Israel: Five Days in an Apartheid State Prison

Consulate officials often come and visit their citizens. Our hearts are with our American and German comrades because we know they will not find sympathetic officials.

Whenever any of us are called to see our consular officials, we tell them to check the time. Meals and the consulate visits are our only way of knowing the time. 

As can be imagined, we have a lot of free time so in addition to the singing and being general nuisances, we sleep a lot. 

Being in Cell 4 and the whole block in general is a lot like a retreat for delinquent teenage girls. Mikako from Japan, at 63 and oldest after Josefina has left, leads us in stretches. 

I prompt a story that everyone must continue. 

My beginning, “They came for Josefina at 2 o’clock in the morning. They left me there but they did not know that Josefina is my stepmother…” I wish I could tell you we created a story worthy of a Booker or adaptation to Netflix. Alas, no. But we have lots of laughs with each addition to the story as it degenerates. 

We are also, in turns, taken to see ‘the judge’ who asks again whether we want to leave or stay. 

We soon realise that it makes little difference because people with health problems who signed to leave after 72 hours detention are still with those of us who did not sign. 

They call me on the second day to see the judge. As we wait to be taken to the holding cells/cages before seeing the judge without a lawyer, Yasmin, who is part of the steering committee for the Global Sumud Flotilla, starts questioning one of the guards standing with us why they kill babies and starve people. He smiles indulgently, but then I say something which gets him really riled up. 

I say ever so politely, “Sir. Do you know how much you are hated? You can kill and maim and imprison people, but you can’t make anyone love you. We all hate you. The whole world hates you.” Somehow this seems to get to him because he looks at me furiously and shouts, “Shut up. Don’t push it.” I shut up, but the point has been made. 

We go and see the judge without a lawyer. Four of us at the same time, the Brazilian will see a different judge.

“Would you like us to send you back home to your country?” Our answer is the same.

We did not come here voluntarily. We were abducted from international waters and we want to complete our mission. I use that time to drink water as I have little trust in their tap water. 

We go back to our cells and the counting, and the songs of freedom continue.

On Sunday, Cell 4 is finally let out to take a shower and have some exercise. Twenty minutes. I have been washing in the bathroom sink but rather looking forward to the shower. I give myself five minutes walking in the open space and this is when I learn I am not supposed to walk outside the line when the guard above me yells and points his gun at me. 

I am convinced now, more than ever, that all functionaries of Apartheid Israel are incapable of speaking in a regular voice. It can’t be polite to talk that loudly on stolen land, surely? 

During the night, someone in Cell 5 with heart problems needed a doctor. The agitators of Cell 4 spent much of last night asking for a doctor for Cell 5. No doctor came. 

Now, outside, when our 20 minutes are up, we sit down between Cell 4 and Cell 5, refuse to go back in our cell until a doctor comes for Cell 5. If only one of us had done this, we would probably have been beaten and thrown into solitary confinement or something. 

But because we have numbers, no threats can make us stand up and we only do so and get back in our cell when a medic comes. Back in the cell, we soon start calling out the guards again.

We read that prisoners are supposed to have an hour outside, and the smokers are supposed to get cigarettes yet the smokers have not been given cigarettes, and we only got 20 minutes outside. Let us out.

The guards cannot believe our chutzpah. One of them answers, “You are not prisoners. You are activists.”

Oh? 

Later that afternoon, Carrie, Zaheera, Fatima and I are called. Four days after interception, and three days since arriving at K’tziot Prison, we are finally going to see our consulate officials. 

When we get to the cage where we are meeting them, they introduce themselves and suggest that we wait for Mandla and Reaaz. As we wait, the consul officials inform us that they left Jerusalem at 8 in the morning, have been at Ktzi’ot since 11. It is now 3 in the afternoon.

When the guys finally join us, it’s like a family reunion. Just as we are presenting our case to the officials, one of the Israelis tells us its time up. Two minutes is what we have had. It is bizarre. 

The officials seem ready to acquiesce but we collectively make noise and ask for 10 minutes. The Israelis finally agree to five minutes extra. We leave disappointed with the meeting because the officials sounded as though they were leaving it all in the hands of Israelis in spite of Department of International Relations and Cooperation knowing that we would be undertaking this mission more than a month before and an interception was a possibility if we did not make it to Gaza. 

“We have a WhatsApp group with the Department, the Presidency, your families and SA BDS Coalition.” As Nigerian mothers would say, “clap for yourself.”

 In the early evening with more people having been taken out, Cell 4 is broken up. Mikako and I are called and asked to take our blankets. We go to Cell 13 where we are now with some South Africans and Mexicans and a Swede, Greta Thunberg. 

Of all the women arrested, she has been at the receiving end of the most violence from the Israelis. And yet she is strangely calm and polite. I was never this calm at 22. 

The Mexicans get a call through a sympathetic guard from their ambassador to check on how they are doing. There and then, the South Africans decide that the Mexican Embassy represents us.  

 We are moved to Cell 10 on Monday. There are seven of us in the cell. Four South Africans and three Mexicans. The Mexicans are called to meet their consul officials.

 When they return, they inform us that their officials told them that they will be dropped at King Hussein Bridge by Israeli officials the next day. The South Africans sigh longingly. To be as informed as the Mexicans. Not knowing can lead to not worrying but sometimes too, it can lead to worrying a lot. 

We know that our embassy is in Ramallah, considered Palestinian territory and South Africa, given the ICJ and ICC case, is considered hostile by the apartheid state but surely a message could have been passed through a friendly embassy? 

Mexico, maybe? But we were unnecessarily worried. In the late afternoon, we are called as a cell for the doctor’s visit. We now know that we shall be leaving together with the Mexicans. 

At four in the morning, the security guards wake us up and allow us to shower.  We leave our cell 30 minutes later and are on the buses. 

And as the buses leave with their high windows where we cannot be seen, we are able to stand and see Gaza in the horizon. So near yet so far. We know that, as we see it, last night, maybe even now, more Palestinians are mourning their families murdered by a bloodthirsty apartheid regime. 

On this bus with these women from different countries united in love for humanity, I know we will not stop chanting for Palestinian, and our collective freedom.

In this – the second and last instalment of South African author Zukiswa Wanner’s account of their abduction by Israeli authorities, she tells the story of how she and other members of the Flotilla to Gaza cheekily cocked a snook at their captors, instead of suffering peacefully, as was expected of them by Netanyahu’s forces.