Palestine | Barah Odeh: “More than half of my hair fell out in the first month due to poor and unhealthy nutrition” – El Salto

“They told me I had to wait and they put me in a room where I had to sit in a chair and wait for three hours,” explains Barah Odeh, returning from a work trip in Germany, at the Allenby border crossing on March 5. He was later taken to another room where they asked him if he had another suitcase and his passport was taken. And he adds, “Then they asked me to follow them outside the building where a military car and soldiers were waiting for me. When I asked them the reason for my arrest they told me I must already know, but I was never told the reason.”

Barah Odeh explains how from the moment of her arrest she was blindfolded and handcuffed, so that she never knew where she was, “I was only able to know that I was at a military base because I raised my eyebrows a little bit and I could see through the bandage.””. This was Ofer prison, where they asked her questions about her trip to Europe and told her that she was now under an arrest warrant.

She was later transferred to Hasharon prison. There they examined her body and she was physically assaulted for the first time. They then took her to a cell in the men’s section where she said she “slept one night in a 2 meter x 2.5 meter cell with dirty walls and a toilet filled with food and other dirty things. There were also 3 mattresses, a very thin sheet filled with urine and two video cameras. So going to the bathroom was not possible.” However, despite asking to use another bathroom, the guards still took her to another bathroom outside the cell after more than nine hours.

“When I asked them the reason for my arrest they told me I must already know, but I was never told the reason”

“In the Hasharon detention center they usually keep women in a small section with two or three rooms until they decide what they want to do with you,” explains Sahar Fraisse, director of Addameer, an organization dedicated to supporting Palestinian prisoners.

Sahar Francis adds, “Before being transferred to Damon, she was once again subjected to humiliating treatment, like most detainees, with physical checks and verbal attacks and insults.” In Damon’s prison she was forced to sign a document written in Hebrew that she did not understand.

Barah says of this: “In court I never understood what they were talking about because everything was in Hebrew and the translator did not translate anything.” For him, the only way to know what was said was through the protocols that were sent a day later. “When I received them I tried to find someone among the prisoners who spoke Hebrew so they could translate it for me.”

Total Insulation

Palestinian women in Israeli prisons are completely isolated from what is happening outside. Barah cites the war situation in the north as an example, because it was only when the alarm sounded that they knew if something was happening outside. And he explains that “usually they also lied, they told us that the alarm sounded because there was a party in Israel and that we should keep quiet.”

Relatives could only communicate with him through his lawyer, but their movements were also restricted and it took several days before lawyers were able to see him or check if he was okay.

“The Israeli authorities blocked any form of communication, which prevented us from checking on his health or whereabouts. After his arrest, for a whole week, we had no idea where he was or what had happened to him,” says Barah’s sister, Shirin Odeh.

Learning about his arrest had a profound impact on the family’s life. “The uncertainty and fear about his well-being were a constant source of distress,” Shirin says. “Every day brought us a mix of hope and despair as we searched for news or updates on his condition.”

To this Barah’s husband, who prefers to remain anonymous, says: “She was severely abused and harassed by prison guards and officers, and reports of the terrible conditions of inmates in the prison increased our concern”.

Barah screams, “For six days my family did not know where I was.” Moreover, Israeli authorities informed his lawyer that Barah would be interrogated for eight days. However, this never happened, as he was informed that he was in administrative detention for a few hours first and was never interrogated.

In addition, “women are often punished with isolation and, of course, they are not allowed to receive visits from family or the Red Cross,” explains Sahar Francis, adding: “Only lawyers can visit and even these are restricted. For example, each lawyer’s visit is limited to two women.

Barah doesn’t remember when his lawyer first met him. But he describes how he didn’t even have a sense of privacy during visits because “security guards are behind the door all the time and, sometimes, they try to intimidate you by preventing you from closing it or showing yourself through it.”

Inhumane conditions in Israeli prisons

Human rights violations inside Israeli prisons have increased since 7 October. Sahar Francis denounced that levels of torture, inhumane treatment, physical assaults, collective punishment, humiliation, sexual assault and body searches have become more common for all prisoners, leading to the death of 18 prisoners so far.

