As soon as media reports emerged regarding a deal between Palestinian prisoner Hisham Abu Hawash and the Israeli prison authorities, Israeli extremists led by Knesset member Itamar Ben-Gvir angrily raided the Assaf Harofeh Hospital where Abu Hawash was being held. 

A Palestinian political activist, Abu Hawash, 41, is a father of five. The Israeli army arrested him at his home in the town of Dura, near Hebron, in October 2020. For 141 days prior to the agreement, Abu Hawash was on hunger strike. His will go down as one of the longest and, arguably, most consequential hunger strikes in the history of Palestinian resistance.

Ben-Gvir and other right-wing Israelis were enraged by the government’s decision to agree to release Abu Hawash on Feb. 26, at a time that the Naftali Bennett-led coalition is laboring to demonstrate its pro-settler credentials and overall hard-line policies against any form of Palestinian resistance. For many Israelis, any such compromise is considered an outright defeat for Israel and an unquestionable victory for Palestinians.

The steadfastness of Abu Hawash — who fell into a coma days before the agreement, as his gaunt, emaciated body faltered under the immense pain of his unrelenting hunger strike — was also the trademark of the type of resistance displayed by thousands of Palestinian prisoners in the past.

There are currently 4,600 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. Most are imprisoned following trials in Israeli military courts. These trials do not live up to the minimum requirements of fairness as required by international law or the legal norms practiced in even nominally democratic countries. 

Additionally, according to Addameer’s prisoner support group, there are 500 Palestinians being held without trial or due process — a draconian system known in Israel as “administrative detention.” Abu Hawash is being held according to that notorious system, which has been described by Israeli human rights group B’Tselem as “incarceration without trial or charge,” based on an unsupported allegation “that a person plans to commit a future offense.”

Abu Hawash’s detention was renewed repeatedly, as is often the case when Palestinian prisoners are arrested as a form of punishment for their political activities or anti-occupation speech. In such cases, they are kept in isolation. They all experience psychological torture and, in many cases, physical torture too, with their Israeli interrogators laboring to exact confessions that can be used against them in the military courts.

Abu Hawash’s hunger strike will go down as one of the longest and, arguably, most consequential in the history of Palestinian resistance

Ramzy Baroud

The trials of Mohammed Al-Halabi are a case in point. His is perhaps the most outrageous situation in the horrific administrative detention system. The manager of operations of World Vision in Gaza has been held in solitary confinement for more than five years. He has been paraded before an Israeli military court more than 150 times. One of Palestine’s most prominent humanitarians is now living the endless nightmare of being neither free nor being charged. 

In the case of Abu Hawash, the decision to undergo a hunger strike was not an arbitrary one. On the contrary, it was a strategic decision inspired by the popular resistance witnessed in Palestine last May and the renewed sense of vigor and unity among Palestinians.

The struggle for freedom by Palestine’s political prisoners is one of the most unifying pillars of the Palestinian cause. Though most prisoners, like most Palestinians, are directly or loosely affiliated with specific political parties, these affiliations quickly dissipate as soon as they enter — shackled and browbeaten — their Israeli dungeons.

Whether supporters of Fatah, Hamas, a socialist group or any other movement, a Palestinian, upon his imprisonment, ceases to be a member of a faction per se, but is a Palestinian first and foremost. This can easily be deciphered from the kind of literature that is often smuggled out of Israeli prisons.

For example, the prisoners’ document of 2006, written and signed by the leaders and most prominent members of all Palestinian political parties in prison, remains the strongest and most genuine call for national unity ever written. This spirit of unity emanating from inside Israeli prisons is why the Palestinian people continue to hold a collective perception that the prisoners are the true leaders of their society.

Abu Hawash, like many other prisoners who underwent the grueling hunger-striking experience, must have known this very well. He must have also fully appreciated the fact that millions of Palestinians throughout the Occupied Territories and the wider world were watching anxiously and displaying their solidarity with him and his family. 

The day before Israel committed to releasing Abu Hawash, a large rally in Gaza brought community leaders and spokespersons for all resistance groups together. One prominent figure pledged that, should Abu Hawash die in custody, it would be considered an “assassination” and that a rebellion would soon avenge him. Hours later, the Israeli government agreed to the terms set out by the Abu Hawash family. 

The extremist Ben-Gvir was actually right. The Israeli government did, in fact, grant Palestinians a victory. But why would Israel concede at a time that it also refuses to make a single concession regarding its illegal settlement construction, its growing apartheid, military occupation or the status of Jerusalem? The reason is not related to the prisoner himself, but to his centrality in the collective consciousness of Palestinians. If Abu Hawash died, Palestine would have erupted into a new rebellion and, judging by the events of last May, all kinds of resistance would have been put on display — a crisis that Bennett’s shaky coalition could not afford. 

It is quite powerful to think that a dying man, tied to a hospital bed, can force Israel to concede on such a crucial issue as that of the freedom of a Palestinian. Just imagine what would happen if this powerful energy was multiplied by thousands of people like Abu Hawash and sustained by the resistance of millions of Palestinians throughout the Occupied Territories. This is the true doomsday scenario that Israel fears most. 

  • Ramzy Baroud has been writing about the Middle East for over 20 years. He is an internationally syndicated columnist, a media consultant, an author of several books, and the founder of PalestineChronicle.com. Twitter: @RamzyBaroud