PHOTOS: Street exhibition confronts Israelis on Palestinian Prisoners’ Day

Members of Activestills posted a public street exhibition on the streets of West Jerusalem and Tel Aviv of photos that bring attention to Palestinian Prisoners Day.

Photos by: Ahmad Al-Bazz, Shiraz Grinbaum, Keren Manor, Anne Paq, Ryan Rodrick Beiler, Yotam Ronen, and Oren Ziv

PHOTOS: Street exhibition confronts Israelis on Palestinian Prisoners' Day
A relative hangs a photo of Haled Muheisen prior to his release from an Israeli jail on October 17, 2011, in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Issawiya.

The following text, in Hebrew, accompanied street exhibitions of the photos from this essay which were posted in public places in West Jerusalem and Tel Aviv the night before Palestinian Prisoners Day, April 17, 2013. Images of the street exhibitions, some of them later defaced, follow below:

April 17 commemorates Palestinian Prisoners’ Day. As of February 2013, there are 4,713 Palestinian men and women held in Israeli prisons. Of these, 169 are administrative detainees, held without an indictment; 235 are minors. Since the occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip in 1967, more than 700,000 Palestinians have been imprisoned by Israel. To this day, dozens of Palestinians are taken away from their homes, workplaces, schools, and from different checkpoints on a weekly basis. Some are detained for days, some for weeks, and some imprisoned for unlimited periods of time.

The hunger strike is a protest tactic that started as an unorganized form of resistance to Israel’s use of administrative detention, torture, humiliation, and other forms of abuse that Palestinian prisoners experience in Israeli prisons.

In 2012 and 2013, nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners went on hunger strike, some of whom reached the military medical center after dozens of days without food. Thousands of Palestinians have joined protests outside the prisons’ walls. Protest tents, strikes, and other solidarity demonstrations with the hunger strikers in the West Bank and Israel have been brutally suppressed by Israeli forces, resulting in scores of casualties.

Samer Issawi has been on hunger strike for more than eight months, and other prisoners are joining him. They only ask for a fair trial. Their medical condition is deteriorating by the minute.

PHOTOS: Street exhibition confronts Israelis on Palestinian Prisoners' Day
Palestinian hunger striker Samer Issawi is taken to his court hearing in the Magistrate Court in Jerusalem, February 19, 2013. Some 800 Palestinian political prisoners imprisoned in Israeli prisons were refusing food in solidarity with four fellow inmates, Ayman Sharawneh, Samer Issawi, Tareq Qa’dan, and Ja’far Aiz Din.

 

PHOTOS: Street exhibition confronts Israelis on Palestinian Prisoners' Day
Tariq Issawi holds a photo of his wife visiting their son Samer Issawi, who has been on a hunger strike in Israeli prison, October 10, 2012. Samer Issawi was one of more than 1000 Palestinians released in exchange for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in October 2011. He was re-arrested for allegedly violating the terms of his release which stated that he remain in Jerusalem, but has been held under administrative detention since his re-arrest. He began his hunger strike on August 1, 2012.

 

PHOTOS: Street exhibition confronts Israelis on Palestinian Prisoners' Day
Palestinians waiting outside Ofer military prison for the prisoner exchange to take place. October 18, 2011.

 

PHOTOS: Street exhibition confronts Israelis on Palestinian Prisoners' Day
Demonstrators dressed as Palestinian prisoner Khader Adnan, who had been on hunger strike, march during a protest to mark seven years of struggle against the wall in the West Bank village of Bil’in, February 17, 2012.

 

PHOTOS: Street exhibition confronts Israelis on Palestinian Prisoners' Day
Activists demonstrate solidarity with Samer Issawi and other Palestinian political prisoners, in Damascus gate, outside the Old City, Jerusalem, March 12, 2013.

 

PHOTOS: Street exhibition confronts Israelis on Palestinian Prisoners' Day
Israeli soldiers arrest a Palestinian activist during a demonstration in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners, Ofer Military Prison, February 28, 2013.

 

PHOTOS: Street exhibition confronts Israelis on Palestinian Prisoners' Day
Palestinians celebrate the arrival of released Palestinian prisoners at the Presidential Compound in Ramallah, December 18, 2011. Israel released 550 Palestinian prisoners in the second and final phase of the Gilad Shalit swap with Hamas.

