Meeting Hisham

Today I met Hisham, 48 year old veteran of Palestinian resistence to the Occupation and hostel proprietor. Beit Sahour Player suggested I meet him whilst in Jerusalem.

After taking down directions, I eventually managed to find Hisham's hostel. It was a door way etched into a busy market lined with fruit and grocery stores. Inside the doorway was a staircase zigzagging all the way to the first floor. At the top of the steps I pressed the door bell and was greeted by a Palestinian boy who looked me up and down suspiciously.

"I'm here to see Ishan, is he in?"
"You mean Hisham."
"Yes Ishan, thanks."

I followed the boy towards an enclosed courtyard looking directly west into the midday sun. Along the centre wall sat a middle aged man who greeted me hesistantly.

"Hi, my name is Iqbal. I'm a lawyer from Australia. Beit Sahour Player suggested I meet you. He said you could give me a good run down of the history around here."

With that Hisham began his story. No doubt what he told me was but the tip of the iceberg. But it was still enough to leave an impact.

Hisham is no stranger to imprisonment and torture. In 1977 he was imprisoned in Syria for criticising that country's massacre of thousdands of Palestinian refugees in southern Lebanon. "I was at a lecture on agricultural engineering. Someone said that Syria had come to protect the Palestinians [in southern Lebanon]." When he mentioned the massacre he was taken by Syrian secret police and tortured for two days before being released. In Jordan, he was interrogated for a day after he stopped a Jordanian official from manhandling him, presumably at an immigration checkpoint.

Hisham used to be an agricultural engineer. He also obtained qualifications in psychology and chemistry. It was with the chemistry and engineering elements of his qualifications that he learnt to make bombs. Because of this background, the Israeli secret service, the Shabbat, arrested and tortured him. After eight explosions rocked Jerusalem in 1997, the Shabbat took Hisham to a notorious prison directly underneath a famous Russian Orthodox Church in new Jerusalem (pictured below). "They took me on 12 January 1997, during Ramadan. I still remember the exact date. I was in prison, they tortured me for 73 days."

During the 73 days of torture, the Shabbat tried to get Hisham to sign a confession that he was involved in the Jerusalem bombings along with Hamas and Islamic Jihad. When he was detained, he was clean shaven and wearing a white shirt. By the time he was released, he had a large unkept beard, wild, overgrown hair, and his shirt was dark brown. He smelt so bad his family says they could smell him three rooms away.

Hisham was kept in solitary confinement, in a room measuring one by two metres. He was given rudimentary food and two to three litres of water per day. One corner had an opening, to shit, and a lid, to reduce the odour. He was not allowed to shower for the entire 73 day period.

His wrists were bound before handcuffs were tightly placed over them to ensure there would later be no scarring, potential evidence of his detention and torture. His fingers became swollen to around twice their normal size and turned a pink-purple colour.

Due to the torture, Hisham went unconscious on several occasions. Eventually his heart stopped. He was clinically dead. The Shabbat rushed him to a local hospital which Hisham mentioned, with some meriment, was a maternity hospital. He was revived and sent back to prison to continue the interrogation.

Despite the use of all manner of physical torture techniques - the use of cathodes and intense beating, to give but two examples - Hisham insists that the main, most powerful technique was psychological. The Shabbat torturers would constantly tell Hisham that his wife and children would be defiled. They always spoke to him in Arabic and would often read passages of the Koran "in perfect Arabic." At one point, they even brought his father, who was 80 years old at the time, to the prison.

"They told my father that if I did not confess, I would definitely go to jail for ten years... But still, I refused."

On the day of Eid (one of the main Muslim holy days and a cause for much celebration), the Shabbat brought Hisham a great feast, along with cigarettes and hot water. Immediately, Hisham wondered what the catch was. "For so many days I had not even had hot water. Why all of a sudden all these things?" He refused to accept any of these new gifts lest it relate to a confession.

"The Shabbat said I could go, have the food and go. And I refused, and he [one of the Shabbat officers] looked at me in shock. I said, "you know my language well, but you don't understand my culture. It is Eid but how can I leave, I have no money, you took me in my pyjamas, and on Eid I need to give money to all my female relatives." This is one of our traditions, we give money to females on Eid."

This enraged one the Shabbat officer who grabbed Hisham and smashed him on the wall.

"He [the Shabbat officer] said, "'til now you have been living in the mansion. Now you go to the worst [sic] place"... and I was dragged off to where there was a policeman, and the policeman asked where I was going."

The Shabbat officer told the policeman that Hisham was to be released. They had decided to release him but instead of telling him this directly, the Shabbat performed one final act of mental torture, just in case Hisham would crack and confess to being behind one of the Jerusalem bombings before he was released. But, of course, Hisham did not confess to something he maintains he was never involved in.

"When they released me, I had not seen daylight for 73 days. I staggered around, looking for a taxi, but it was Eid (a public holiday for Muslims), and the Israeli taxi drivers, seeing my condition and my smell, refused to take me... I saw a Palestinian taxi driver, I begged him to stop. He said he was driving home for Eid, he was not working. But I pleaded with him to take me. He said, "Okay, but it will cost you 100 shekels (around $35 Australian)." I said "You can charge 200 shekels if you want, just take me to my father's house."... When I got home, my brother, who is a very emotional person, broke down and started crying. The whole family began to cry as I told them what happened. Even the taxi driver began to cry and said he wouldn't charge me any fare. I said no, no pay him 20 shekels."

I asked Hisham if, given his experiences, whether he believes that the Occupation will ever end. "Only by force" was his response. "I am committed to non-violent resistence now, I work with the International Solidarity Movement. But, do you know history, our history? Nothing will work with Israel but force."

"Even now, at any time, they could take me again. Before I was released, one of the Shabbat officers, he told me. If ever I catch a Hamas or Islamic Jihad leader who mentions your name, I swear on your mother you will get twenty years."

The gate to the prison where Hisham was tortured.