The Torture Death of Mahmoud Jumayal

by Steven J. Sosebee

There are growing signs in the West Bank and Gaza Strip that the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) is facing increasing widespread civil unrest reminiscent of the intifada. The election of an intransigent Likud government in Israel deepens a growing impression among Palestinians that the Oslo accords will not bring an acceptable solution to their terrible political and economic plight. The recent torture death of a young activist in Nablus and the subsequent shooting of unarmed demonstrators in Tulkarim indicates that the PNA, like the Israelis before, must impose by force an increasingly unpopular rule on the people of the West Bank and Gaza.

Mahmoud Jumayal, 26, was a respected activist from Palestinian President Yasser Arafat’s Fatah faction of the PLO during the uprising. Like other intifada activists in Nablus, Jumayal had been shot and imprisoned by the Israelis and had witnessed many other comrades hunted down and killed by IDF death squads. When the PNA took over Nablus from the IDF last winter, Jumayal and others in Fatah criticized the corruption and behavior of the Arafat regime, which brought in outsiders rather than use local activists for “security.” As a result, Jumayal and four others were arrested in December and put in Al-Juneid Prison in Nablus without charge.

On July 31, Jumayal turned up brain dead at Hadassah Hospital in Israel with a broken skull and severe burns on his chest. He had been tortured to death at the hands of the Coastal Police, one of the many different Palestinian security forces operating with near impunity in the West Bank and Gaza.

Shortly after the news of Jumayal’s death, detainees in Al-Juneid and Tulkarim prisons, both now under PNA authority, began a hunger strike. On Aug. 1, tens of thousands of angry mourners buried the martyr while Nablus, the center of the intifada, was paralyzed by a strike protesting the use of torture in PNA prisons. Though 15 members of the Palestinian Legislative Council were sent to participate in the funeral, the fact that Jumayal was a member of Fatah, Arafat’s party, indicates that opposition to Oslo is no longer merely among leftists and Islamic groups. Nor is the use of violence against legitimate political opposition, including Fatah, uncommon. “This is not the first crime,” said Bilal Dweikat, a Fatah leader in Nablus. “What happened to Mahmoud Jumayal crowns a series of violations by the security forces against strugglers from Fatah and ordinary citizens.”

A day after Jumayal’s funeral, family members of the 50 hunger-striking prisoners in Tulkarim, all held without charge since February, gathered near police headquarters. Five prisoners had been transferred earlier to a hospital suffering from dehydration. “We are worried about our sons,” said Umm Khalil, whose two sons were detained inside. “Are they being burned and beaten too? If they did that to one from Fatah, what will they do to the sons who are not from Fatah?”

This time the police and soldiers are not members of the IDF, but rather the PLO.

After Friday prayers, the families were joined by hundreds of people still angry about the torture death of Jumayal and concerned about the hunger-strikers in Tulkarim Prison. Stone-throwing clashes with Palestinian soldiers, who began to shoot into the unarmed crowd, ensued. Ibrahim Hadaideh, 38, a father of two children from Nur Shams refugee camps was killed instantly by a bullet to the head, while seven others were injured seriously. The crowd then stormed the prison and freed 40 detainees, who participated in the funeral of the new martyr before turning themselves back in to the police. Meanwhile, PNA forces in Tulkarim called Nablus for reinforcements to help impose the first curfew imposed on a Palestinian town by Palestinian police. “It is time for a new intifada,” chanted youths who burned tires in Nur Shams camp.

In response, Arafat ordered widespread arrests of suspected opposition activists. Palestinian police began night raids throughout the northern West Bank, arresting 200 men by the end of the next morning.

While PNA forces conducted mass arrests, a special court created by Arafat in Jericho convicted three members of the Palestinian Navy for the torture death of Jumayal. “I heard there was a problem with a prisoner held by the Navy and I gave orders to transfer three officers to the military prosecutor,” Arafat told a meeting of the Palestinian Legislative Council in Bethlehem. Capt. Abdul Hijjo and Lt. Omar Kadumi were given 15 years of hard labor, while Sgt. Ahmed Biddo received 10 years of hard labor for the killing of the young activist.

Routine Measures

Despite the quick conviction of the three men, the use of physical violence against political prisoners is hardly isolated to three Palestinian sailors. Much like Israel, which is the only country in the world where the use of torture is legal, Palestinian security forces routinely employ beatings and other violent measures to punish and extract information from opposition activists in the territories. Half a dozen men have been killed under detention in Palestinian prisons since 1994. (The Israelis, for their part, killed two dozen Palestinians under detention during the intifada. Meanwhile, there are still thousands of Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli prisons and torture still is widely employed, according to international human rights groups.)

Following the arrests of suspected activists in early August, new reports of torture in Nablus have emerged. According to the Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment (LAWE), four detainees were hospitalized following severe beatings at Al-Juneid Prison on Aug. 9. One of the prisoners was beaten so badly that he was thought to be dead. When prison officials learned he was alive in the intensive care unit at a local hospital, they tried to rearrest him but were prevented from doing so by the hospital staff. Sound familiar?

The current torture deaths, curfews, clashes, shootings of unarmed demonstrators, night arrests, huge nationalist funerals, and detentions without trial, all are reminiscent of the intifada in the West Bank against Israeli occupation. This time, however, the police and soldiers employing these illegal measures are not members of the IDF, but rather the PLO. Arafat and the PNA may learn the same tough lesson that the late Yitzhak Rabin was taught when his campaign of “force, might and beatings” only intensified the uprising.

While Arafat took damage control trips to Nablus and Tulkarim in an effort to calm increasing opposition, the new Likud government announced plans to expand Jewish settlements throughout the West Bank. This puts Arafat and the PNA in the position of appearing as policemen for the Israelis, who are continuing to expropriate Palestine at an alarming rate.

Both Israel and the U.S. also have major responsibility because they have pressured Arafat to use whatever measures possible to prevent further bombings in Israel. By looking away now as Israel’s new Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu violates terms of the Oslo accord solemnly signed by his predecessor, Yitzhak Rabin, the Clinton administration is deepening the despair of Palestinians. They increasingly feel betrayed by the Oslo accords signed on the White House lawn, by the leader who signed them and by the superpower which now refuses to acknowledge that Israel is reneging on undertakings guaranteed by the United States.