Shin Bet Scenario Ends In Death

By Steve Sosbee

The Israeli military has developed standardized terminology for the deaths or injuries occurring daily during the third year of the uprising in Israeli-occupied Palestine.

If the victim is shot in the streets he is described as having been "masked," participating in or promoting "violent activity," and often shot only after "attacking soldiers." An "Arab witness" may report an entirely different tale, or that the victimwas shot in the back of the head without warning, but this will almost never be mentioned (unless ABC-TV films it). If a Palestinian dies in prison, it's generally called a "suicide." If it happens during the first weeks of interrogation, however, it will likely be described as "heart failure." Because there will be an "official investigation" into every incident, though the results of such investigations are almost never made known, the point has been made: Israel is a democracy and the territories it occupies are governed by law.

The following story of the death of a young Palestinian is the result of extensive interviews with his lawyer, family, friends, witnesses, doctors and neighbors during the months immediately following his death. The Israeli military refused comment.

A Simple Desire

Jamal Abu Sharakh, a 23-year-old Palestinian born in the Beach Camp (Shatti) near Gaza City, wanted desperately during the summer of 1989 to obtain permission from Israeli occupation authorities to travel abroad. "Jamal wanted to study in Jordan to be an auto mechanic," explains Nasser, Jamal's older brother. "He said that if he had to wait any longer he would be too old, that the prime of his youth would be wasted, and that he would have to start thinking about a wife and family and a job."

Jamal's chances for such permission seemed better than most. Unlike most men in the Beach Camp, he had never been in prison or shot. "Like everyone here he hated the occupation, but he wasn't so politically active," recalls Ahmed, Jamal's neighbor. "When the army invaded the camp, we would all go out to fight. I can remember only a few times he was with us."

Last September, Jamal went repeatedly to the Civil Administration in Gaza to obtain permission to go abroad, each time being told to "come back next week."

"It's a game they play with everyone," says Rami al-Hagazi, a lawyer from Khan Younis. "Eventually, you'll get frustrated and stop going."

Jamal persisted, however, perhaps leading the Israelis to believe that he was desperate enough to do anything. "It was obvious he wanted out badly," says Ahmed.

In October, Jamal moved out of his brother Nasser's house in Shatti and began living with his family in Sheikh Radwan, a resettlement area nearby. One night, in early October, Jamal was visited by the Israeli security officer" for Sheikh Radwan.

"The Shin Bet man told Jamal that he would give him permission to go to Jordan if he would do some work for him, give him names of active youths, that type of stuff," Yasser, Jamal's best friend, remembers. "He gave him a day to think about it."

Two days later, on October 11, the Shin Bet officer returned carrying Jamal's permission to leave in his hand. "Jamal wasn't into the confrontations with the army," says Ahmed. "But he was from Shatti and we are raised strong here. He would never turn in his friends just to get out."

That night Jamal reportedly told the Shin Bet officer that he would not collaborate with him against his own people. "He said, 'I'm a Palestinian, please don't ask me to be a traitor,"' recalls Bashir, Jamal's oldest brother. Upon hearing this, the Shin Bet officer took Jamal's permission, ripped it up in front of him and threw it in his face. That was his final answer. Jamal would not be leaving the Gaza Strip to study.

Jamal was crushed. "For days he walked around the house quietly," says his mother. "He wouldn't eat or speak." On October 13, 1989, Jamal borrowed Bashir's car to run an errand for his father in the city. When he passed the army camp that separates Shatti from Sheikh Radwan he saw the Shin Bet officer standing along with a uniformed officer from the army. Reportedly, Jamal circled the car around, gunned the engine, and ran over the two men. The Shin Bet officer had to have both legs amputated as a result of his injuries.

The camp guard ran up to the car, shot Jamal in the shoulder, leg and stomach, and left him for dead. A filling station attendant who saw the incident recalls, "Some boys quickly took Jamal and put him in a passing car. The soldiers were mostly concerned with the two injured Israelis."

A doctor at Shifa hospital, where Jamal was taken, and who asked not to be identified by name, remembers Jamal's arrival. "He was in a bad state so we operated on him as quickly as possible. When the soldiers arrived to take him they were very angry. Their officer said that 'an Arab had tried to kill a Jew' and that he wanted Jamal now. I pleaded with them to wait until we finished the operation, because we were not sure he would live." The soldiers left him in the hospital, under guard.

When Jamal's brother, Bashir, arrived at the Shifa hospital, he was immediately arrested. "I spent three days in Ashkelon Prison and ten days in Gaza. The Shin Bet wanted information from me about my brother and they tried the usual methods to get it. After two weeks they released me, because my brother had confessed."

On October 17, after he was out of the critical stage, Jamal was taken to the Ramle prison hospital, where, on November 3, his parents and two brothers visited him.

"He was in good spirits and almost well enough to get out of the hospital," Jamal's father recalls. "He said his interrogation was finished because he had told them he had run over the men on purpose."

