Special hidden files today, dealing with the situation in palestine and talking to someone who understands and knows the zionist regime very well. Im very happy to welcome to the program, sheikh talal abdul rahman shirim, a former prisoner in Israeli Regime prisons and hes also currently the head of the prisoners files for hamas. Thank you so much sheikh for. With us here on hidden files, now as a former prisoner who spent 18 years in israeli jails, how much do you value your freedom today, and how hopeful are you about the liberation of the occupied palestinian territories . I seek refuge in allah from the curse of satan, may peace and blessings of allah. Upon the most honorable creation and the master of Prophet Muhammad and upon all his family. First of all, thank you for having me today to clarify issues regarding the prisoners file. Currently, im in charge of this file. No one can speak about a prison better than the one who was jailed in it. According to poetry, no one knows the difficulty of something except those who are grappling with it. Freedom is priceless and must, if i want to maintain my dignity, i have to preserve this homeland, hence what we pursue, which is the liberation of palestine, is precious and the price that we pay is high. The palestinian detainee suffers two pains, the first pain when his house is writed by the occupations army, the troops detonate the doors using bombs and then enter the home and begin ransacking it, destroying everything inside. They terrify the children, women. And fathers and mothers in plain sight of the prisoner who is handcuffed behind his back. Any person in that house who once the protest or speak is hit in plain sight of the entire family. This is the first suffering that the detainee grapples with. The army ransacks the house and takes everything inside. If the troops find money, they steal it. They also steal the jewelry of the women, and they take any Electronic Devices such as computers and phone. On the way to the interrogation, the detaine is physically and verbally assaulted, and here is blasphomous words, all of that is part of psychological torture that preceeds the interrogation. We will talk about the interrogation later in the interview, but i want to say that the interrogation is inhuman. Allah, the almighty said in the quran, indeed, we have dignified the children of adam, so it doesnt make sense that another child of adam comes in reach your freedom and attack you and your ideas and religion and doctrine, thats kind of insane, but as i have said, palestine is precious. Palestine is the heart of the arab and muslim world, and whatever sacrifices we make, they will remain slight compared to the goal of liberating palestine. Well, according to Human Rights Groups, more than 800 palestinians. Are currently lodged in israeli jails. Can you share more specific details of about the total number of detainees, including those arrested since october the 7th. Unfortunately there is false information even among the Human Rights Groups, the red cross etc. But as a person who is in charge of that file, i will give you the accurate figures. Before october 7th, some 5,200 detainees were in present, including about 450 children and minors under the age of 18 and 35 women, the rest of the detainees were men. But after october 7th, the occupation authorities launched a crazy, Brutal Campaign against palestinians, arresting members of the legislative council, engineers, doctors, university students, general public, former prisoners, women and children. Now, the number of palestinians held in israeli jails exceeds 12,000. That means 7,00 more palestinians have been detained since october 7th. Thats kind of insane because. Are are unknown, so were talking about huge also reported missing and their whereabouts number of detainees and prisoners, these were the actual figures of palestinian detaines held in israeli jails, we often come across horrifying stories of systematic torture and side israeli jails, inmates electrocuted, deprived the food and sleep, denied medical care, handcuffed and assaulted and even sexual abuse. Does the apartite regime use torture as a weapon of war against palestinians . I have been detained 10. Times since the first interfada or uprising in 1987. Was detained and released 10 times, so i have lot of experience and have lot to say about what takes place during the interrogations, and about the horrifying stories heard from my fellow detainees. Regarding torture, i have said that the torture starts from the moment of arrest and continues until the end of the interrogation. During the interrogation, all inhuman techniques. Are used such as stripping the detainees of his clothes, with the interrogator mocking him or flirting with him as a kind of assault. But honestly, no Sexual Assault takes place, and i havent heard something about that. The individual, however, could be threatened with Sexual Assault. The wives or sisters of some of the detainees were also detained and brought to the interrogation. There the men were threatened with subjecting their wives or sisters. Sexual abuse if they refuse to make a confession. This is a method to force the detainees to speak and make a confession. Some of the detinees break down and speak up as they want their wives, sisters or mothers to return home, and subsequently the interrogator gets what he wants. Sometimes it is the detainees who threaten the interrogators, that if their lives or sisters were not freeed, they would witness unprecedented things. These strong men fear in the regimes authorities that later release those women who are used as tools to exert pressure on their husbands or brothers were