In both detention centers and prisons, Palestinian women endure abusive treatment. Sahar Francis explains how in Damon Prison, where Barah Odeh was held, “prisoners are locked in overcrowded cells for 23 hours a day because there are more people than the prison can hold.” And she adds: “That’s why people sleep on the floor in every cell, even in women’s prisons.”

Damon was a former horse stable that was converted into a prison by the Israeli authorities, so the weather conditions are often extreme. Barah explains: “Fans are no longer allowed in the summer, which means the cells are uninhabitable because of the heat.”

In recent months, Israeli authorities have been implementing a starvation policy in prisons and not providing them with enough food in both quality and quantity.

On the other hand, in recent months Israeli authorities have been implementing a starvation policy in the prisons and not providing them with enough food, both in quality and quantity. “Every day we went to bed hungry,” says Barah. And he adds, “the meals were numbered so that we would eat as little as possible.”

This includes the poor quality of the food “What they brought was monato and most of it was full of fungus that produces bacteria. Basically you can’t eat it. But sometimes we had no choice.” As a result of the bad food, Barah, as well as other victims, have developed germs in their stomachs that require medical treatment.

Barah also explains that “the water we drank was so full of chlorine that it was completely white. So we had to wait at least 15 minutes to be able to move it and drink it. And he highlights, “More than half of my hair fell out in the first month due to poor and poor nutrition.”

As the Palestinian Prisoners Society explained in a recent statement, “In the near future the prisoners will find themselves in a complex health situation, which has already begun to manifest, as the number of sick prisoners has apparently doubled, and hunger has increased.” “This has become a method of daily punishment that has been going on since October 7 until today.”

As Barah Odeh describes, it was very difficult to get medical treatment, and “if you managed to reach the medical center, the only answer you would get was that you did not drink enough water.” This also includes lies from prison management and medical officers. In his case, they only agreed to be tested after a court ruling due to his poor state of health. But he never received treatment, because “they told my lawyer that I was refusing to receive treatment, which never happened. This is something that normally happens.”

Administrative detention and collective punishment

Sahar Francis denounced the steep increase in administrative detentions since 7 October. There are currently around 3,400 Palestinians in administrative detention, 25 of whom are women. Furthermore, in the past 7 or 8 months, more than 5,900 orders have been made, including renewed and new ones. “This is the first time since 1967 that the number of administrative detentions has reached that level.” The increase extends to the entire Palestinian territory, including the West Bank, Jerusalem and the territories occupied in 1948.

Barah Odeh’s husband believes that Europeans cannot understand how bad the situation is and how the prisoners are treated: “The fact that no official charges were ever brought against her and no evidence was ever produced leaves us with a feeling of impotence”.

“I thought they would never let me go because they kept saying I had to stay in prison.” His release after three months was quiet, as he himself had no idea it was going to happen. “I only found out the day before in prison, because they gave me the things I had when they arrested me,” he says. “This is how Palestinian prisoners find out they will be released.”

Israeli authorities use administrative detention as a method of repression and control. Through this process, occupying forces hold prisoners for at least three months without presenting charges and under secret documentation. Detention orders are often renewed, but this can be indefinitely.

For Barah Odeh’s husband “it is a repressive tool to keep people under control and suppress any form of organisation in civil society, as well as persecute people simply for their political views.”

“Unfortunately, it has become common for human rights defenders like Barah to be jailed. This trend appears to be a deliberate attempt to silence voices advocating for justice and human rights,” adds Shirin.

Following Barah’s arrest, his brother was also arrested and held in administrative detention at the Etzion detention center for six months. “We believe he has been imprisoned as a form of revenge.”

Following Barah’s arrest, her brother was also arrested and held in administrative detention at the Etzion detention center for six months. As for Sahar Francis, the only charge against him is that he posted an article on Facebook about the circumstances of his sister’s imprisonment: “We believe they have been imprisoned for revenge.”

According to Shirin, Israeli authorities say he was calling for unrest in the West Bank. But for the family “we think he was detained as a punishment to the family because of the high pressure on the Israeli government in connection with the Barah case.”

Barah, who is still processing everything that has happened, says, “My freedom is not complete without the freedom of other prisoners.” At the same time, she demands that the international community and women’s organizations be concerned about what is happening to Palestinian women in Israeli prisons. And remember that there are currently two pregnant women in Damon prison who are facing these terrible conditions, with no clear charges against them.