PLO official: Israel has official method of killing Palestinian prisoners, and calls for violence
Excerpt of an op-ed by Director of PLO Commission of Prisoners' Affairs Issa Karake, published on the website of the PLO Commission of Prisoners' Affairs, on May 24, 2017
and in Al-Quds on May 25, 2017:
"After 39 days in which the prisoners are waging an unlimited hunger strike, and with the month of Ramadan (i.e., Muslim month of fasting) imminent, do not make us receive the bodies [of the prisoners] who are liable to die in the occupation's prisons...
They are being murdered in silence [by Israel], through an official and planned method. They are melting, bleeding, and dissipating. If one prisoner will fall, the entire world will fall. The world will die if a Palestinian prisoner will die. Everything will die, because nothing will remain of the great and sacred ideas - not democracy, nor human rights, speeches, slogans, freedoms, cultures, large and small summit conferences, justice, or law...
Do not make us receive bodies from the occupation's prisons. There's nothing left to say, and there is no need for journalism, media, analyses, and speculations. The prisoners are currently struggling for their lives. Break the pens, look for a gun and bullets. Do not look at your watches, the time is up...
Enough, we have received 10 Martyrs [from the prisons] (Shahids) since 2013, and we held the occupation responsible a thousand times and demanded to put it on trial, to demand an accounting from it, and to convict it over the crimes against humanity that it is committing in the prisons. [But] nothing has happened. The prisoners continue to come out of the prison gates inanimate and strangled. Enough, let every one of us look for a gun and bullets...
Now I curse my helplessness. We would need a permit from the Israeli Civil and Military Administration (sic., Israeli Civil Administration) in order to live and go from place to place. And if we defend our lives, we must pay them compensation and be dragged into their military courts for them to accuse us of whatever they want and declare that they have caught us, 'the terrorists.' Enough, let every one of us look for a gun and bullets...I have memorized well the prisons' anthem in Ashkelon Prison and Nafha Prison. Do not kill the words of [deceased Palestinian poet] Mu'in Bseiso in my mouth and heart, when we repeat together with him:
'Yes, we will not die, yes, we will live
Even if the chains eat our bones
And even if the whips of the tyrants tear us to pieces
And even if they burn our bodies
Yes, we will not die, but rather
We will uproot death from our land.'"
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and in Al-Quds on May 25, 2017:
"After 39 days in which the prisoners are waging an unlimited hunger strike, and with the month of Ramadan (i.e., Muslim month of fasting) imminent, do not make us receive the bodies [of the prisoners] who are liable to die in the occupation's prisons...
They are being murdered in silence [by Israel], through an official and planned method. They are melting, bleeding, and dissipating. If one prisoner will fall, the entire world will fall. The world will die if a Palestinian prisoner will die. Everything will die, because nothing will remain of the great and sacred ideas - not democracy, nor human rights, speeches, slogans, freedoms, cultures, large and small summit conferences, justice, or law...
Do not make us receive bodies from the occupation's prisons. There's nothing left to say, and there is no need for journalism, media, analyses, and speculations. The prisoners are currently struggling for their lives. Break the pens, look for a gun and bullets. Do not look at your watches, the time is up...
Enough, we have received 10 Martyrs [from the prisons] (Shahids) since 2013, and we held the occupation responsible a thousand times and demanded to put it on trial, to demand an accounting from it, and to convict it over the crimes against humanity that it is committing in the prisons. [But] nothing has happened. The prisoners continue to come out of the prison gates inanimate and strangled. Enough, let every one of us look for a gun and bullets...
Now I curse my helplessness. We would need a permit from the Israeli Civil and Military Administration (sic., Israeli Civil Administration) in order to live and go from place to place. And if we defend our lives, we must pay them compensation and be dragged into their military courts for them to accuse us of whatever they want and declare that they have caught us, 'the terrorists.' Enough, let every one of us look for a gun and bullets...I have memorized well the prisons' anthem in Ashkelon Prison and Nafha Prison. Do not kill the words of [deceased Palestinian poet] Mu'in Bseiso in my mouth and heart, when we repeat together with him:
'Yes, we will not die, yes, we will live
Even if the chains eat our bones
And even if the whips of the tyrants tear us to pieces
And even if they burn our bodies
Yes, we will not die, but rather
We will uproot death from our land.'"
Click to view bulletin
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