being interrogated. Regarding the other techniques, i personally spent a week, seven days sitting a chair with my hands cuffed behind my back and my face covered. I spent seven days without sleep and without food during the fasting month of ramadan. They were giving us just one meal every two. For th days. When i was asking for water, they were spilling water on the floor, so if you wanted to drink water, you had to drink the water spilled on the floor. These were among the interrogation techniques. There were other techniques that depended on the case or the method adopted by the interrogator. There was the good guy, bad guy technique, where one interrogator speaks nicely, kindly asking the detainee whether he has a wife and children and speaks about. Leacing him and giving him money in order to encourage him to speak up. In return, there was an aggressive interrogator who was beating, insulting and spitting on the detainee, and doing everything you can imagine. Whats currently happening in israeli jails is harsher than what happened in the Us Detention Centers of abu ghraib and guantanamo bay. I can say that they all learn from the same source how to torture and humiliate the people. There are many methods. Of torture in jails that require several interviews in order to address them, as each person and each charge has a certain method. Sometimes interrogations result in deaths. In israeli jails, more than five were killed due to torture. They were suffocated while being handcuffed. They put a piece of cloth on the mouth of the detainee. The detainee could be suffering from a disease, and the interrogator doesnt know that, and subsequently, such techniques could result in his death. Some people died during the interrogations. When i was in the tolkarm central prison, one of the detainees who was sitting next. During the interrogation was matured, he died due to torture, then there are many methods of torture, sometimes they even resort to Israels Supreme Court to obtain a license to torture ruling, because the interrogator doesnt want to bear the responsibility of that severe torture and wants the court to be responsible instead if that detainee dies, so they obtain a decision from the court and down and shake him for a long period of time, and that subsequently inflicts a brain injury on him that leaves him either dead or mentally ill. Some people died because of that method of heinous torture. What people watch on tv is nothing compared to what actually happens. You saw how they stripped scores, hundreds and thousands of people of their clothes in front of cameras, omit freezing temperatures, let alone what happens behind closed doors. They strip people of the. And put them a wet floor and turn on air conditioners, switching back and forth from cooling to heating. During one to two days, those detainees fall ill due to that method of torture. All these methods were aimed at pressing to forcibly admit to something. There are methods that are less heinous, but still heinous, such as imprisoning the individual in a certain room with people portrayed as honorable palestinian. And fighters, but in fact they are spice for the Israeli Regime and deceive the detinie to obtain information from him. There are other soft techniques such as providing the detaine with the most Delicious Food. While the detaine is hungry, the interrogator brings Delicious Food and begins eating and asks the detanie if he wants to share him the food, saying how are you . Here you are. He will also be offered coffee, tea, cigarettes, etc. Thats another method to obtain confession from the weak people, but the real fighters refused eat or drink anything. No matter how much i spoke about methods of torture, they still exceed the imagination, and what we currently see is just part of the suffering that palestinian detinies are grappling with in israeli jails. 30 to 40 prisoners are placed, then the prisoners are diverse, that was what i had to say in brief about the issue of the torture of detanees. Mean its so unbelievable and so heartbreaking hearing what the prisoners go through because of the zinest regime, and recently a statement by the Palestinian Prisoners Club said detainees are being denied medical care, not transferred to clinics or. Red cross or some international and human rights bodies in order to appear democratic and civilized, but all the masks have fallen amid the ongoing war. Theres no democracy, there are no human rights, no humanity in the israely regimes dealings, so we see it innovating new torture techniques for the sake of deterrance. The regime used to insults to obtain forced confession, but now and emit the war, the regime aims at pressing the resistance. The regime uses the scenes the arrest of women and children in order to press the resistance to submit to its demands, then they want to obtain what they fail to obtain through weapons and. Explosives and through murders and physical assaults, by pressuring the fighters when they witnessed the mistreatment of their women, children, and people. That is means of pressure and a dirty war. Any war has its own means such as means of destruction, such as bombs and weapons of mass destruction, but the other means is to torture the civilians who are not involved in any operations in order to press the fighters to give up and raise the white flag. The more dirty men method is that occupation deprives people from food and water. In northern gaza we have famin in every sense of the word. There is no edible thing there. There are more than 60 thousand pregnant women who have nothing eat. How will their fituses be nourished. Dozens of fetuses die in their mothers wombs and those were born