Gaza -
For the third week in a row, prisoners in the Israeli occupation prisons are engaged in a gradual confrontation that is expected to escalate.
In protest against the punitive measures implemented against them by the so-called "Prisons Authority" under the instructions of the Minister of National Security in the extremist occupation government, Itamar Ben Gvir.
On the fifth of last January, Ben Gvir visited Nafha prison (in the Negev desert), his first since taking office, and its goal was - according to what was announced by a statement issued by his office - "to verify that the conditions of the prisoners will not improve," and he followed it With a series of procedures that worsen the prisoners' reality.
The prisoners responded by announcing "comprehensive mobilization", and on February 14, they began carrying out protests as part of an "escalating struggle programme", which is expected to reach its climax at the beginning of next Ramadan (after two weeks), unless the Prison Service backs down from its measures that directly affect their lives. .
Among the traditional means of protest that the prisoners used in previous confrontations with the occupation prisons authority, it emerged that they invented new methods.
such as night confusion, and wearing the prison uniform known as "shabas".
Al-Naouq: The confrontation inside the occupation prisons is likely to escalate (Al-Jazeera Net)
night confusion
Last Wednesday evening, the prisons witnessed, for the first time, in a unified and simultaneous manner, activities that the Supreme Emergency Committee for Prisoners, composed of all Palestinian forces and factions, called the term "night confusion", which was inspired by the experience of the return marches and breaking the siege in Gaza in 2018, which was characterized by its activities along the security fence. surrounding the Gaza Strip from the eastern side.
At 10 o'clock in the evening of that day, the prisoners mobilized and caused a wide state of noise and disturbance in various prisons, by banging on the doors of rooms and sections, and cooking utensils, and shouts of applause and takbeer, according to what the Ministry of Prisoners and Ex-Prisoners Affairs reported to Al-Jazeera Net, quoting prisoners .
The ministry's spokesman, Montaser Al-Naouq, said - in a statement to Al-Jazeera Net - that the Occupation Prisons Service in the Negev prison faced the activities of night confusion by depriving the prisoners of visiting their families, putting some of them in solitary cells, and depriving them of sports.
Al-Naouq is a freed prisoner who has experienced detention for 3 years, and is in contact with the prisoners through a "secret external channel of communication". He confirmed that the night disturbance activities have had a tangible impact, as a new means of protest for the prisoners who do not stop devising means to confront the injustice they are exposed to.
Regarding the mechanism for implementing these events, Al-Naouq explained that the occupation prison laws prevent prisoners from leaving their rooms after six o'clock in the evening, and the sections that are opened daily are closed at eight o'clock in the morning, so that the prisoners go out to the fora (daily recess), or the medical clinic and courts.
According to Al-Naouq, the selection of the prisoners at ten o'clock was successful, as the prison administration and the guards rested, in a calm atmosphere that the night confusion turned into chaos that provoked the administration, and called for general alert.
For his part, the Director of Studies and Documentation in the "Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs Authority" of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Abdel Nasser Farwana, said - in a statement to Al-Jazeera Net - that the night confusion creates a state of security instability in prisons, and costs the Prisons Authority effort and time in controlling and securing.
The night confusion activities - according to Farwana - and as an innovative method of confrontation, send a message from the prisoners, wearing the "Shabas" uniform, that they are ready to go to great lengths in the confrontation to defend their rights and life gains that they snatched from previous confrontations.
In order to avoid being singled out, and to widen the circle of confusion and chaos, the prisoners depend on carrying out these activities, whether collectively and simultaneously, or room by room, according to Farwana.
Farwana: Night confusion is an innovative method for the prisoners, who were inspired by the Gaza experience (Al-Jazeera Net)
Young men's costume
The Shabbas is the directorate of the Israeli Prisons Service, and the prisoners metaphorically call the uniform that the Directorate provides the detainee with at the moment of his entry into prison, the name of the "Shabbas", which is printed in white on a brown uniform.
As a result of previous confrontations, the prisoners succeeded in extracting the privilege of obtaining regular clothes from their own money, which are provided by the Prison Service inside the "cantina" at exorbitant prices.
The prisoners do not wear this uniform inside their rooms and sections, except for the moment they go out to the square, visit the family, or move to the courts. Farwana believes that the prisoners wearing the "Shabas" uniform is part of the steps of their upward struggle program, a message that states, "We are prisoners and ready to sacrifice everything for our freedom and dignity."
Al-Naouq agrees with Farwana that the youth uniform is a "message of austerity," and the prisoner wants to tell the prison administration, "I am a prisoner and you are obligated to provide all my needs."
Al-Naouq believed that wearing this uniform is an affirmation by the prisoners of "the unity of purpose, position and decision", which is a message of anger at the hostile measures against them, and that they are ready for "a collective and comprehensive confrontation, whatever the price."
The occupation authorities practice systematic repression against thousands of Palestinian prisoners (Al-Jazeera Net)
Ben Gvir Proceedings
The prisoners are heading towards more severe and impactful steps during the current week, as a result of the absence of a real inclination by the Prisons Administration to end the recent procedures and decisions recommended by Ben Gvir, which directly affect their lives and living conditions.
According to what the Ministry of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs quoted from the Supreme Emergency Committee for Prisoners, "These steps will remain in a state of escalation until the start of the open-ended hunger strike on the first of next Ramadan."
The Director of Studies and Documentation at the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Prisoners' Affairs said that the prisoners have a "creative mentality" and implement their struggle program according to a well-studied plan, and the option of an open hunger strike is their last option and represents the peak of confrontation.
The spokesman for the Ministry of Detainees and Ex-Prisoners' Affairs expected an escalation of the struggles of the prisoners in light of Itamar Ben Gvir's insistence on his measures, their widening day after day, and his false claim that "Palestinian prisoners live in exaggerated luxury inside prisons."
Multiple repressive measures have been imposed on the prisoners since Itamar Ben Gvir took office (Al-Jazeera Net)
Al-Naouq outlined the most prominent measures of restriction and punishment taken against the prisoners since Itamar bin Gvir assumed the following:
Controlling the amount of water used by the prisoners, reducing the duration of showers to between two and four minutes only, limiting one hour per day to all, and cutting off hot water from the bathrooms inside the rooms.
Providing prisoners with bad bread, and in some prisons, prisoners were provided with frozen bread, based on Bin Ghfir’s recommendation to the prisons’ bakeries, which before he took over delivered bread to prisoners at 8 am, and now it arrives 3 days after its bread.
Intensification of raids and searches of male and female captives, in an atmosphere of terror, using stun grenades and sniffer dogs.
Patients are denied treatment, and some of them are in need of urgent surgeries.
Doubling solitary confinement, and withdrawing TVs from the sections of the detainees who are in the sections of the so-called "Al-Maabar";
They are special temporary prisons where prisoners are kept for indefinite days during the process of transferring them from one prison to another or to the courts.
Escalating the transfer of captive movement leaders, and life prisoners in particular.
Expanding the scope of the decision to prevent Hamas prisoners from visiting and linking it to the file of Israeli soldiers held by the resistance in Gaza.
Al-Naouq said that there are other measures under implementation, such as restricting exercise, daily leisure hours, buying clothes, withdrawing electrical appliances, reducing television channels, imposing and canceling other channels, as happened during the first war on Gaza in 2009 by completely canceling the Al-Jazeera satellite channel until now, to deprive the prisoners. From following developments in the Palestinian arena.
There are about 4,700 prisoners in the occupation prisons, including about 300 children and 28 women, and hundreds of patients and the elderly.