From Hebron…
Sunday, December 13, 2015

Nahil Abu Esha, just days after being liberated from de Zionist occupier’s dungeons tells us her story; how the woman prisoners are treated and the daily harassing they have to endure by the Zionist usurpers…

It is not the first time that Nahil has been imprisoned; when he was twelve years old she was arrested by the Zionist army; she was twice more in prison and last time she came to be locked up in prisons of the occupier by three years.
The situation inside prisons is terrible; there is no human being that can live there surrounded by insects, rats, in a damp place where in summer the heat becomes unbearable and in winter people have to endure chilling miseries. They have no stoves or fans and prisons are overcrowded.
Until some time ago, Zionists had all Palestinian female prisoners locked in Hasharon prison, but lately they launched a brutal offensive on Palestinian women arresting hundreds of them. They then divided them into two groups and sent them to two different prisons; those who are waiting to be sentenced go to Damon prison, and who have already been sentenced remain in Hasharon.
Palestinian women inside prisons have carried out protests in order to achieve the few things that the occupiers had to allow them to have, such as a bed, cooking utensils and a TV. They remain all day long in cells generally save twice a day when they go out to a small park where they meet the other fellow inmates and walk a bit.
Many times these "breaks" are prohibited as a form of punishment. The same applies to the permitted family visits; many times the Zionist prohibit them having visits for a month.
Nahil remembers that for the "day of independence of Israel", that Palestinians name Nakba (“the catastrophe”, NT), officers ordered the imprisoned women to stand up and enter their cells before time. Shireen Issawi and her refused to do so, and were a month without having visits. The same happened to them once when one of the high-ranking officers went to check the cells; the wardens ordered them to stand up and they refused; so they were punished by not letting them receive visits for two months.
She tells us that they do not have any health care there. They do not allow them to companions who have previous treatments to continue them, unless they have diabetes and require insulin, but even in those cases they often don't even bring the diabetic women the full necessary dose. For example she was following a dermatological treatment which was completely broken off. He left prison with stones in the gallbladder, chronic bone conditions and a problem in the colon. Nahil explains that most of the companions declined to ask to go to the doctor while they were in jail and when they leave they have serious, mostly chronic health problems.
 Nahil tells us that while the Zionists have Palestinian women in their prisons, only watch them getting sick to death.
The food they are served, if it can be called food, is terrible. A few years ago, due to protests that the prisoners carried forward it was agreed that Palestinian inmates’ meal was cooked by themselves and not by the Israeli prisoners, who constantly harass Palestinian women with insults, and also night shouting, not letting them sleep.
This was gradually changing and today the food is cooked by Israeli inmates, so in addition to the food being always cold, it comes often with insects, or nearly raw. Nahil tells us that the only way to make it eatable is to grab the pieces of meat or vegetables, wash them and then cook them again.
Experiences of everyday life, she could recall thousands; some happened to her, other to of her cell companions, but I think that there are two that are worth highlighting. Perhaps, for one who comes to read this, from afar, it is difficult to understand what it really means. Many times I've heard talk about transfers of the companions, without really understanding what this meant. Transfers are done from a prison to another one or from a prison to a court to hear a sentence that is useless. These trips are far from what a human can endure, and very far from what you can imagine. On the one hand you are waked up very early and you can get simply being 12 hours without going to the bathroom, eating and drinking water. In addition to this, in the trucks where you are traveling, you go handcuffed and often they put you shackles in the ankles, seats are of metal and these trucks are shared with the Israeli inmates that insult you constantly during the entire trip and even spit you. Needless to talk about who drives the vehicle that of course doesn't care that he is carrying people. Nahil says "there were times that all I wanted was going back to sleep to my cell".  As she was considered as "dangerous" because they said that she had tried to open one of the locks in the ankles with a mini pin (which Muslim women use to hold the hijab), she was always handcuffed every time she was taken out of prison or during the time she received visits.
She explained that despite this situation, they protest in every way they can, when the occasion appears. For example, she carried out a hunger strike for two days together with other women as they had not been let to take a walk outside, though they could fast for only two days because the occupying forces ordered them to stop or otherwise they would be forced to eat.
On the current situation of Palestine, she said: "I know that in prison the situation was very bad, but when I came out - a month ago - and I see all these murders, the campaign about us being “terrorists", and how they are killing our young people…This situation is also terrible and unacceptable. We fight for our rights, our land; we want freedom. Occupants are who at every step do not even respect the agreements already signed. So we are going to keep fighting".

Pamela Parson,
Correspondent of International Worker Organizer