Ansar 2: Palestinian Detention in Gaza During the Intifada

Behind me stands Ansar 2, a prison camp in the Gaza Strip.

This camp, surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards, is one of nearly a dozen such camps now holding five thousand Palestinians. Doctors, lawyers, children from the refugee camps, students, labor leaders, human rights activists, journalists.

Most are being held without charge or trial, some for months on end, labeled simply as security offenders.

All that is necessary under current administrative Israeli law to detain them for months on end.

Talking all people. Ah, talking all people.

You're here at the detention center to visit your son, is that correct?

What happened to him?

They took him from the house at two AM in the morning.

And they accuse him of throwing stones, and they are fining him, uh, something like, uh, seven hundred dollars.

And how long have they kept him yet in the detention center?

They sentenced him for five months in jail and, uh, seven hundred dollars fine.

They sentenced him for five months in jail, seven hundred dollars fine, and he's sixteen years old, and it was for throwing stones?

Yeah. Is that right? Are the, are the other children afraid as the result of what's happened to him, or are they continuing the work of the Intifada?

They are afraid, and everybody is afraid of being, uh...

They have been looking for this, this boy.

They came twice to locate him. Why? What did they think he had done?

Uh, they, they think that he, uh, they think that he's, uh, throwing stones.

And so they want to arrest him? Yeah, they have, uh, looked for him for, uh, twice.

They would put him in jail?

Small boys this age are in jail? All these boys.

All these boys? Uh, all these boys. How are they, how are we supposed to feel when we see our children beaten by the soldiers? Sometimes we are asleep, and all of a sudden we see soldiers jumping over the walls, uh, to the house.

And they destroy, and they destroy the belongings in the house.

The jails are not only filled with these young boys, but also the intellectuals, the educated, and affluent Palestinians now flooding the prisons.