Let’s revisit the Israeli raid on Ketziot Prison, please. Two days ago we ran the 2:24 minute Al Jazeera report of Israel’s Channel 2 coverage; but later it came to my attention that a fuller 15:22 minute version of the original video was available thanks to Kate’s List and Noam Sheizaf @ +927.
(For English subtitles, press arrow, then “CC” on the lower-right corner of the player)
This ‘operation’ was intended to be a morale-booster for the elite Israel Prisons Service unit Masada, to “increase morale and motivation” among prison guards. Yet a spokesperson for the Prison Service, Yaron Zamir, later categorized it as “a riot by hundreds of security prisoners…a riot that included the burning of the compound, endangering the lives of the warders”.
I urge everyone to watch the entire episode.
Vile humiliating language including degrading laughter paints a shockingly vivid portrait of a mind frame one may find hard to otherwise conceptualize without seeing and hearing it yourself. And when you’re done, read excerpts of Gideon Levy’s ’07 Haaretz article (yes, Levy was way ahead of others, as usual) below about the violent attack on Mohammed Ashkar that took place during that operation, and my own comments/questions about his killing.
Mohammed Ashkar, severely wounded, was transferred unconscious to a hospital where he was handcuffed to his bed and died, still manacled to his bedpost. His father Sati and his brother Lo’ai, himself half paralyzed as a result of torture at the hands of Shin Bet, would not ever see Mohammed alive again because they were not allowed to enter Israel. Mohammed’s mother and his wife reached the hospital after being delayed for two hours at the checkpoint. Levy reports:
The door of Mohammed’s room in the hospital was closed; two policemen stood guard next to it. Each relative was given five minutes to visit. Mohammed’s mother went in first. She relates that her son was unconscious and on life-support. His head and one hand were bandaged, and both hands and both feet were in iron handcuffs. Hijer says she started to tremble and shout: “Why is he handcuffed? Do you really think he will get up and attack you?”
The police, she says, told her she was doing her son harm. After time ran out, she begged to be allowed to stay – “Maybe he will wake up” – but the policemen told her to leave. An hour after they left, the phone call came: Mohammed is dead.
While Yamir from the prison service implies this was a ‘riot’ initiated by the prisoners the video released supports the reports from the prisoners as reported by Levy.
What happened on the night of October 22 in Ketziot prison? Lo’ai has taken testimony from prisoners who have since been released and visited him at home. “Suddenly, at two in the morning, we heard people shouting and sounds of gunfire, and we went out into the yard to see what was going on,” one of the prisoners, Omar Salah, relates. “Everyone who went into the yard was shot at from across the fence. Afterward the forces opened the gate and went through it, shooting at everyone in their way.” “They threw stun grenades at the prison wing,” another prisoner, Majid Salit, says. “When they saw us, they told us to get into the wing. We refused, and they jumped us … When they opened fire at us, we started to throw things at the forces … They kept on shooting until they pushed us into a corner … We all came out crawling on the ground. We were not allowed to look at the forces. Our heads were in the ground. “They chose a group of 10 every time and started to hit them with big truncheons and they got us back into the prison wings. When they got to me, I said I was wounded … They took me to the side and started to hit me with truncheons. They put me into the visitors’ wing, where there were 400 prisoners … We sat there for two hours, bleeding … On the way to the ambulance they hit us, and they also hit us with truncheons when we were in the ambulance.” According to the prisoners, the tents caught fire in the wake of the warders’ gunfire. There was no air in the grossly overcrowded visiting room, Omar Salah relates, and the inmates broke a window so they could breathe. “The forces arrived and started to shoot into the room,” he says. Prisoner Sufian Jamjoum describes the ammunition: “From a distance of one meter a warder shot me in the leg as I was talking to him. His weapon looked like a hunting rifle. It was the first time I ever saw this type of bullet. It was a bullet the size of an egg and there were about 200 small iron bullets inside it … I was left in the tent even though I was bleeding, and afterward I was taken to the visiting room, wounded and bleeding, with another 400 prisoners in a small, closed room.” Salah explained the circumstances of Mohammed Ashkar’s death. “The shahid [martyr] ran and entered his tent. The soldiers went into the tents. Mohammed was next to the door of tent No. 3, on the inside, and the soldier was about one meter away … When the shahid was shot and fell, he was opposite the soldier. I saw him.” Salit: “[Mohammed] stood by the door of our wing and watched what was going on. A masked man from the security forces arrived. He aimed his pistol at his head and shot him. Mohammed collapsed. The other prisoners shouted that he had to be taken to the hospital. They took him only after the tents burned.” .
There is nothing in this just released horrifying video contradicting the depiction of events as related by these prisoners. A later report from Hareetz reported the commander of Ketziot, Shlomi Cohen claimed “I am glad this operation fell to me in Ketziot…..If we manage to surprise the prisoners, all the better. If it is uncovered [beforehand], there will be shouting…..the population is expected to respond in any case.”
This was an attack on prisoners.
The Masada unit, since its founding in 2003 to replace the army and police who previously were called in to quell prison riots, has built an international reputation for riot control. It has developed a variety of controversial, so-called “no-kill” weapons such as the firing of salt pellets that burn the skin and cloth bags with metal balls, intended to injure rioters but not kill them.
Is this a prison, or a laboratory?
After Mohammed’s death the family requested he be returned to them and attempted to prevent the autopsy, but “it quickly turned out that it had already been performed”. What kind of experimental weapons were being used on these prisoners? Why did a witness report he saw the guard lift a pistol and shoot it into Mohammed’s head? Levy reports his brother Lo’ai has a video on his laptop showing “two wounds on the front skull area, a wound on his hand, eyes and mouth wide open”. Why did the guards instigate this raid in the middle of the night armed with lethal weapons? What are the chances the MSM in the US will ever report this story and give it the attention it deserves? Zilch. Mohammed was about to be released. His crime? Being a member of ‘Islamic Jihad’. Well I guess that settles it.
Mohammed Ashkar, 30, from the village of Tzaida, was jailed most recently on January 18, 2006 after being convicted of membership in Islamic Jihad. His father, Seti Ashkar, told Haaretz yesterday that the authorities first told the family Ashkar had been shot while trying to escape but shortly thereafter changed their story and said he had been accidentally shot while fire was aimed at the legs of other prisoners during the riot. The father also said the family had been told by Physicians for Human Rights that a team of doctors from abroad had investigated the circumstances of Ashkar’s death and had carried out an autopsy. The autopsy revealed that Ashkar had been killed by a live bullet from a distance of half a meter to three meters, his father said
Thank you Bijou
