Israel: Five days in an apartheid state prison

In May 2023, when I attended the Palestine Festival of Literature, I had a chance to observe Palestine and be a witness to the lives of Palestinians under apartheid and settler colonialism from the state of Israel. 

This month, for five days, after being abducted by Israel from international waters with almost 500 others while attempting to break the over 18-year siege of Gaza to create a humanitarian corridor to allow foods, medication and baby formula in, I saw the face of the oppressor even more intimately than before. 

From the moment of kidnapping, until we were freed on the border of Palestine and Jordan, I began in a way I could never have before, to understand South Africa’s apartheid history and perhaps, partial presence, in all its intimacy and violence as read from witness prison testimonies like Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s 491 Days and Bongi Mkhabela’s Open Earth & Black Roses.  

After interception, being processed at Ashdod Port and refusing to be deported by Israel, my interrogator tells me I am being taken to prison. 

My name is called and I am led out. A three-jailer party works in union with one cable-tying my hands in front, another blindfolding me and yet another cutting off the laces of my tekkies. Do they think I will commit suicide with my laces? 

I am walked to a bus and instructed to sit next to someone I can’t see. I can hear voices and I want to see who is in there with me. My fear that I may get hit if I look to see who my neighbours are, is a little less than my curiosity so when I hear the door close, I pull down my blindfold and see my companions. I also realise I can remove my cable ties. 

I am seated next to Yulia from Germany and they have put the temperature on the bus so low, I am scared that, in my T-shirt, I may die of hypothermia. The discomfort from the cold lingers as I type this. 

After what seems to be hours later, one of the guards asks for four volunteers. I stand up as I am seated in front and Yulia follows. We have our blindfolds on so we do not know how many people have volunteered. 

I have no idea what I am volunteering for. All I know is that I want to be away from this cold place. I recall thinking then, “I hope they are not taking us to somewhere that has opposite temperatures.” 

Our blindfolds are removed and I find myself seated next to Iqbal from Türkiye, Yulia and a third person I think may have been Leila from the US. 

I am tired. We all are. We chat a little bit but, as soon as we start moving, we fall asleep. I wake up to a new day and the sun comes through the window. We are at K’tzi’ot Prison in the Naqab Desert. 

We make no pretence of having our cable ties on and just hand them over to the new jailer who is cutting them from others. We are placed in a cage with a metal ceiling which looks like it can hold 50 comfortably but we are packed like sardines. 

I am summoned from the cage by another guard with my folder. Another photo. I wish I had some lip gloss. I am taken to a metal container where I am instructed to remove all my clothes which will be numbered and “you will get your clothes when you leave”. I never get my clothes back. 

The next visit is to the doctor and nurse whose idea of a health check is perfunctory. Height, weight, blood pressure. I can’t believe American taxpayers pay for this level of basics.

Then we are taken to the cells.

The cells overlook a 400 square metre cemented field with lines, I will hear two days later, when we are let out for 20 minutes, that we are not supposed to walk out of. K’tzi’ot Prison Prison, we are told, is the nearest we will come to Gaza on this trip. 

In Cell 4, where they place me, there are five sleeping palettes, seven mattresses and 10 of us. I know this is much more comfortable than what is offered to Palestinian hostages, some as young as 10, because I have read how this is considered by human rights groups as the worst prison in Palestine. 

We do not see any Palestinian hostages but they inhabit the walls of this prison cell with us through their messages written in English and Arabic.

“My name is ________ from Jabaliya Camp. Today is 2 September, 2005. They tell me I am being moved but they have not told me where.”

There are several other messages of this type. The latest message in Cell 4, which shall stay with me until my dying breath, reads: “28 September, 2025. I am ________ from Khan Younis. I am being moved although they haven’t said where. Today Israel legalised death penalty for Palestinian prisoners.”

In Cell 4, the youngest among us is 30-year-old psychologist Mariam from Switzerland. The oldest is 78-year-old Italian, Josefina. There is a Japanese, a Belgian, a Syrian, two Germans, a Brazilian, a French and me, a South African. 

If I were trying to destroy solidarity among people speaking up against me, this is not how I would do it. The guards come and count us often. At least every two to three hours. This is very odd behaviour, I know they know that hatred for their regime’s genocidal actions increases every minute but do they truly believe we, in this cell, will multiply by the hour? 

Every time they come to count us, they come as a crowd with laser guns and dogs. So much show of force for a cell with 10 unarmed women. 

On the first day, every time they tell us to stand by the far wall to be counted, we comply.  

We sing Bella Ciao a lot. We shout a little too loudly on “from the River to the Sea” because this seems to annoy our guards.

I ask the entire day to see our consular officials or my lawyer and, like many of us, I am ignored. 

The Belgian woman, Lateefa, works for the European Commission. She is two years older than me and a divorcee. She says, “I have never felt freer than I do now although I am in prison and will likely lose my job when I get back home.”

I loudly recite the words of Palestinian writer Mahmoud Darwish’s The Prison Cell:

“It is possible…

It is possible at least sometimes…

It is possible especially now

To ride a horse

Inside a prison cell

And run…

It is possible for prison walls

To disappear,

For the cell to become a distant land

Without frontiers …”

I wonder whether my cellmates think I am a little mad, as people who read too much are often said to be in my part of the world. 

Seven of us in Cell 4 go on a hunger strike immediately. No food for us if they can’t send food to Gaza, is our collective statement. The hunger strike shall hold until each one of us has been freed from the Israeli prison. 

In a cage near the cells, the Israeli officials attempt to force us to watch the 7 October “movie”. They realise it’s a useless exercise when people sing instead of watching. We shall hear it screening over and over all our time there but they will not get anyone to watch it. 

Josefina is the first to leave. They come for her at 2 in the morning of the first night. “The doctor wants to see you.” We soon learn that the doctor wanting to see one is code word for a health clearance before release.

On the second day when they ask us to stand against the wall and be counted, we refuse and continue lying on our mattresses. 

“What are you going to do? Arrest us? Jail us?”