Spreading Hunger Strike

Nafha prison becomes a political rallying point

A hunger strike by Palestinian prisoners in Israel expanded last week into an Arab cause celebre. More than 300 Arab convicts joined the protest in five jails. A demonstration by prisoners' relatives and sympathizers in East Jerusalem degenerated into a near riot. An Arab civic organization in the city called a half-day sit-in strike in the Al Aqsa mosque, Jerusalem's sacred Muslim shrine. The reason for the agitation: the recent deaths of two Palestinian inmates who were force-fed by Israeli authorities at Nafha prison. Last week TIME Jerusalem Bureau Chief David Aikman was among a small group of journalists allowed to visit Nafha, where the protest began. His report:

Approached by road through the forbidding, dust-brown wastes of Israel's Negev desert, it does not look much like a prison. The buildings, flanked by two concrete watchtowers, are single-story and look like huts. At first glance, the place might be just another secret government installation. It is in fact a three-month-old, maximum-security prison located 70 km south ,of Beersheba. Until late last month hardly any Israeli or foreigner had heard of Nafha prison, which is designed to hold at full capacity 110 hard-core security offenders. But today Nafha is fast becoming a political rallying point for West Bank Arabs; already it is the focus of an Israeli Interior Ministry investigation into the deaths of two inmates.

Even Israel's prison officials admit that conditions in their maximum-security prisons, which house convicted Palestinian terrorists almost exclusively, are worse than in any Western country. The average cell space per prisoner in Israel is 28 sq. ft., compared with 65 to 85 in Western Europe. Eight or more convicts are herded into cramped cells without real beds or tables. They are permitted outside their cells for only two daily hours of exercise or for visits with lawyers. Once a month, they are permitted a half-hour visit with relatives.

Israeli officials explain this stern confinement policy on two grounds: security and economy. They point out that the majority of the country's 2,858 security prisoners are political activists who have demonstrated their danger to Israel through bombings, shootings or other terrorist acts. Furthermore, the Israeli prison service has consistently been strapped for funds to improve its facilities.

At Nafha last month, prisoner anger over conditions boiled up into a hunger strike. "Our conditions are inhuman," prisoners complained in a document distributed by their lawyer, Israeli left-wing Activist Lea Tsemel. Prison authorities began to worry after a week in which all 74 prisoners at Nafha refused food. Since it is against the law in Israel to permit prisoners to die by their own hand, forced feeding was begun on some of the prisoners. A long tube was pushed down their throats into their stomachs while they sat on chairs. In three cases, the vitamin-and sugar-reinforced milk drink accidentally entered the lungs. As a result, two prisoners died of pneumonia, and a third became critically ill. When word of the deaths became public, a wave of protests spread among Jerusalem and West Bank Arabs.

Embarrassed by the uproar, Israeli authorities seemed almost eager to show off Nafha. The prison is no holiday camp, but it is not the Black Hole of Calcutta either. Weakened by hunger, the surviving Nafha prisoners have agreed to a voluntary intake of 1,200 calories of liquid food per day. Most of them were sprawled on their mattresses on the floor. Three or four, gaunt and unshaven, crowded to the bars of their cell doors. Complained one: "We are living like animals, like in the Middle Ages." The eight prisoners of one cell were briefly allowed out into the small, barbed-wire enclosed exercise yard. They sat blinking and listless in the sunlight. Then, shuffling slowly in their black sandals, brown denim pants and orange pajama-like shirts, they returned to their cell.

There may be more to the protest than outrage over conditions. Prison authorities claim that the strike has been organized from outside, probably by P.L.O.-affiliated groups. This is vigorously denied by Lawyer Tsemel, whose view is that the prisoners are not common criminals, but rather, militants "fighting for a cause" --namely, a Palestinian victory over Israel.

In fact, one apparent goal of the protest is to prod the P.L.O. into greater activity on behalf of all Arab prisoners in Israel. In a letter made available to TIME, the Nafha prisoners addressed their grievances directly to P.L.O. Chief Yasser Arafat. After reaffirming their loyalty to the Palestinian revolution, they asked pointedly: "What are you doing for us? Don't be surprised at this question. It is our right to demand that you will stand beside us in this struggle." The letter noted bitterly that the Zionist movement was "filling the world with stories of the struggles" of its own political prisoners, and called on Arafat to go on a hunger strike himself in sympathy with the Nafha protest. The message apparently hit home. In Beirut late last week, Arafat appealed for international intervention to stop the "maltreatment" of Arab prisoners in Israeli jails. P.L.O. Executive Committee Member Jawad Saleh complained, with obvious hyperbole, that conditions in the jails were "worse than in the Nazi detention camps."

The Israelis, meanwhile, have decided to face up to the embarrassing disclosures, both about conditions in their prison system and about the deaths. Interior Minister Yosef Burg has appointed a special "commission of inquiry" to look into what happened at Nafha. Perhaps the most ironic comment on the affair was conveyed in the protest document of the Nafha Arab prisoners--all of whom are dedicated to the destruction of the Jewish state in Israel. It said: "We have decided to declare an unlimited hunger strike until we are treated equally with the Jewish prisoners."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.