palestine

On May 14 over 2000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails ended their hunger strike after periods varying from 28 to 77 days. This decision to end their strike came after an agreement was reached between the Israel Prison Service (IPS) and the Palestinian committee in charge of prisoner affairs to ensure the basic rights of prisoners would be met.

The agreement came a day before the 64th Nakba Day on May 15, an annual day of commemoration of the ethnic cleansing of hundreds of Palestinian villages and cities following the Israeli Declaration of Independence in 1948.

The agreement consisted of five main provisions:

The prisoners would end their hunger strike following the signing of the agreement; there will be an end to the use of long-term isolation of prisoners for “security” reasons, and the 19 prisoners [currently in isolation] will be moved out of isolation within 72 hours; family visits for first degree relatives to prisoners from the Gaza Strip and for families from the West Bank who have been denied visits based on vague “security reasons” will be reinstated within one month; the Israeli intelligence agency guarantees that there will be a committee formed to facilitate meetings between the IPS and prisoners in order to improve their daily conditions; there will be no new administrative detention orders or renewals of administrative detention orders for the 308 Palestinians currently in administrative detention, unless the secret files, upon which administrative detention is based, contain “very serious” information.

Awareness about the hunger strike reached a peak in the days before the agreement was announced. On Facebook there was a huge public display of support as thousands of users changed their profile picture in solidarity with the 2500 Palestinian prisoners. The pictures showed blindfolded Palestinians in prison uniform.

Solidarity on Facebook. Image posted by ‏@tounsiwaftakhir.

Additionally, almost instantaneous updates on the strike were provided on Twitter under the hashtag #PalHunger. Palestinian blogger and activist Linah Al Saafin confirmed that Thaer Halahleh, a prisoner on hunger strike for 77 days, ended his strike following the agreement:

@LinahAlsaafin: BREAKING: #ThaerHalahleh's father just called me; told me Thaer has agreed to end his hunger strike on the morning of 15/5 Tears #PalHunger

Nevertheless, only two days after the agreement there was a general call to continue supporting the hunger strike, because administrative detention had not ended. The director of Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, Sahar Francis, explained in an interview conducted by Electronic Intifada:

The success in this hunger strike doesn’t mean that the problem of the Palestinian political prisoners has reached an end, and they would be now living in perfect conditions, no. As well, the changes with administrative detention — until we get to monitor it on the practical level, we have to wait and see how it would work.

It is now apparent that a number of prisoners have resumed their hunger strike protesting Israel’s continued mistreatment of Palestinian prisoners, such as holding them in isolation.

Learning from the Palestinian hunger strikers: dignity first. Cartoon by Carlos Latuff.

Addameer provides constant updates on Twitter about prisoners. On May 17 it tweeted:

‏@Addameer_ps: Ahmad Sa'adat was taken out of isolation today after over 3 years and moved to Shatta prison

@Addameer_ps: As far as we know, there are at least 4 hunger strikers now: #MohammadTaj, #MahmoudSarsak, #AkramRikhawi & #MohammadAbdelAziz

@Addameer_ps: Because he's still on hunger strike, #MahmoudSarsak is not even guaranteed release date of 22 Aug (next date of judicial review)

An agreement may have been reached, but the Palestinian prisoners will not rest until their demands are met. They are ready to strike again if the agreement's terms are not implemented.

Written by Jummana Kahlout · comments (0) Share: Donate · facebook · twitter · reddit · StumbleUpon · delicious · Instapaper

This year for the first time the Palestinian Festival of Literature, or PalFest, was held in Gaza. Since it was founded in 2008, the festival's aim has been to bring together Palestinian and international authors, and it organises public events in the evenings and creative writing workshops for Palestinian students during the day.

According to the festival's founder, Egyptian novelist Ahdaf Soueif, having the festival in Gaza has been the ultimate goal of the event since it began, but it has always faced tremendous difficulties in getting permits for the participating authors to come through the Rafah Crossing. This year they were successful at last, and a group of about forty Egyptian, Tunisian, Sudanese and Palestinian authors, artists and activists were granted permission to visit Gaza and participate in PalFest 2012 from May 5 to 10.

Books donated to PalFest Gaza. Image by PalFest on Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0).

Workshops

The first day of the event, May 6, was dedicated to workshops at three universities: Al Aqsa University, Al Azhar University and the Islamic Univeristy. As blogger Nader Khuzundar described:

The events kicked off by holding two workshops at both Al Azhar and the Islamic University of Gaza on writing and blogging in both Arabic and English. PalFest 2012 authors were astonished by the fact that many students attended the workshops. They were more astonished by the fact that most of the attendees were females.

Palestinian bloggers and tweeps attending PalFest. Image by @tamer_ps and posted by @olanan.

Music and poetry

The next day, May 7, was for a lot of the Palestinians the highlight of the PalFest activities. A four-hour concert took place at Rashad Al Shawa Cultural Theatre, with three Palestinian groups and the Egyptian group Eskenderella.

Palestinian Roba Salibi wrote:

In the following video uploaded by PalFest, Egyptian poet Amin Haddad recites a poem, and Eskenderella performs “Ya Falisteeniya” (O Palestinian):

Egypt and Palestine together

Throughout PalFest there was a strong sense of solidarity between the Palestinians and Egyptians. Palestinian Tamer Hamam commented:

Nour Abed wrote:

#PalHunger

A mass hunger strike by Palestinian prisoners was not forgotten by the participants. Egyptian Samia Jaheen tweeted:

Palestinian blogger Matar wrote:

Egyptian Mahmoud Omar echoed the sentiment:

@_Mahmoud: NOTE: #PalfestGaza is totally consistent with #PalHunger , don't think otherwise.

Egyptian novelist Ahdaf Soueif at the #PalHunger sit-in. Image by PalFest on Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0).

Shutdown

Despite having permission for its events, PalFest attracted the attention of members of the Hamas government. Nader Khuzundar described what happened:

In the last day of PalFest, a session was held in Qasr Al-Basha in the old part of Gaza City. The session included a goodbye performance by Eskenderella as well as speeches, presentations and readings by PalFest authors. The event drifted into [a discussion of] politics and suddenly, the electricity was cut. Everybody thought it was the electricity schedule under which Gaza has been living for years now so they continued the event. Five minutes later, a suspicious movement was noticed by the hall’s entrance then suddenly, the police stormed the hall, confiscated a woman’s camera as she was filming the event and called the event off claiming that there’s no official permit. […] Three hours later, the Chief of Police, his deputy and a colonel in the Interior Ministry visited the hotel. They officially apologized, stating it was an “individual error” and that they have opened an investigation into what happened. They stated that PalFest would always be welcome in Gaza.

Palestinian Saif Al Yazori tweeted:

Blogger Nalan Sarraj wrote:

I want to apologize to the Palfest crew, but it's not my fault my government authority [Hamas] forgot how to love Palestine.

Dr Haidar Eid introducing the closing night of PalFest. Image by PalFest on Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0).

Goodbyes

Palestinian Ebaa Rezeq was sad to see PalFest end:

Egyptian Nariman wrote:

Written by Ola Anan · comments (0) Share: Donate · facebook · twitter · reddit · StumbleUpon · delicious · Instapaper