You may read about arrest operations that Israel carries out in the West Bank. You never get to know what kind of torture those people face in prison especially when being interrogated by the Israeli intelligence to incriminate them. The title of this story is a verse in the Babylonian Talmud which clearly illegalizes torture as a way to get confessions.
Hamza Qa’qour, 35-year-old resident of the West Bank city of Jenin was taken back to the interrogation in the solitary confinement of the Israeli Jalama prison, one month after the Israeli Public Security Service, (Shabak) interrogated him.
His lawyer, Farid Hawash said the Shabak claim they have new evidence against Qa’qour.
Qa’qour was arrested in a special Israeli operation in Jenin on August 9, 2005, and was accused of being member of the Islamic Jihad organization and of being involved in recruiting Palestinian youth to carry out attacks against Israeli targets.
Qa’qour’s family got very much worried about their son. The mother said the Israeli military were chasing her son Hamza in the past few years. She said they stopped chasing him for a while, but now she is concerned about opening his file again.
The mother was trying to follow up about her son at the International Red Cross society, who is the only was families get news about their beloved in the Israeli jails.
Israel claimed him wanted since the beginning of the Aqsa Intifada, said the mother, adding that the Israeli army invaded her house and searched it several times looking for Hamza. However, he always managed to escape.
They detained Hamza’s father as hostage to force him to turn himself in, the mother said.
After five years of being on the hunt, the Israeli intelligence service managed to arrest Hamza when they invaded the area with more than 30 military vehicles including bulldozers and army jeeps. Troops demolished some of the walls in the village and uprooted many trees, with their bulldozer, paving the road for the bulldozer to demolish Hamza’s house.
However, the police dogs managed to arrest Hamza who was wounded in his arm when arrested.
Hamza was taken to Al-‘ffoulah hospital for treatment, but instead they tortured him and beat him on his wound, his mother said.
According to the mother, Qa’qour was subject to interrogation for three months in a row, during which he was not allowed to meet his lawyer, family or even the Red Cross envoys.
Finally after his lawyer managed to visit him he said that Qa’qour’s health deteriorated dramatically because of the torture he was subject to. He was forced to stand up for several days and was tied up in a way that almost broke his back, the lawyer said.
Qa’qour told his lawyer that the interrogators used to press his hands with the hand-cuffs until he looses feeling with them and they also tried several times to strangle him.
Hamza was beaten badly on his f ace, said the lawyer, the interrogators had to take to the hospital for treatment. However, he was returned to the same torture and the same isolation cell.
Qa’qour’s attorney said his client was accused of being a high ranking leader of the Islamic Jihad organization, which is a group that had carried out armed attacks and suicide bombings against Israeli targets.
He was also accused of recruiting and preparing the operatives including one who was prepared to carry out a suicide attack.
Attorney Hawash said he failed many times to obtain a permit to visit his client in jail. He finally was allowed but only for him. Qa’qour’s wife said that she is striving to get a visit permit to allow her husband to see his six-month son.
Qa’qour’s story is one among thousands if not tens of thousands of Palestinians who suffered the torture of the Israeli interrogators.
Source: Palestine News Network (PNN)