alive find no milk or drink. The babies have nothing eat and subsequently die. There are cases of child deaths due to malnourishment in prisons we knew the meaning of hunger because we went on hunger strikes to restore our rights that the prisons authorities deprived us from or to protest against punitive measures adopted against us. Sometimes we didnt eat anything for a month or two months so we felt pains including in the head and the knee and grappled with weakness. After two to three weeks the hunger striker becomes unable to stand up and walk and instead remains in thus, hunger leaves people collapsed. The case now is not concerning number of hunger strikers in prisons, but concerning an entire nation that is suffering. More than 700 thousand people in gaza have no food. Israel also destroys medical facilities such as hospitals and medicines. There are no medicines in gaza. There are 10 th00 Cancer Patients in gaza and they have no medication and are dying slowly. Regarding the normal cases. We have over 350,00 patients who dont even have access to panadol tablet for the headache. Let alone those whose legs or hands have been amputated, how will they be treated . Many of them see their bodies decomposed, and when a decomposed part of their body is amputated, another part begins to decompose, so they cut the other part off after a week or so on. Someone told me that he buried his father in three phases as his fathers hand and leg were cut off. During a strike on their house, so the sun took them and buried them under the ground. Later that same family was targeted in another strike, that amputated his fathers second leg, so the son took it and buried it in another cemetery. The father later died due to those injuries, so the sun buried him for the third time. Can you imagine that a person can be buried in three phases . Where does that happen . All of that take place amit the worlds silence, mean the entire world. Including human rights organizations and the united nations, all their meetings are fruitless, thats because israel is the spoiled son of the united states. Israel is the uss dirty tool in the region, so we fight for the sake of our dignity, and in order to restore our land, no matter the price that we pay, that will remain little compared to the restoration of our dignity and the preservation of our land and sanctity. Earlier this month, Human Rights Group cited shocking testimonies from recently freed detainees, including the Israeli Military inviting settlers to watch the gory torture of palestinians. On the other hand, we saw how israeli captive spoke highly of their capters. I mean, what does this say about the two . I spoke about part of those scenes, but there is another tragedy. These are settlers. Settlers have violated the remaining part of the palestinian land, going beyond the part granted by the world. The world gave israel a state and gave palestine estate, but it was not established. Day by day, settlers steal. The disaster is that the settlers burn and rob the houses and attack the palestinians and do whatever they want, while the israeli army does not move a muscle, the army sees everything. What hurts more is that the army brings those settlers to the prisons to see how palestinian detaines are humiliated, or subsequently they boost the moral of their people and settlers through showing them the pains of the palestinians who are held in the prisons. Thats humanly unacceptable, and those people breached all the limits of humanity, and we shouldnt even call them human beings. Some reports have pointed. Alarming spike in socalled administrative detention since october 7th, mostly minors who are held without charges or without trial, how would you describe this travesty of justice . The detention process is divided into several sections. I spoke about the first section, which is the interrogation and investigation into cases and the regime inherited that policy from the british, under that policy, the detainee is in prison without a charge for six months, it could be extended for another six months and later for another year and so on. Some people were jailed for 18 to 20 years under the administrative detention policy, just because the regimes authorities suspected them without evidence or proof. Thats the height of crime. Other part of the world uses that policy. In fact, palestine is the sole occupied country in the world. All the countries have been liberated except palestine. In palestine, all inhumane laws are practiced. Many people were jailed under the administrative detentions, and that policy was not used against just 5, 10, 20 or 100 people. Before the allox of flood operation, there were over a thousand administrative detainees. But after israel launched a brutal arrest campaign, the number of administrative. Detainees exceeded 3,00. They include doctors, engineers, ordinary people, and university students. Even miners are jailed under the administrative detention policy. I also want to mention one of the ugliest practices that i just remembered, which is the unexplained death of people in prison. Since october 7th, 11 people, including administrative detainees, died under tortured. They were killed during just four months. Isnt that kind of insane in . Return, you saw how palestinians in gaza treated the israeli captives, they treated them humanely and shared their food with them, according to the israeli captives testimonies. We saw a released woman carrying her dog, while people in gaza have no food, her dog was in a good condition, so the way israeli captives are treated differ from the way palestinians held in israeli jails are treated. In palestine, the israeli captives are