Hebron, occupied West Financial institution – Lama Khater sits quietly, prepared to speak however seemingly exhausted. The mom of 5’s face is pale and her lips dry, however an air of aid hangs round her.
The 47-year-old had simply been launched from jail on the finish of November, a part of the sixth batch of Palestinian prisoners Israel launched in trade for Israeli captives launched from Gaza by Hamas.
Khater had been in jail for a couple of month, an exceptionally painful one, it appeared. She was certainly one of a whole lot of Palestinians who had been arrested after the October 7 assaults on Israel by Hamas and the following Israeli assault on Gaza that has killed greater than 23,000 Palestinians there up to now.
After Israeli forces stormed her residence in Hebron and arrested her, she was shuttled from one detention centre to the opposite, not sure of what she was charged with or what would occur to her subsequent.
Soiled and cramped
A author and journalist who has lined crimes and violations dedicated by the Israeli occupation – and who has been in Israeli jails herself – Khater discovered herself subjected to ache and indignities once more.
She had been detained prior to now for 13 months however stated her detention after October 7 was “incomparable” to the earlier jail time.
“Handcuffed” with plastic zip ties that dug painfully into her wrists, Khater was thrown on the ground of the military jeep and brought to the Kiryat Arba settlement camp.
She couldn’t see the face of her husband Hazem al-Fakhouri or her 5 terrified kids – Osama, 26, Bissan, 23, Yaman, 18, Izz al-Din, 15, and Yahya, 7 – as she was pushed away.
Her interrogation started in Kiryat Arba, and in the course of the first session, the Israeli officers threatened her with rape, amongst different issues, she stated.
“They threatened to kill me, my family, burn my house down,” Khater recalled.
Additionally they, she added, threatened to deport her to Gaza and extra, telling her that she was a prisoner of warfare and so they may do no matter they needed.
From there, Khater was moved for 4 days to Hasharon Jail, the place she was held with 5 different Palestinian girls in a tiny cell constructed for one prisoner and “extremely dirty”, she stated.
They didn’t have entry to water to wash the cell both, she added, explaining that their water provide was lower off for eight hours a day.
There was so little room that the six girls needed to take turns to sit down and sleep.
After Hasharon, she was moved to Damon Jail in northern Israel, the place she was strip-searched and insulted. She additionally noticed different prisoners being “badly beaten”.
Lacking her household, struggling in jail
Sentenced to 6 months of administrative detention – which permits Israeli authorities to carry individuals indefinitely with out cost – Khater resigned herself to her destiny and questioned how her kids and husband have been doing with out her.
However then she met a lady from Hebron who had simply been rounded up within the Israeli dragnets and the lady informed her that her husband had additionally been arrested, taken from their residence on November 8 two weeks after she had been taken and likewise held below administrative detention since.
That meant that their 5 kids have been alone, most likely much more nervous and scared now that each their mother and father had been taken.
Khater couldn’t assist however surprise if the raid into their residence frightened her kids, particularly seven-year-old Yahya.
“A Shabak officer came to gloat at me, smiling and saying: ‘Your kids are now alone’,” Khater stated.
Twenty-three-year-old Bissan informed Al Jazeera that she needed to depart her job and change into “both a mother and father” to her siblings as a result of the three youngest are at school and wish fixed care and a spotlight.
She would deal with their meals and clothes and have a tendency to their emotional wants, she added.
“Yahya used to ask me and my father about my mother – whether she was eating, if she was okay, and when she’s coming home,” Bissan stated.
The questions grew to become even more durable to reply when al-Fakhouri was additionally arrested, she stated.
Throughout that point, Khater was shocked on the stage of inhumane remedy the Damon guards meted out to the ladies.
Generally they’d use pepper spray point-blank in opposition to the ladies for any perceived slight.
They’d additionally put prisoners in solitary confinement, severely restrict their entry to meals and canteens to purchase requirements, and deny them sanitary pads, she stated.
Lastly, she was moved to Ofer Jail on the finish of November, to attend in a chilly cell for hours with neither meals nor water till she was freed at daybreak.
As much as the final minute, the officers and guards have been threatening her.
“They told me that any celebration is prohibited and that I was forbidden from receiving any well-wishers upon my release,” she stated, including that the Israeli officers additionally warned her to not publish on social media.
“They said they would re-arrest me if their ‘rules’ were broken,” she stated.
However she was not so involved, as she was full of “joy and happiness” on the considered seeing her kids.
“Everyone knows that the most difficult thing for a mother is being away from her children.”
Like all the opposite prisoners freed within the deal, Khater felt happiness overshadowed by the massacres being dedicated in opposition to Palestinians in Gaza, she stated.
Since October 7, Israeli authorities have arrested almost 6,000 individuals within the occupied West Financial institution whereas Israeli forces or settlers have killed greater than 270 Palestinians throughout that point in particular person assaults and near-nightly raids, which have additionally escalated because the outbreak of warfare.
A number of Palestinian prisoners, who like Khater have been launched as a part of the trade deal, have spoken out about mistreatment in Israeli jails.
Some reported bodily abuse, some recalled being saved in isolation for extended durations, whereas others stated Israeli jail guards harassed or assaulted them.
Guards additionally confiscated private possessions, together with radios, and barred prisoners from getting access to any information.