Gaza -

During the 10 years spent by the released prisoner, Bahaa El-Din Al-Madhoun, in the prisons of the Israeli occupation, he did not settle in a prison except that the transfer policy pursued by the Prisons Authority affected him to "destabilize stability and disturb the lives of the prisoners."

This policy represents one of the many reasons that led, in earlier times, to the "explosion" of prisons and the launch of massive protests by Palestinian prisoners to thwart them and to preserve the unity and cohesion of the prisoner movement.

Al-Madhoun told Al-Jazeera Net, "This is an old and new policy, and because the occupation authorities realize the value of stability among the prisoners, by adopting movements - whether periodic or sudden - they aim to strike this stability and deprive them of investing the years of detention."

Since the beginning of January, with the extremist minister Itamar Ben Gvir assuming the national security portfolio, the Prison Service has escalated the transfer policy, and institutions concerned with prisoners' issues in the occupation prisons have documented more than 220 cases of prisoners affected by this policy as part of an Israeli plan targeting 2,000 prisoners.

Bahaa El-Din Al-Madhoun: The movement policy is the harshest Israeli measures against prisoners in prisons (Al-Jazeera)

torment trip

"When I was transferred for the first time from one prison to another after I got used to the prisoners and the atmosphere and climate, I felt very distressed. It is a disturbing feeling, as if I was entering prison again for the first time," says Al-Madhoun, who is currently the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Prisoners and Ex-Prisoners in Gaza.

Al-Madhoun moved during the years of his captivity - which extended from 1988 to 1999 - between many prisons, and every time he felt the same feeling of alienation and renewed suffering, and he says, "The suffering also extends to the family, by the occupation deliberately not informing them of the location of the new prison, and their visit fails after they suffer." The trouble of traveling since the early hours of dawn.

The years of Al-Madhoun’s arrest coincided with the first Intifada (1987-1993), and at that time the transfer mechanism was made by suddenly calling the prisoner through loudspeakers, to suddenly prepare himself for transfer to an unknown destination.

The occupation authorities deliberately pursue this mechanism - according to Al-Madhoun - with the aim of "confuse the prisoner, as if they are pushing him into the unknown, and the road from one prison to another is a journey of torment and suffering that may extend for more than 15 hours."

In many cases, the journey may extend for hours or days, as the "Nahshon unit" responsible for the transfer of prisoners deliberately delays their arrival to the designated prison and puts them in the so-called "Maabar", which is like a temporary prison that does not have the most basic necessities of human life, according to Al-Madhoun.

The occupation uses an iron truck that resembles a mobile prison, called Al-Bosta (Al-Jazeera) for the transfer of prisoners.

bosta

The occupation authorities use an iron car as a "mobile prison" called "the busta" in the process of transferring prisoners, whether from one prison to another or from one prison to the court.

Years after his release from prison, Al-Madhoun still remembers this car well, and goes on to describe it as an iron truck with all its internal components, even the seats reserved for prisoners, and its windows are small, and it is covered by an iron grille to block the view, and this truck is divided into 3 sections, separating each of them. Iron cutter, the front section for the driver and his escort, the middle section for the prisoners, and the rear section for the guards.

Al-Madhoun said that the prisoner is exposed during the process of being transferred to all kinds of torture, even physical abuse by the "Nahshon unit", which the prison service laws do not apply to, due to the bad and inhumane treatment of prisoners.

The liberated prisoner, Montaser Al-Naouq, has a special experience inside Al-Bosta that still leaves its mark on his forehead.

Al-Naouq told Al-Jazeera Net that the busta driver - which he describes as "worse than prison" - deliberately drives recklessly to harm the prisoners, "and in one of the 12 transfers that I was subjected to during 3 years of detention in the occupation prisons, I bled from a wound that still affects my forehead." Even today".

Al-Naouq was arrested in the occupation prisons from 2008 until 2011, and he said, "Suddenly, the prison administration informs the prisoner of the decision to transfer him without specifying his destination, and on the specified date, they shackle his hands and legs with iron shackles, and throw him into the busta, on a long journey into the unknown."

An indication that the suffering of the prisoner goes beyond the prisoner himself and extends to his family and relatives. Al-Naouq narrates that the wife of the prisoner Abdullah Al-Barghouti - who is one of the most prominent leaders of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) - called him some time ago, not knowing where they transferred her husband. She continued to worry about him for two months, before it became clear to her that he was in Ashkelon prison.

Liberated prisoner Montaser Al-Naouq: The transfers are a journey of torment for the prisoners, and its impact extends to their families during the visit (Al-Jazeera)

Transfer effects

During the transfer process, the prisoner faces different types of suffering, starting from worrying about his fate, through the theft and confiscation of his personal belongings, and even physical assault on him inside the busta, all the way to a prison where he does not know anyone, to suffer a “period of isolation and instability” that may be prolonged or shortened according to the circumstances of this. Prison, its administration and laws, unless he is one of those with high sentences and has gone through the experience many times and made him a familiar face in all prisons.

Life-life prisoners who are accustomed to forced movement leave a "bag with basic personal necessities" in all prisons, due to their constant feeling of instability, and they have friends and colleagues in various prisons, while Al-Naouq needed 6 months to get to know his new fellow prisoners when he was transferred to Beersheba prison. .

The transfer process is not the same in all cases, and in addition to the sudden transfer that any prisoner is exposed to inside the occupation prisons, there are periodic transfers for prisoners of high sentences, and Al-Naouq says, "After the Freedom Tunnel operation and the prisoners' escape from Gilboa prison, the Prison Service approved a transfer policy for life prisoners from room to room every 4 months, and from one section to another within the same prison every 16 months, and from one prison to another every 32 months.”

Although the prisoners firmly confronted this policy and succeeded in nullifying it to a large extent with respect to the "life prisoners", since Ben Gvir took over the Ministry of National Security in the extremist ruling coalition in Israel a few weeks ago, the prisons are witnessing "a state of anger and boiling" with the tightening of procedures and conditions of detention, the most severe of which Transfer policy, according to Islam Abdo, Director of Information at the Ministry of Prisoners and Ex-Prisoners in Gaza.

Islam Abdo: The occupation has escalated the movement policy since the beginning of this year (Al-Jazeera)

emergency committee

Aware of the seriousness of the plans hatched against them by the extremist Israeli government headed by Benjamin Netanyahu - whose issue was one of the axes of the hard-right parties' negotiations to form the ruling coalition, some of them even demanded the adoption of the death penalty against them - the prisoners initiated the formation of the "Supreme Emergency Committee" to confront these plans.

Abdo told Al-Jazeera Net that this committee includes the leaders of the prisoners from the various forces and organizations, and the prisoners have strength papers for confrontation, "and the prisoner has nothing to lose. The policy of escalating transfers based on Bin Ghafir's orders to abuse the prisoners, confuse their lives and harass them may lead to the explosion of prisons and his transfer to various arenas. ".

There are about 4,700 Palestinian prisoners, including 150 children and 29 women, and hundreds of patients, life sentences and high sentences, according to Palestinian statistics.