Thankful to Be Alive

On Nov. 7, the Red Cross reported that Jamal had been moved to Ashkelon prison, where his parents and sister visited him on Nov. 9. "He asked for clothes and to see his lawyer," his sister, Samira, recalls. "He said there were many Palestinians in jail with him and he was being helped by them. When we were leaving he told my father he was just 'thankful to be alive.'"

On Nov. 13 Raji Sourani, Jamal's lawyer and one of Gaza's most respected attorneys, went to Ashkelon to visit his client. but I earned that Jamal had been moved to Gaza Central Prison in Rimal, and put into isolation. His family and lawyer had their requests to see him denied. Even the Red Cross could not get in to see him. "It was as if he was under interrogation again," says Raji. "For the next two weeks no one could see him, not even his parents. Other clients of mine from inside the prison reported that Jamal was indeed again under interrogation."

On Nov. 27, the Red Cross was finally permitted to see him and reported to his family that his injuries were healing, that he was in good spirits, and had asked again to see his lawyer. Raji tried more than 10 times to see Jamal, and each time was refused.

Futile Attempts

On Dec. 1, Jamal's mother went to the prison to see her son. They told her to wait and they would bring him to her. She waited for more than eight hours, but didn't see him. On Dec. 4, Raji went to Gaza Prison to see Jamal and four other clients. "The guard told me, 'Get out, I have orders not to let you see any of your cases.’"

Back at his office, Raji was told by another lawyer who had just returned from visiting clients in prison that Jamal had been killed the previous night in his cell. He had been hanged during an interrogation.

Late in the evening on Dec. 4 the army sent a jeep to Jamal's house and picked up Bashir to take him to see the governor of Gaza. Bashir was told that his brother had committed suicide in his cell that day. Bashir was stunned, "I told them that my brother would never kill himself. The Shin Bet killed him just like they tried to kill me two months ago. I asked to see his cell and they refused."

As a lawyer in Gaza, Raji knew that "suicide" was a euphemism for murder. "No one kills himself in prison here. It is virtually impossible to hang oneself in the cells."

On Dec. 5, Raji asked that the official autopsy be postponed until a Danish physician, Dr. Jorgen Thompsson, could fly to Israel to assist in Jamal's autopsy. On Dec. 9, Thompsson confirmed that Jamal's death was from strangulation by hanging.

"The question is, of course, how can someone recently shot hang himself in a cell that is supposed to be made 'suicide proof'?" Raji Sourani asks. "It is my opinion as a lawyer that Jamal was killed because he committed a unique crime. He seriously injured a Shin Bet officer. It is also suspicious that Jamal was brought back to Gaza. I think it was planned to make an example of him."

Two weeks after Jamal's death I visited his family on a rainy winter afternoon. Dozens of Jamal's family and friends sat quietly around his picture, waiting for the military to return Jamal's body for burial. Jamal's brother Nasser said the army had just blown up his house in the Beach Camp in retaliation for Jamal's act. Nasser's wife and four children are now sleeping in his father's house. "We have to get out soon, it's his workshop we are living in, and he has to work."

Bashir, unshaven and with bloodshot eyes, explains, "We don't sleep because the army can call us at any time to bring back the body." Jamal's father, a refugee from 1948, asks, "What do they want of Jamal now? They have shot him and put him in prison and beat him. He committed a crime and paid for it, but why make us wait for his body like this?" He's crying.

On Dec. 18, almost two weeks after the autopsy, the army finally brought Jamal's body to his waiting family at 11 p.m. The army ordered an immediate burial, permitting only 15 relatives to attend.

Another Voice

On Feb. 6, I was in a taxi to Gaza when a young man next to me began to converse in English. "You remind me of a Canadian fellow I met in a taxi last July," he said. "He came to my house for lunch and I took him around to see the camps. When I was taking him back to Erez checkpoint, a jeep stopped us and we were arrested on the charges that I was working for the PLO. The Canadian was released after two days but I spent four months in jail for nothing."

I asked him about his prison experience.

"The interrogation is the worst part. I will never forget how they tortured me: a bag was put over my head, a heavy wool one, and my arms were tied behind my back at the elbows. While one man kneeled on my chest and closed my nose and mouth so I couldn't breathe, another man was squeezing my organs. If they don't release you at the right time you can die. I swear I saw death five times during my first week."

I asked him where he was in prison.

"At first they took me to Ashkelon for the interrogation. After a month I was taken to the Central Prison in Gaza."

"Do you remember the boy who committed suicide in Gaza prison in early December?" He replied, "Of course I remember. His name was Jamal, I think. I heard him screaming as they hanged him in his cell.

"But it was reported that he committed suicide, that he hanged himself."

"Don't believe them!" the young man exclaimed. "You cannot hang yourself there and he was screaming when they hanged him. I heard it myself. He was murdered."

Two weeks after the death of Jamal Abu Sharakh, another prisoner, Khaled Kamal Sheikh-Ali, died during interrogation in Gaza Central Prison. The official cause or death was "heart failure."

Steve Sosbee is a free-lance writer from Kent, OH, presently living in Gaza.