Jewish security prisoner Ofer Gamliel, serving a 15-year-sentence with no vacations, has begun a hunger strike.
To draw attention to his case and make sure he is not forgotten, supporters of several Jewish prisoners incarcerated together with Gamliel, have erected a protest tent outside Yeshivat Merkaz HaRav in the Kiryat Moshe neighborhood of Jerusalem. The tent is manned by family members of the prisoners, as well as supporters and well-wishers.
Their goal: To draw attention to the plight of Jewish security prisoners who are not allowed vacations - while Arab prisoners are permitted to visit their homes for Ramadan and the like, and sometimes even released en-masse.
Realizing that as far as the authorities are concerned, he is destined to spend the next 8.5 years in prison without ever leaving, Gamliel decided to begin a hunger strike.
Gamliel, father of seven children, was charged in 2002 for his role in an aborted bombing of an Arab school in Jerusalem. He and his two co-defendants claimed the bomb was never meant to go off, but rather to instill fear in the Arab community. The court ruled, however, that the faulty battery was only an oversight on their part.
Their lawyer claimed at the time, "The court has decided that it knows the defendants' intentions, by saying that what they said was purposeful was really only accidental."
Gamliel and Shlomi Dvir, father of five, were sentenced to 15 years each, while the third defendant, their neighbor Yarden Morag, was sentenced to 12 years.
They, as well as other Jews convicted of security crimes, do not receive many of the privileges granted to Arab prisoners - most notably, vacations. Gamliel, for instance, has not been granted one vacation in the nearly 6.5 years that he has been in prison - and the General Security Service (GSS) has no plans to give him any.
Another Bat Ayin prisoner, Shlomi Dvir, has been allowed prison leave only one time in six years - for 12 hours when his baby daughter was born. He was taken out of prison on two other occasions, chained in both legs and hands and with many guards surrounding him, for three hours each time, when his two sons were born. His request to attend his brother's wedding last year was advanced by several Knesset Members, but the Prison Service and Minister of Public Security Avi Dichter refused to allow it - at the behest of the General Security Service.
The Shabak (GSS) claims they are hiding information on other Jewish conspiracies, and that "every minute they are out of jail represents a danger to the State of Israel."
About a year ago, Judge David Rosen of the Tel Aviv Administrative Matters Court ruled that the danger presented by Gamliel is not different than those presented by prisoners who are allowed vacations, and that he must therefore be allowed a short vacation outside prison. The GSS protested the ruling to the Supreme Court, which accepted the appeal.
GSS: "Every minute they are out of jail represents a danger to the State of Israel."
Gamliel protested and appealed the overturning of the decision, but Supreme Court Judge Uzi Fogelman rejected his appeal and upheld the no-vacations policy. Gamliel then applied to the Supreme Court for a re-hearing, but Justice Eliezer Rivlin turned him down.
Realizing that as far as the authorities are concerned, he is destined to spend the next 8.5 years in prison without ever leaving, Gamliel decided this past Tuesday to begin a hunger strike.
The prison authorities retaliated by throwing him into solitary confinement.
"He is not allowed to call home, of course," said protestor David Libman, who himself is under administrative orders not to return to his home in Samaria for four months. "But the jailers are in touch with him, and we assume that if anything should happen to him during this hunger strike, they will give him the necessary treatment... We wish to call attention to this disgraceful situation in which Arab prisoners are given many privileges, while Jews are not. It is simply intolerable."