EYEWITNESS FROM JERUSALEM

A WEEKLY JOURNAL WRITTEN BY SISTER MARY

Jerusalem Journal # 24

July 7, 2001

This past weekend I was invited to accompany a group of concerned Israeli citizens to the Tel Mond prison which is located in the fertile plain of the Sharon valley near the town of Kfar Sava. It is in Tel Mond that over 70 Palestinian children under the age of 16 are imprisoned.  About another 50 children are scattered elsewhere throughout Israel's vast prison system. An Israeli lawyer informed me that most of these 140 minors had confessions extracted from them under pressure and without consultation with a lawyer. This is illegal and these children are unlawfully detained in prisons. Half the children in the prisons have never had a trial and many of them have been there since last October. The children from the West Bank who are inprisoned in Tel Mond have been unlawfully remmoved from the Palestinian territories and brought there.

    What brought about 100 peace activists, ranging from 82 years old to 20 years of age, to Tel Mond, was to protest the treatment of these children in this prison. Here the children are placed in cells with adult criminal prisoners, and these minors, besides being deprived of their freedom, schooling, the help of social workers and sufficient time outside their small cells, are experiencing fear of the adult criminals with whom them must live. In protest to these conditions the children began a hunger strike last week. The response to this strike by the prison guards was to tear gas the children in their cells, which have little ventilation to begin with, and then the guards stormed into the cells in riot gear and beat the children. Nine minors were injured and due to head injuries sustained during the beating, two of the children are now in the hospital. Four children are in solitary confinement.  

    I asked an Arab family about their young boy detained in Tel Mond; what had this child done to be inprisoned there? I was told that the child had thrown stones at the police when there was a clash along the main road of their Arab village. They said that at 3:00 the next morning, five police cars came and surrounded their house and dragged the child out of bed and away from his home. This child did have a trial and was found guilty of throwing stones at the police. The child was sentenced to one year and four months in Tel Mond. Israelis assured me of the injustice of this sentence. The peace activists, inluding two prominent Israeli lawyers, were more concerned about the illegality of their government in arresting and holding these Palestinian children in the cells of Tel Mond prison with adult criminal prisoners. They also wanted an end to the violence that was being perpetrated on these children by the abusive treatment of prison authorities.

    While standing between the prison and the road and holding signs of protest for the passing motorists to see, the peace activists were approached by an Israeli traffic officer in his vehicle, who stopped and blocked the signs from being seen by the passing traffic. When Officer Itamar Markovitch was told by an Israeli that the group had a permit to demonstrate  there and was politely asked if he could move his car, Officer Markovitch responded: "Don't speak with me; I hate all Arabs." and demanded to see the Israeli man's identity card. When one of the lawyers tried to speak with the officer, the Israeli lawyer was struck in the mouth by Officer Markovitch. Other police who were there watching to see that the group followed all the rules of their permit to demonstrate in front of the prison, saw the trouble, they quickly moved into the group to see what the problem was. They then handcuffed the lawyer so that he could be taken to jail. When the other policeman realized that they had handcuffed a lawyer who had been struck by the traffic officer, they released him. But not before Officer Markovitch had grabbed a small professor of mathematics from Haifa, handcuffed him, and shoved him in the police car with the help of some of the other policeman.  Since I was standing next to the professor and had heard him speak to Officer Markovitch, I realized that he was being carted off to jail because of what he said.  When I asked the Israeli woman on the other side of the professor what he said, the translation was: "All of us have seen what you have done."  I went to the police car and asked if I could or should go along; I was told it wasn't necessary.  The demonstration continued for another hour and since the professor wasn't back yet, we went to the jail in Kfar Sava so that the lawyer who was attacked, and the Israeli to whom the police officer made the racist remark, could make a complaint against Officer Markovitch, and also assure the police that the professor who was there in jail, had been totally non-aggressive. Because I was wearing press credentials, I was also asked to be a witness to the events, especially since I was standing shoulder to shoulder with the professor when he was accosted by Officer Markovitch. At first it looked like the professor was going to spend the night in the jail, but then after three hours of waiting and giving witness about the events, our friend was released. When I asked the professor about his experience he told me, "Thank God that Israelis don't simply disappear when they are arrested." I pondered that thought as we got into cars and headed back to our homes.

    When I meet Israelis like these who speak out for justice and are concerned for all the peoples of this land it does my heart good and restores my faith in these people. May their numbers grow, for someone has to take the place of the 82 year old woman who is retiring from demonstrations that aren't in Tel Aviv.

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