Arbitrary Arrests

On Sunday we visited the small village of Kufr Ein, not far from Haris, where a man had been arrested and his family did not know where he was being held. The Israeli army had visited the home he shared with his parents on 3 occasions in recent weeks, each time they had ransacked the house overturning furniture. Although they were not specifically looking for the detained man, he was in the house when they visited a 3rd time and they issued him with an order to report to the local security base two days later. They did not give a reason for this order. The next day, Tuesday he left the house to go to work at a local restaurant, the family then received a call from somebody who had seen him getting arrested at a local checkpoint. When we visited the family on Sunday they had not received any more information or heard anything about the arrest from the Israeli authorities. Although there are a number of NGOs that look for prisoners who have been arrested the family did not have his ID number so they were having great difficulty in finding him. It would appear that names mean nothing to the Israeli authorities. Even if the man is released without charge his employer has had to give his job to somebody else.

The next day we were visiting another local village, Az Zawiya when we received a call from a man whose son had been arrested by the Israelis two days ago, and again they had heard nothing about his state or whereabouts. Soldiers had turned up at his son’s house after a family member visiting from the Gaza Strip had been unable to provide the soldiers with a West Bank ID card and had given the name of a relative. When the soldiers became aggressive and began beating the relative, who was 15 years old, neighbours and family members gathered at the house and tried to intervene. The soldiers then proceeded to push, beat and kick the men women and children present. When a female relative carrying a baby tried to stop the beating and was knocked to the ground by the soldiers the man in question protested and was arrested. When his parents tried to stop the arrest the soldiers pointed a gun into the fathers chest and threatened to shoot him.

Since his arrest the family had heard nothing about where he was being held. A member of the family had visited the local security centre and been told that he was being held there. The father of the man along with 8 other elderly relatives wanted to go to the security centre to see if they could find out more about where and how he was. In the hope that an international presence may aid the soldiers capacity for communication the family asked us to go with them to the centre.

While just a few minutes along the settler highway from the village the journey was to prove difficult. There are two highways that cut across the land that belongs to the village. What is left is a small strip accessible only by crossing through a tunnel used to collect rain water underneath the highway (Palestinians are not allowed to use the highway) and walking several kilometres along dirt tracks. This means that villagers can not bring animals or vehicles to their fields making it virtually impossible to farm their land.

So after crossing through the tunnel and walking for half an hour across the small strip of land between the two settler highways we were met by two soldiers who had come down from the highway to see what we were doing. They took the ID cards from the Palestinians and tried to tell us to go back as there was nobody held at the base and they could not find any information out about the man. They then told us to climb up the steep hillside to their tent beside the highway. I found the climb hard enough and felt awful that these elderly men and women were being made to scramble up the side of a hill by soldiers who looked no older than 18. Once at the top the soldiers made a few calls and another 3 soldiers

arrived. Again they said they could not help and we would have to go back to the village. While they weren’t aggressive the soldiers were short and dismissive. The power they held over the Palestinians was clear, they told them where to stand, sit, move and when to speak. I found this hard to watch considering the soldiers were not only three or four times younger than the Palestinians but also because their presence, as Israeli occupying soldiers on Palestinian land, was illegal. At one point one of the soldiers tripped over her bag and fell backwards. While I thought to myself good it serves her right, the Palestinian women tried to get to their feet to help her despite the wrongs that have been done to them.

After a number of calls by the soldiers we were told that the man was being held in one of the surrounding settlements. We returned with the family to their house. While there we met the wife of the arrested man who is pregnant with their fourth child, she was clearly very distressed that the family had been unable to track him down. After a number of phone calls the man was eventually traced. After the family hired a lawyer the Israelis agreed to release the man for the sum of 2500 shekels (£400), this is a very large sum considering the average monthly income in the area is 500 shekels. The next evening after a number of delays the man was finally released to his family on payment of the fine (what he was fined for has not been disclosed by the Israelis). Following his release he reported that he was severely beaten during his imprisonment, as a result of the injuries he sustained he was taken to a prison hospital while being held, no medical report about his injuries has been released.