Shadi Khoury is just one of the countless Palestinian children to be imprisoned by the Israeli army and put in front of Israel’s colonial military court system, with a conviction rate of 99.8 percent.
“I am deeply thankful for people who supported me, stood with me, reinforced me, and prayed for me, thank you,” Awawdeh said, after ending his 182-day hunger strike. Awawdeh, who lost more than half his weight during his strike will remain in an Israeli hospital for treatment until his release on October 2.
Israel’s continued detention of Bassam al-Saadi and Khalil Awawdeh is part of its larger campaign to quell Palestinian resistance in recent months.
Lawyer and researcher Salah Hammouri appeals to French president Emmanuel Macron from inside Israel’s prisons: “Mr. President, what is the reason behind your double standard in the treatment of people living under oppression?”
In the years I’ve been covering Israel’s occupation of Palestine, it’s an issue that arises time and time again. Palestinians are criminalized and imprisoned, and their lives destroyed all because of a weapon that Israel can yield, without any question or consequence: secret evidence.
In a new submission to the International Criminal Court, jailed Palestinian human rights lawyer Salah Hammouri called on the court to bring urgency to its investigation of war crimes committed by Israel in the occupied Palestinian territory.
Although dozens of Jewish Israelis participated in a protest against administrative detention in front of the General Security Services headquarters in Tel Aviv, and five of them blocked the road – an act which usually leads to being arrested – the only participant to be detained was Rami Salman, a Palestinian student who passed by the scene. “What happened was an excellent illustration of the reason why we held this demonstration. If you are a Palestinian, you have no security anywhere, not even in your home. It is Apartheid!”
Mass incarceration has defined Israel’s colonial project. Since 1967, over 850,000 Palestinians have been arrested and imprisoned by the Israeli regime. Currently there are 4,450 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons, including hundreds of administrative detainees being held without charge or trial. But just as mass incarceration remains a defining feature of the Israeli occupation, so too has prisoner resistance. Currently, an ongoing boycott of the Israeli judicial system by all 530 Palestinian administrative detainees has surpassed 100 days.
An Israeli court issued an arrest warrant for Israeli anti-apartheid activist Neta Golan, after she refused to appear in court in solidarity with a months-long boycott of Israeli courts by Palestinian administrative detainees. Since January 1st, 500 Palestinian administrative detainees, who are being held in Israeli prison without charge or trial, have engaged in a collective and comprehensive boycott of Israeli military courts.
In 2015, a Palestinian woman was raped and sodomized by Israeli soldiers under orders from high-ranking army and Shin Bet commanders. The horrible case exemplifies Israeli apartheid.