Shocking testimonies from the occupation prisons:

•   Handcuffed Women prisoners give birth under the soldiers' eyes
• Yusuf is the youngest prisoner in the world
•   Of them 17 mothers, 113 Palestinian women prisoners undergo various means of torture by the occupation

Report by: Raed Musa- Gaza, correspondent of Sawt Al-Haq Wal-Horiya paper - Umm Al-Fahem - Sawt@Sawt-alhaq.com

Translated by MCHR - Meezaan Center for Human Rights - Nazareth- Meezaan.org

From a place "mercy" has never been heard of; from the total darkness behind the black bars where they cry and call for a savior who never responds, she came to tell the world stories about grief and privation.

Samar Ibrahim Sbieh from Jabalia refugee camp is a Palestinian woman... 24 years summarized in pain and suffering, had been imprisoned for two years and a half where her first child came to life. A life he wouldn't have chosen.

"They kidnapped me"

Former prisoner Samar Sbieh (25) was accused of affiliation to Hamas and arrested in her husband's house in Tulkarm-the West Bank. Though she told the soldiers about being in the third month of pregnancy, the Israeli soldiers blindfolded and handcuffed her. Then she was lead to the Maskobeyeh jail where she went through a 60 days of long and continues investigation about the possession of explosives and producing explosive belts, under threats to demolish her house and arresting her family members, and abort her embryo.

Prisoner since birth

Following the investigation, Samar was sentenced and then transferred to the prison although she never admitted any of the charges leveled against her.

The occupation forces used to neglect and disregard me, especially during my first months of pregnancy. I never got healthy food, which caused my embryo to become motionless in the fourth month, due to growth delay caused by bad nourishment. I demanded a hospital care but the Israeli prison's authority refused, which put my health into danger throughout my whole pregnancy period.

I finally gave birth to my first child Baraa by Caesarean section in Mier hospital, under strict security restraints. I was deprived from my right to have my sister with me in such harsh times, despite the court's order to allow her and her husband to visit me. After the doctors decided the date of the operation, I filed a suit against the prison's authority demanding to allow me to give birth with my chains removed. However my demand was rejected as usual by the authority. They kept me chained even during the pre-operation checkups and unchained me only throughout the surgery, but chained my legs immediately after the surgery was over.

I thought how could this youngest prisoner grow up inside the jail's walls under situations we adults could never stand, and what will I tell him when he asks me about the reason why he was born inside that prison and why there are no children like him there, except Ghada the young girl who became the lonely child in the prison now after we were released. And what will I tell him when he asks me about his father who was forbidden to see his first child, and met him now for the first time, being an ex-prisoner.

Not only Samar

Samar is not the first and will not be the last woman who gives birth inside an Israeli prison. Many Palestinian women prisoners are jailed and parted from their families and children. Manal Ghanem who suffered from thalassemia and was deprived of any medical care, gave birth to her son Nur inside her cell, where he was taken from her after he became 2 years old. Since then, he was allowed to see her only through a glass wall and a thick steel mesh fence, until she got released having stayed four years in prison. Most women undergo similarly hard conditions and endless torture.

Intentional negligence

According to Palestinian ex-prisoner women, pregnant Palestinian women prisoners face very severe conditions inside Israeli prisons during pregnancy months till they give birth; a birth that never happens normally. Under intensive military guardianship and conditions that add more pain to their misery, pregnant women are removed from prison to hospital with their arms and legs chained, not allowing even their families to support them in these hard times; still chained till they enter the operation room, they are chained to the bed the moment the operation is over.

Unanswered appeals

Manager of the Informative committee in the Palestinian ministry of prisoners, Mr. Riyadh Al-Ashqar said that the administration of "Hasharon" prison, where most of women prisoners are held, doesn't care one jot about the health of the newborns inside the prison. They are kept under very difficult circumstances: with their mothers who are shackled again directly after they give birth, and they are deprived from the vital needs of living in this age. They encounter the same harassments and horrors other women prisoners encounter, which might reach an extent of being attacked physically and by tear gas that is used during the prison security's assaults on the women's cells, searching for "prohibited items". Add to this the insects and other harmful species; lack of fresh air, hot water and suitable food for the newborns. Even their toys are confiscated for flimsy "security measures". Not to forget the wardens starring process of horrifying the jailed mothers and children if any child cries of hunger or cold.

The occupation uses all means to suppress Palestinian children and confiscate their right to live a natural life like the other children of the world. Many are injured and others arrested throughout the raids of the Israeli forces on Palestinian villages and cities. And some were forced to see not the light after they are born, but the dreary darkness of the prison, like my son, where they grow and with them grow suffering and agony.

There is no doubt that what the child undergoes during his first months and years largely influences his behavior and development later. The images of dark rooms and locks and chains are still buried deep in my son's mind that now when he is slowly learning the language, he keeps asking me about the prison and why we are now outside it, thinking that the prison is the ordinary place to be.

Unforgettable memories

The occupation has managed to establish the prison and its figures in the children's minds, to an extent that my son Baraa mostly likes to play with locks and chains and stay behind locked doors. Furthermore, Baraa refuses to play with other children, saying that he only wants Ghada, the girl he knew in prison. I am very afraid my son's entire life and his social and psychological development would be affected by the environment and the conditions he experienced during his early days, which might cause him to act violently or seek to punish those who made him suffer.

Women prisoners in numbers

Statistics reveal that the Israeli occupation forces have arrested more than 10000 women since the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza in 1976. In 2000 there was only one woman prisoner inside Israeli jails Sonya Al-Ra'ee, however with the beginning of the Al-Aqsa uprising in 2000, the Israeli forces arrested more than 700 Palestinian women. Today, 113 women are still jailed in the Israeli prisons spending their youth behind the bars; of them 6 prisoners who are still under 18.

Nearly 85 women prisoners are unmarried, on the other hand 21 of them are married among them 17 mothers who have more than 60 children. 60 Palestinian children are motherless, because their mothers are not allowed to see and hug them for a long time now. Some for a period of 2 years, some 5, and others, who spend long term sentences, will not see their children for their entire miserable lives.