Witnesses to war crimes

On 17 July, the Tel Aviv District Court judge upheld the deportation orders for eight peace activists from the International Solidarity Movement (ISM). The eight were arrested on 9 July while protesting the confiscation of Palestinian land near Jenin and the construction of the apartheid wall. Although the prosecution claimed that the activists were a security threat to Israel, no evidence was presented to that effect. In turn, the defence lawyer requested a one-week stay on the deportations to allow time to file an appeal, but his request was refused.

The following testimony was scribbled on a piece of paper by jailed Canadian ISM activist Tarek Loubani and passed on to his lawyer during the court proceedings. The hunger strike he refers to began on the eve of 15 July. While six of the jailed ISM activists were deported from Israel this week, both Tarek Loubani and Tobias Karlson remain in jail pending an appeal to the Israeli high court filed by the ISM on their behalf.

Notes from prison

I had forgotten what love was. My world had become one of anger, rage and hate. As the five or six police officers each took turns beating me, all I could think of was hate. There could be nothing else.

Everything started when Captain Ya'kov (Yoki) Golan came into our cell and asked if we were on a hunger strike. "We're not eating," we replied.

A few police thugs swarmed the cell and started taking anything they could get their hands on. Captain Yoki started telling us that we were nothing. "Shut the hell up and don't you dare talk to us like that. You can't break me. You can't break any of us," I retorted. "I am not just going to break you. I am going to destroy you," he replied.

We were strip-searched three times in the next hour. Then they came for me. "Where are you taking him?" the other seven activists protested on my behalf. They cared more about me than I did. I had come to terms with the fact that I was going into solitary confinement, and finally approached the police. "I'm ready," I declared melodramatically.

That's when the first strike came. They grabbed my shirt and pulled me to the ground in front of the cell. I did nothing. Even if I wanted to, I had lost track of all my limbs. All I knew was that they had gone weak. The beating started and I filled the halls with screams of pain.

As I was up against the wall, with one policeman stomping on my leg, another bending my arm and another two or three pulling and hitting other parts of my body, I caught a glimpse of the faces and entered that other world.

I cannot do anything now. The guards who were involved in the beating are all smiles whenever they pass our cell. And all this physical abuse over the only act of resistance we could manage: going hungry. One thing has not changed though. None of us has been broken.