Mohammad
with an old picture of his son Karim.

On Monday 12^th November 2012 Israeli
authorities prevented Palestinian families from Gaza from visiting their family
members who are being held in prisons in Israel and West Bank. It is worth
noting that families from Gaza
were not allowed prison visits by Israeli authorities from 2007 to July 2012.

Abdel Karim Mohammad Ibrahim Abu-Habel (22), has been
behind bars since he was 14 years old, after being arrested in April 2004.  His father, Mohammad Ibrahim Abu-Habel, says that: “Since Karim was
arrested by Israel’s
forces in 2004, we have only seen him 6 times.”

Mohammad continues: “I have already
lost one son, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in 2006, and having to
live without seeing another son for such a long time is nothing but painful.  Karim was arrested when he was only 14 years
old.  The last time I was allowed to see
him was in January 2007, and it was just for half an hour.  It has been over five years since I last saw
him. His mother last met him in July of this year,
for just fifteen minutes.”

The Israeli occupation forces
arrested Karim, a resident of the Jabalia region in the northern part of Gaza
Strip, when he was playing with his friends in an open compound near his house:
“When he was arrested in April 2004, we were not officially notified or
informed by anyone of his arrest.  We
searched for him vehemently.  It was only
after a month or so when some of the people who had been detained with Karim in
the prison in Ashkelon were released that we
learnt of our son’s arrest.  After having
made numerous unsuccessful attempts to confirm that he was being held there, we
finally received a phone call from a female soldier asking us to arrange for a
lawyer, because Karim was going to be charged with a series of crimes and there
was going to be a trial.  His trial
lasted for 2 years and he was found guilty by the Israeli Military Court in Erez on 15
different counts.  He was sentenced to 9
years of imprisonment for blowing up an Israeli tank.  I do not understand how anyone could think
that my innocent boy, of just 14 years old, could have performed such an act.  This is not the only time that Karim has been
put behind bars though.  When he was 10
years old he was detained by Israel’s
forces for 3 months, for no specific reason.”

Mohammad explains that locating
Karim was the first challenge they faced when trying to arrange for a visit:
“Since 2004, Karim has been moved in and out of 7 different prisons in Israel and West Bank.
 Most of the time, we did not even know
that he was being transferred to another prison facility.  We approached the ICRC to establish contact
with him, and it was through them that we learnt where he was being imprisoned.
 He was held in a prison in Ashkelon from the time of his arrest until early 2005,
and then he was held in a prison for minors in Hasharon until 2006.  When he was sentenced to imprisonment, he was first
transferred to a prison in Adhemun, but has since been in various prisons,
including ones in Ramun, Nafah, Naqab and Ishel.”

Even after locating Karim, making
the arrangements for a family visit were not easy: “In all of the 6 times that
we have been allowed to see our son, we faced many problems.  We had to seek permission to visit him and the
authorities would only allow one family member to visit at a time.  Out of these 6 meetings, not one was longer
than 30 minutes, and sometimes the time was cut even shorter.”

Mohammad explained they tried to
communicate with Karim using letters, which also proved difficult: “We managed
to communicate with Karim through the ICRC, who would take our letters to him
and bring some of his letters to us.  Other
times, Karim would send letters with his former prison inmates when they were
released.  Out of the 25 to 30 letters that
we have received from him, most of them have been marked with black ink and a
good part of these letters were unreadable.”

Mohammad and his family are now
waiting for their son’s release, which is scheduled for April next year.  The only recourse for them has been to
approach the ICRC.

At the end of May 2012, 234 Palestinian boys between
the ages of 12 and 17 were being held in Israeli prisons for alleged security
violations, a 73% increase compared to the number of Palestinian boys that were
held in Israeli prisons in December 2011[1]

As
per Article 37(b) of the Convention on the Rights of Child and Rule 2 of the United Nations Rules
for the Protection of Juveniles Deprived of their Liberty, children should be
protected from unlawful or arbitrary detention, and the arrest, detention or
imprisonment of a child should only be used as a measure of last resort and for
the shortest appropriate period of time. 
A prisoner’s right to receive visitors, especially close relatives,
at regular intervals and as frequently as possible is enshrined in the UN
Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners,[2]
the Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons under Any Form of
Detention or Imprisonment,[3]
and the Fourth Geneva Convention which also includes the right to communicate
with family members. [4]