Nafha prison is a maximum security Israeli prison, located in the middle of the Negev desert, approximately three hours south of Jerusalem. There are 640 Palestinian political prisoners serving long prison sentences, 300 of them for life. Although international law prohibits the transfer of Palestinians to Israeli prisons outside the Occupied Territory, Israel continues to hold all 4000 Palestinian prisoners including the Nafha prisoners inside Israel.
Around half of the Palestinian prisoners in Nafha are from Gaza, 130 from the Hebron and Bethlehem area, 50 from Jerusalem, 40 from Ramallah and 30 from the Northern West Bank. There are also prisoners from outside Palestine -10 Jordanians, 4 Syrians, 1 Sudanese, 1 Lebanese and 1 Iraqi.
On August 5, 1997, I met with several Palestinian prisoners in Nafha. The Nafha prisoners discussed their disappointment with the Oslo Agreements because of its failure to ensure a complete prisoner release. The prisoners believe that the Oslo negotiators committed a grave mistake when they defined the prisoner issue as a humanitarian one instead of placing it in the political sphere where it truly belongs. As with most bilateral agreements between two warring people, release of prisoners is generally the first step in implementing “peace”. Indeed, Nelson Mandela conditioned the signing of the agreement with the white South African government on the release of all political prisoners imprisoned during the struggle to end apartheid.
In 1992, Palestinian prisoners staged a dramatic hunger strike and obtained several improvements in their conditions. Since the Netanyahu government stepped into power, many of these rights have been withdrawn in Nafha and the prisoners’ situation has declined dramatically. The Israeli prison administration has resorted to using penal sanctions against the prisoners escalating the hostile atmosphere in the prison. As one prisoner stated, “The political situation outside always affects our conditions inside.”
Worsening of Conditions at Nafha Prison:
For example, the prisoners are forced to eat all their meals in their crowded cells creating sanitary problems. Random searches are conducted at all hours of the night. In addition, after the 1992 strike the prisoners began receiving special visits - which allowed the prisoner and his family 45 minutes to sit together in a room. Normally, family visits take place with the prisoner behind a metal screen. Children under ten years old are handed over to the prisoner by a warden and the prisoner is allowed five minutes to hug his child. Now these special visits have been stopped completely.
After the strike, the Israelis agreed to allow the prisoners to receive periodicals published in Israel, but now the Nafha prison administration has reneged on this. All magazines and newspapers critical of the Oslo Agreements are banned from the prisoners.
Furthermore, whereas Israeli criminal prisoners are allowed to telephone their families at will, all Palestinian security prisoners including those serving life or long-term sentences are prohibited entirely from using the telephone, except on the occurrence of a death in the family.
In addition to the above hardships, the Israeli prison administration has prohibited the prisoners from taking correspondence courses at any university other than Tel Aviv Open University. This is causing severe hardship on the prisoners, since most of them do not know Hebrew, and the course of study at Tel Aviv is limited and more expensive than others. In the past the prisoners were able to study at the Al-Quds Open University in Jerusalem or with several universities abroad. Located in the desert, restricted to family visits twice a month, these correspondence courses provided an important intellectual outlet for the prisoners. Preventing them from studying is considered by the prisoners as another aggressive move by the Israelis aimed at worsening their conditions.
The prisoners suggested that since the prisoner issue has been cast aside by the Oslo process, Palestinian human rights organizations should convene a conference on the issue of a full prisoner release. Topics should include discussion of prisoner releases in other areas, legal precedents and the question of the PNA’s mandate to postpone the prisoner release. They also suggested that lawyers involved in prisoner issues should form a committee for the release of the prisoners and recruit foreign lawyers and lawyers’ associations to support their cause.
The four thousand Palestinian prisoners and 460 administrative detainees languishing in nine Israeli prisons are soldiers of the Palestinian people. Many of their leaders and the Oslo negotiators have left them behind, forgetting the prisoners’ sacrifices for the Palestinian struggle. The Oslo process has only worsened their situation, relegating the prisoner release to the back of the line. Indeed, under the current political arrangement, it is unlikely that the prisoners will be released in the next year or two. The question remains whether the Palestinian people are willing to wait this long until they are reunited with their family and comrades.
Return to contents August 1997
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