The wife of a Jewish security inmate – jailed for 15 years without vacations for an attempted bombing against an Arab target – refuses to bring her children to visit their father unless new harsh jail conditions are eased.
This week, the Jewish security prisoners jailed throughout Israel were informed of yet another decree – possibly the hardest one of all. They can no longer freely touch their children during their weekly visits in prison; a window separates between them.
The Honenu Civil Rights organization is organizing a protest against this new policy, to be held this coming Monday, 12 noon, outside Ayalon Prison in Ramle, together with the prisoners’ families. 
The new arrangement applies to the entire prison population – but it affects many of the 17 Jewish security prisoners most severely because of special Shabak (General Security Service) rules forbidding them from enjoying monthly two-day visits at home.
"Just Like a Zoo, With Their Father in a Cage"
“It is a real travesty,” Ofer’s wife Michal told Israel National News, “a repulsive set-up. It used to be that every family would come, and sit around a table with their father, for an hour at a time – and once a month, for an hour and a half. The children could sit on his lap, he could hug them, and this is what we were used to for years. Now, they decided to build a long wall all across the room, with windows, and each prisoner sits on one side of a window, and talks through the window to one or two visitors at a time. It’s degrading and humiliating, like a zoo, with their father in the cage."
Asked how large the window is, Michal explained that it is big enough for a child to crawl through, "and in fact, two of our children did - and one of them received a big bang on his head on his way back in... Why can't they just let them go in through the door at the end of the wall? The whole thing is a pure lack of good will, and is very difficult for us as a family."
This past Monday, the first time Gamliel was forced to undergo a partition visit with his children, he was unable to handle it, and asked to end the visit after only a few minutes.
“In addition," Michal said, "there’s just one very long bench all along the length of the wall, and older people and others have to walk all along its length to get to ‘their’ window.
Children Won't See Father?
“I refuse to bring my children to such a visit,” she said. “I will try this week, and if they don’t let us meet in the yard around a table, like they did for a while when the room was being refurbished, then I simply won’t bring them in.”
Protest This Monday
The Honenu Civil Rights organization is organizing a protest against this new policy, to be held this coming Monday, at 12 noon, outside Ayalon Prison in Ramle, together with the prisoners’ families. Faxes can be sent to Israel Prison Service Commissioner Benny Coniak, at 08-977-6888.
Gamliel, father of 7, has served 7 years of a 15-year-sentence, with no vacations. He was convicted of his role in an aborted bombing of an Arab school in Jerusalem in 2002. He and his two co-defendants said the bomb was never meant to go off, but rather to instill fear in the Arab community in light of the many murderous Arab terror attacks during that period. The bomb, in fact, did not go off, yet the three plotters were sentenced to between 12 and 15 years in prison - longer than most Arab terrorists who actually fired weapons at Jews.
He recently spent several weeks in solitary confinement, including no family visits - punishment for a previous six-week hunger strike in protest of his harsh treatment.
There were around eight armed policemen around the bed, and five more nearby, and another couple at the door…
Gamliel and many of the other 17 Jewish nationalist prisoners in various prisons have been treated with extraordinary harshness in comparison with other prisoners. Though Arab terrorists and other prisoners receive vacations on a regular basis, Gamliel has not been allowed out for more than a few hours in total during these seven years (aside from the two post-attack furloughs).
No "One-Third Off" Expected
In addition, Honenu says, it is a foregone conclusion that the Jewish department of the General Security Service (Shabak), which has been very heavily involved in the case, will not allow his release for "good behavior" after two-thirds of the sentence has been completed.
The National Council for the Child (NCC) has also gotten involved, asking that the Israel Prison Service allow Gamliel to visit his 7-year-old son, who was recently wounded by an axe-wielding terrorist in a playground near his home.
The NCC is a public non-profit organization that lobbies for children’s rights and welfare. The letter, penned by NCC Chairman Dr. Yitzchak Kadman, also registers its complaint about the over-zealous security precautions taken during the hospital visit the Prison Service allowed Gamliel immediately after the attack.
Child Welfare Council Protests Degrading Hospital Visit
“Enabling the father to visit his son who had just undergone a difficult trauma,” Kadman writes, “is certainly a considerate humane act on your part, that certainly cost you a great effort. It is too bad that this humaneness and good will that you showed by the very decision to allow the visit was not completed in a worthy manner, allowing the boy to meet with his father without the presence of strange men [security guards – ed.] in the room… With all the understanding we have for security needs, it cannot be that there was no other way to safeguard these needs without the heavy escort of guards accompanying the prisoner into the hospital room and their presence there throughout their difficult meeting…”
“Ofer was chained around his feet during the visit,” Michal said, “but that wasn’t the main thing. There were about eight armed policemen around the bed, and five more nearby, and another couple at the door… I begged them to move away, to show some sensitivity, but they refused. It was very difficult for the boy…”
Kadman’s letter further asked that the father be allowed to visit with his family, including two other sons who were witness to the attack in which their little brother was almost killed, in light of the trauma they underwent.