Abdel-Rahman al-Ahmar is released from prison

 

- Background

….

 

- The Release

 

On 12/4/2002 al-Ahmar was moved from Majiddo prison to Ketziot prison in the Negev south of Israel. On 19/5/2002 he was moved, during the night, to Ofer prison near the town of Betunia in the West Bank. On 23/5/2002 an Israeli officer came to al-Ahmar and told him they will release him. He was eye-folded and hand-cuffed and was forced to sit on the sandy ground from 8:00 am. Until 7:00 pm. without any food, just water. At 8:00 pm. al-Ahmar was taken with 15 other Palestinian prisoners into an Israeli bus to Qalandia checkpoint. There, the Israeli soldiers took the eye-folds off the prisoners and let them go away, still hand-cuffed. The prisoners, including Abed, didn’t know where to go, some of them were from distant towns and villages, like Tulkarem, Jenin, Nablus and Bethlehem. So they went to the nearby town of Bir Nabala where they stayed the night with a friend. In the morning each of them went in his way home. Abed, however, took a taxi to Bethlehem, but the taxi was stopped by the Israeli police. When the Israeli police saw Abed’s ID. They told him he was on the “wanted list”. It took the police half an hour to realize Abed was just released the night before.

 

About conditions in the prison, Abed says that in Ofer prison, the prisoners were given one tooth brush for 145 people, and one shaving razor for the same number. As for food, the prisoners were given one small can of cheese for 7 pesons to eat, with two small pieces of bread (not fresh) for each prisoner. This was for breakfast and dinner. For lunch, they were given one piece of frozen chicken, which they couldn’t eat immediately. They sometimes put it against the sun glare to heat it up before they eat it.

 

When we were taken to Ofer prison, al-Ahmar said, we were met at the entrance by an Israeli officer called “Sergi” –originally from Russia- who welcomed the prisoners by saying: “This is –Ofer- the Israeli concentration camp, we will do to you what the Nazis did to us, then in the future you may do the same with other people”.