Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – It is wonderful news that on Sunday and Monday Israeli and Palestinian hostages were released as part of the ceasefire deal brokered by Qatar, Egypt and the United States.
Hamas released Romi Gonen, 24, kidnapped from the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023. Emily Damari, 28, was kidnapped from her home in the Kibbutz Kfar Aza. Likewise Doron Steinbrecher, 31, a veterinary nurse, was taken from the same kibbutz. The delight and relief of their families are the delight and relief of all of us. Their kidnapping was a war crime, for which — among other things — Hamas leaders were indicted at the International Criminal Court.
The Palestinian hostages released by Israel need to be celebrated with just as much joy and fervor. 90 of them — 69 women and 21 children — had to wait an extra 8 hours for their freedom, while Israeli troops forbade displays of joy by their friends and relatives outside Ofer Prison, and even attacked them with flash bombs, and rubber-coated metal bullets.
Many of the Palestinians let go on Monday just after midnight were prisoners of conscience, jailed for social media posts just as they might have been in Russia or Saudi Arabia. Palestinians, being stateless and without citizenship, do not have the right to have rights. They have no right to free speech. The sort of idle expression of sentiment on Facebook that barely draws a yawn in the United States can mean years of confinement.
Al Jazeera (itself banned in Israel) reported that one of the Palestinian hostages released was journalist Rula Hassanein. Let us consider her case. The Committee to Protect Journalists explained that on March 19, Israeli military personnel — without providing any justification — detained Hassanein, an editor for the Ramallah-based Wattan Media Network, at her residence in the Al-Ma’asra neighborhood of Bethlehem in the Palestinian West Bank. She was manacled and hooded, and had her laptop and cell phone seized. She was then transferred to Damon Prison, near Haifa.
CPJ said that Hassanein appeared before the Judea military court, located in Ofer Prison northwest of Jerusalem, on March 25. She was charged with incitement on social media and supporting a proscribed organization deemed illegal under Israeli law.
Remember, she is a working journalist published in several regional newspapers. She was arrested for tweeting or retweeting her distress at the Israeli total war on Gaza. She did not do anything that would be punished with jail time in a democratic country. She didn’t present a clear and immediate danger of violence. She is the victim of a brutal foreign military occupation.
ICJ explained, “The health of Hassanein’s prematurely born daughter Elia, who suffers from a weak immune system and ulcers on her palms, feet, and mouth, has declined since her mother’s arrest as she was exclusively breastfed, according to those sources and medical reports, reviewed by CPJ. Hassanein gave birth last year to twins, Elia and Youssef, two months early due to health complications, and lost Youssef three hours after birth, those sources said.”
I just hope Elia, her daughter, is OK after so many months of separation from her mother.
Al Jazeera writes that another released Palestinian hostage, an 18-year-old girl, had also been arrested for her social media posts. It quotes her mother:
- “I’ll hug her right away. Of course, I’ll hug her. At first, it’ll just be tears of joy…
“They accused her of incitement because of posts she wrote on Facebook,”
She called the charges “ridiculous.” And so they were.
Al Jazeera added, “The father of another young man who hasn’t yet been released told AFP his son was also arrested for social media activity.”
So some of the 90 let go today were guilty of using social media while Palestinian.
Since Israeli military and prison authorities routinely practice torture, some of those released bear physical and psychological scars that will haunt them the rest of their lives, no less than do the released Israeli hostages.
“Release,” Digital, Dream / Dreamland v3 / Clip2Comic, 2024
The Israeli newspaper Arab 48 reported, “In media statements, the female prisoners spoke about the harsh conditions they endured in Damon Prison, including abuse, beatings, isolation, and humiliation, which exacerbated their suffering and added to the pain of imprisonment.”
The newspaper says that many of the women seemed feeble and unsteady as they got off the vehicles carrying them.
It should be remembered that large numbers of Palestinians are taken hostage by the Israeli military, which lodges no charges against them and provides them with no opportunity to defend themselves. That is why they are legitimately called “hostages” rather than prisoners. There is no due process.
