Nearly two hundred Palestinian prisoners at Israel’s Beer Sheeba prison rebelled yesterday, fighting a battle with their wardens. The prisoners, who were serving relatively short sentences for entering Israel illegally, were housed in tents in the facility. When the prison governor decided to evict the prisoners from their tents and conduct searches before dawn, they openly rebelled.
The incident began after one prisoner was sent to solitary punishment for expressing his support for suicide attacks following Friday prayers. The remaining prisoners refused their Friday meal out of solidarity with their comrade. The prison governor, either worried about the other prisoners’ increasing their resistance or possibly wishing to punish them, sent in wardens to search through the prisoners’ dwellings at 2:30 in the morning on the night between Friday and Saturday.
The Palestinian prisoners resisted the Israeli wardens, shouting and throwing objects at them. The Israelis responded in force, firing jets of water at the huddled prisoners and throwing tear gas and stun grenades at them. Two Palestinians were injured when they caught grenades and tried to throw them back at the wardens. One warden was also injured.
The rebellion was crushed within half an hour. The Palestinian prisoners were separated and sent off to other, higher security jails that are usually reserved for criminals, and not for people whose only crime was of being caught without a permit in Israeli territory.