treated humanely despite the war and destruction. In the Israeli Regime, which claims to be democracy, you see the height of ignability. At the same time, there are also heartening stories about detainees engaging in creative activities inside jails. For example, b khandanjik recently released his book, a mask in the color of sky, written inside of jail and nominated for an international prize. Where does this never say die spirit . Sometimes the individual who loves the life never submits to pressure and always looks for ways to develop himself and convey his message to the world even from the prison, the big prison to which the det after being interrogated is a school where the detaining learns from the professors were also. Present imprisonment is an ordeal, but we turn it into a granting. Some people were illiterate when they entered prison, but they left it with college degrees. Some people memorized the holy quran in prison. We turned prisons into schools and universities. We reached agreements with universities in gaza and lebanon and contacted them through professors who are held in these prisons. That is helped educate the palestinians. Palestinians are by nature intellectual and love knowledge. And dissemination of science, so we saw them writing books, the book that you mentioned was nominated for an international award, so its author gained fame, but there are hundreds of other people who authored books while in prison, and their books are released and just need to be interpreted into english and other languages, so we turn the ordeal into a blessing through investing in knowledge and education inside these prisons, there were 11 brothers who got a phd degree why . They were in prison, each year about 150 people get masters degree either from gaza university, palestine university, janan university in lebanon or other universities. So the education process is ongoing in prisons, despite the attempts the prison authorities to prevent detainies from learning. These attempts include tearing up papers and breaking pens. We even went on hunger strikes for more than 45 days in order to obtain a book, pen or notebook, so we were grabbing our right to education. At some point we even forced the regime to give us access to some specializations in. Well speaking about your own experience, when was the first time that you were arrested and what were the charges, how were you release, and do you expect another prisoner swap between Hamas Resistance Group and the Israeli Regime as part of ongoing negotiations mediated by qatar and egypt. No. Long sentences and other longterm prisoners were free during our decades long conflict with the occupation, without deals such as ahmed jibril deal and shalit deal. All of these prisoner swaps took place by force after Israeli Soldiers or their corpses were captured. One of the reasons behind the alaxel flood operation was that the resistance wanted to capture number of soldiers in order to secure the release of some palestinian detainees held in israeli jails. Some palestinian detanees have spent 45 years in jail such as niil barguti who was first arrested when he was 17. That detainie left his wife while she was pregnant. She later gave birth to that baby boy who grew up and he was also detained later by the Israeli Regime. That boy was put beside his father in prison. Other detainees have spent 43, 30, 27 or 25 years in jail. Over 2000 detainees have served. Such long prison sentences in israeli jails, but the Israeli Regime categorically rejects to release them under the pretext that they have israeli blood on their hands, as if the Israeli Regime has not committed violations and crimes against the palestinian people. In light of this reality, these detainees can only be freed by force. Therefore, one of the reasons behind the allo flood operation was to capture Israeli Soldiers for the purpose of conducting a prisoner swap. As far as i know, and according to media reports, more than 140 israeli captives are currently held by the resistance in gaza. The Israeli Regime launched attack and killed palestinians in order to extract the captives by force, but the resistance has refused to free any captive held in gaza, unless palestinians held in israeli jails are freed, particularly elderly people, patients, women and children. If they want their captives, then we want our detainees in return. Currently negotiations are underway to reach a prisoner swap deal. Israel, by nature, always eludes. The initial framework for the deal was outlined by israel in paris, and we didnt intervene at all. They sent that framework deal to hamas for consideration, and for its part, hamas sent it to other palestinian factions. That proposal only serves the interests of israel, as the regime wants to take its captives a low price. The regime apparently believes. That they can achieve through negotiations what they failed to take by force and war, and thats impossible. That proposal was rejected, but amendments were made to it. Israel, however, rejected those amendments. We only call for the release of our detainies for his ceasefire and the withdrawal of these ready troops and for allowing food to enter gaza. We dont want anything else. Israel is negotiating with us even on that. Hence we realize what allah the almighty. Says in surah albaqarah when bani israel argued with allah the almighty on the cow, the quran says they said, call upon your lord to show us what is her color, but after allah informed them about the color of the cow, they said according to the quran, call upon your lord to make clear to us what it is, bani israel argued with the lord of the worlds, let alone us, the ongoing negotiations are