Since American news outlets won’t mention any of these Palestinian hostages or their ordeal, let me at least give their names here from Al-Sharq. The transliteration is done by ChatGPT:
Walaa Khaled Fawzi Tanjeh
Nawal Mohammed Mahmoud Abd Fteihah
Rawda Mousa Abdel Qader Abu Ajamiya
Aseel Osama Omar Shahadeh
Tamara Moammar Hussein Abu Luban
Nafisa Rashid Fareed Zorba
Yasmin Abdul Rahman Rasheed Abu Sarour
Khaleda Kana’an Mohammed Jarrar
Jenin Mohammed Taha Amro
Fatima Nemer Mohammed Rimawi
Zahra Wahib Abdel Fattah Khadrajj
Fatima Mohammed Suleiman Saqr
Dalal Mohammed Suleiman Khoshib
Mona Ahmed Qasem Abu Hussein
Bushra Jamal Mohammed Taweel
Raida Janem Mohammed Abdel Majid
Rana Jamal Mohammed Eid
Marjana Mohammed Mustafa Heresh
Halima Faik Suleiman Abu Amara
Rola Ibrahim Abdel Rahim Hassanein
Balqees Issa Ali Zawahreh
Dohaa Azam Ahmed Al-Wahsh
Shaimaa Mohammed Abdel Jalil Rawajbeh
Salwa Atiyah Mahmoud Hamdan
Fatima Yousef Ali Al-Farakhneh
Roz Yousef Mohammed Khweis
Haneen Akram Mahmoud Al-Mas’aeid
Jihad Ghazi Ahmed Joudeh
Nidaa Ali Ahmed Zghaybi
Amal Ziyad Omar Shojaiya
Ayat Yousef Saleh Mahfouz
Ola Mahmoud Qasem Joudeh
Lubna Mazen Saleem Talalwah
Hadeel Mohammed Hussein Hijaz
Rasha Ghassan Mohammed Hijjawi
Wafaa Ahmed Abdullah Nemer
Zeina Majd Abdel Rahim Barbour
Naheel Kamal Mustafa Masalmeh
Tihani Jamal Abdel Ashour
Aya Omar Yousef Ramadan
Shaimaa Omar Yousef Ramadan
Israa Hader Ahmed Ghoneimat
Donia Ishtayeh Marouf Ishtayeh
Alaa Jadallah Nabhan Qadi
Khitam Aref Hassan Khabaybeh
Alaa Sameer Harb Abu Raheimeh
Aseel Mohammed Jamal Eid
Shatha Nawaf Abdel Jabbar Jarab’ah
Bara’a Hatem Hafez Foqaha
Saja Imad Saad Daraghmeh
Dania Saqr Mohammed Hanatsheh
Raghad Waleed Mahmoud Amro
Raghad Khader Deeb Mubarak
Al-Yamama Ibrahim Hassan Al-Hraynat
Ashwaq Mohammed Eyad Awad
Hanan Ammar Bilal Malwani
Eman Ibrahim Ahmed Zeid
Saja Zuheir Mohammed Al-Maadi
Israr Abdel Fattah Mohammed Al-Lahham
Maiser Mohammed Said Al-Faqih
Abeer Mohammed Hamdan Ba’ara
Samah Bilal Abdel Rahman Soof
Lateefa Khaled Ramadan Mashasha’
Margaret Mohammed Mahmoud Al-Ra’ee
Alaa Khaled Mohammed Saqr
Israa Mustafa Mohammed Berri
Lana Farouq Naeem Fawaleh
Tahreer Badran Badr Jaber
Abla Mohammed Othman Abdel Rasool
Fahmi Mohammed Fahmi Faroukh
Ahmed Waleed Mohammed Khashan
Jamal Ibrahim Salama Al-Atimeen
Ahmed Bashar Jumaa Abu Alya
Mohammed Anan Fawzi Bashkar
Ibrahim Sultan Ibrahim Zummar
Abdul Rahman Amjad Jameel Khedair
Maw’ed Omar Abdullah Al-Hajj
Essam Ma’moon Mohammed Abu Diab
Thaer Ayoub Rasheed Abu Sarah
Qasem Eyad Mohammed Ja’afreh
Yousef Jamal Eyad Al-Hraymi
Saeed Mazeed Saeed Saleem
Mahmoud Mohammed Dawood Al-Yawat
Firas Jihad Ahmed Al-Maqdisi
Abdul Aziz Mohammed Abdul Aziz Atauna
Fadi Bassam Mohammed Hindi
Osama Nasser Jubran Abduh Atayah
Ayham Ali Issa Jaradat
Adam Khalil Ibrahim Hadrah
Laith Muhammad Naji Kumail.
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