangerous than they seem now."
Fares details that there is a tendency in the occupation to impose these fines on every Palestinian prisoner, especially prisoners who are sentenced to high life sentences, wondering, "What is the reason for them if Israel knows that the prisoners' families will not pay them, which leads us to suspect another scheme in the coming years? ".
This scheme is for the occupation authorities to force the prisoners and their families to pay these fines by seizing their properties in the West Bank - homes, real estate and land - and selling them at a public auction to settlers.
He continued, "In terms of force, this scenario is the closest to reality. From our experience in dealing with the occupation and its courts, we are well aware that there is a goal in these fines, even if it is long-term."
Fares considered that what increased the greed of the occupation and settlers in imposing these fines and exaggerating them is the people's abuse of them and their recent acquiescence to the settlers' financial demands, and this is what made the official Palestinian institutions announce their public rejecting position.
President of the Palestinian Prisoner Club Qaddoura Fares: There is a tendency for the occupation to impose these fines on every Palestinian prisoner (Al-Jazeera Net)
refusal and boycott
And not only the refusal. During a meeting that brought together these institutions - the Palestinian Prisoner’s Club, the High Commission for the Follow-up of Prisoners’ Affairs and the Addameer Foundation for Prisoners’ Care and Human Rights - the institutions announced a boycott of the follow-up of the files of prisoners whose families make a financial settlement with settlers, and the termination of contracts with lawyers who follow up on these settlements.
According to Fares, these limitations will not be exceeded, as "the occupation will go further in this phenomenon if it feels a Palestinian response, which is what makes us move to confront it."
Perhaps what raised the alarm for these institutions was the recommendation that the occupation court attached to the ruling against the child prisoner - when he was arrested - Ayham Al-Sabah, from the town of Beitunia, west of Ramallah, that the state should act immediately to meet the financial fine imposed on him.
Al-Sabah was arrested in 2016 on charges of participating in a stabbing attack in a settlement near Ramallah, during which a settler was killed and another wounded.
He was only 14 years old at the time.
During the operation, Al-Sabah was seriously injured, and after months of treatment, his 3-year trial began. A 35-year prison sentence was issued with a fine of more than 350 thousand dollars.
His father, Bassem Al-Sabah, told Al-Jazeera Net: "During the trial, we tried to prove the seriousness of Ayham's injury and that the shooting at him was with the intention of executing him, and that he was a minor child, but the Israeli court did not take all of that."
The family’s biggest surprise was his retrial months after the verdict was pronounced, specifically after he completed the age of 18, and he was sentenced to security life imprisonment - that is, for life - and to fix the financial fine, which the court demanded from the "state" to work to fulfill.
The family tried to appeal the verdict and the fine again through the intervention of human rights organizations and other international organizations that follow up on children's cases, but the court rejected the appeal and confirmed the verdict.
Despite the court's insistence on imposing a heavy fine on any of them, his family refuses to deal with it: "The arrest is imposed on us and we have no power to confront it, but we will not accept paying the fine, whatever the circumstances."
Israeli double laws
Legally, the Israeli occupation, when considering prisoners’ cases, attempts to impose the maximum penalty determined by the law, in addition to dropping criteria that are adopted in Israeli civil law, such as the trial of children and mitigating circumstances in the case of injuries and risk of death.
However, in the military law under which the Palestinian prisoners are tried, all these facts are not taken into account, as happened with the child Al-Sabah, according to the lawyer following his case, Salih Mahamid.
Mahamid, during his speech to Al Jazeera Net, explains that this duplication of Israeli laws also applies to fines, which are intended to compensate. In the Israeli civil law, a higher ceiling is set that does not exceed 50 thousand dollars, while in military law it is not specified and the higher ceiling remains open to the assessments of judges, who have become In recent years they overestimate their value.
Mahamid said that the exaggeration in determining the value of the fines is intended to create a state of deterrence among the Palestinians, and to put more pressure on the families of the prisoners.