 

PHOTOS: Street exhibition confronts Israelis on Palestinian Prisoners' Day
Demonstration in front of Ramle prison in solidarity with Palestinian prisoner Samer Issawi, February 2, 2013.

 

PHOTOS: Street exhibition confronts Israelis on Palestinian Prisoners' Day
A relative of the deceased Palestinian prisoner Arafat Jaradat holds his photograph as she and other family members wait for the autopsy results in their home, Sa’ir, West Bank, February 24, 2013. Arafat Jaradat, 30, from the Palestinian village of Sa’ir died on February 23, 2013 in Israel’s Megiddo prison. According to human right reports, Jaradat died either during or shortly after he was interrogated.

 

PHOTOS: Street exhibition confronts Israelis on Palestinian Prisoners' Day
Poster showing Palestinian prisoners at a demonstration in support of Palestinian hunger-striking prisoners in front of Ramle Prison, Israel, May 3, 2012.

 

 

PHOTOS: Street exhibition confronts Israelis on Palestinian Prisoners' Day
Hana Shalabi inside the solidarity tent in Gaza city, Gaza Strip, May 7, 2012. Hana Shalabi, from the West bank village of Burqin near Jenin was exiled to the Gaza Strip for three years by the Israeli authorities as part of a deal which ended her 43-day of hunger strike protesting her administrative detention without charge.

 

PHOTOS: Street exhibition confronts Israelis on Palestinian Prisoners' Day
Khader Adnan plays with his daughter on his first day out of Israeli jail in the West Bank village of Araba, near Jenin, April 18, 2012. Israeli authorities released Khader Adnan on April 17, 2012, from administrative detention after he was held in an Israeli jail for four months without trial. Adnan protested his imprisonment and was on hunger strike for 67 days.

 

PHOTOS: Street exhibition confronts Israelis on Palestinian Prisoners' Day
Graffiti painted to welcome Khader Adnan is seen in the West Bank village of Araba, near Jenin, April 18, 2012.

 

PHOTOS: Street exhibition confronts Israelis on Palestinian Prisoners' Day
A Palestinian doctor checks Thaer Halahleh, a former Palestinian administrative detention prisoner, in a hospital in the West Bank city of Hebron, June 6, 2012. Israeli authorities released Halahleh from administrative detention after he spent 78 days on hunger strike.

 

PHOTOS: Street exhibition confronts Israelis on Palestinian Prisoners' Day
Solidarity tent with Palestinian prisoners, Gaza, May 14, 2012.

 

PHOTOS: Street exhibition confronts Israelis on Palestinian Prisoners' Day
Activists put up a street photo exhibition in solidarity with the Palestinian prisoners, West Jerusalem, April 17, 2013. April 17 marks the annual ‘Palestinian Prisoners Day’. It was initially established to remind the public of the thousands of Palestinian prisoners that are imprisoned in Israeli jails, where they are routinely exposed to torture and other inhumane treatment. The exhibition was put up in various locations in West Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

 

PHOTOS: Street exhibition confronts Israelis on Palestinian Prisoners' Day
Tel Aviv residents pass a street photo exhibition in solidarity with the Palestinian prisoners, April 17, 2013.

 

PHOTOS: Street exhibition confronts Israelis on Palestinian Prisoners' Day
A woman passes a Tel Aviv street exhibition on Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, April 17, 2013.

 

PHOTOS: Street exhibition confronts Israelis on Palestinian Prisoners' Day
Another street photo exhibition in solidarity with the Palestinian prisoners, Tel Aviv, April 17, 2013.

 

PHOTOS: Street exhibition confronts Israelis on Palestinian Prisoners' Day
Racist comments are written on a street photo exhibition posted in Tel Aviv the night before in solidarity with Palestinian Prisoners Day, April 17, 2013.

 

PHOTOS: Street exhibition confronts Israelis on Palestinian Prisoners' Day
Text explaining a Tel Aviv street exhibition in solidarity with Palestinian Prisoners Day is defaced and torn, April 17, 2013.