Full account of Muhammed Omer’s hair-raising encounter with the Shin Beth

From Khalid Amayreh in the occupied Palestinian

From his hospital bed at the European Hospital in Gaza and with barely audible voice, award-winning Palestinian journalist Muhammed Omer has given a full account of the hair-raising encounter he had last week with Shin Beth agents at the Allenby Bridge border-crossing between Jordan and the West Bank.

Omer, a co-winner of the 2008 Martha Gelhorn Prize for Journalistic Excellence, said he was abused, assaulted , humiliated, ridiculed, kicked, and strip-searched at gunpoint by undisciplined Shin Beth officers until he had a nervous breakdown in which case he lost consciousness for at least 90 minutes.

A resident of Rafah at the southern edge of the Gaza Strip, Omer said he didn’t know for sure why the Shin Beth people treated him in such a barbaric matter apart from the characteristic sadism and savagery routinely meted out to Palestinians.

“They behaved with unimaginable hatefulness and vindictiveness. They couldn’t accept the very idea of a Palestinian journalist winning a renowned journalism prize. They wanted to punish me for being a successful journalist and especially for exposing Israeli barbarianism to the people of Europe.”

The following is Muhammed Omer’s story as intimated by him to this writer:

“On Thursday, 26 June, the Israeli authorities finally allowed me to return to Gaza after several days of waiting and uncertainty in Jordan. When I arrived at the Allenby Bridge Border Crossing, I was dragged away rather unceremoniously to a special room where I was made to wait for more than 90 minutes. This happened as Dutch diplomats who were accompanying me were waiting outside.

“When I arrived on the Israeli side of the Allenby Bridge, I encountered an Israeli female officer who started mocking me in a brazenly insulting manner.

“She asked me repeatedly where Gaza was. She then said I had no permit to return to Gaza via Israel.

“Then a Shin Beth officer who introduced himself as “Avi” showed up and took me to an isolated room where I was kept stranded for an hour and a half.

“He asked me “Oh, You are Muhammed Omer.

“Yes, I said.

“You know you are a fool,” said Avi, adding “how could you leave Europe and return to Gaza where there is no water, no electricity, nothing.

“I told him Gaza was my country, and I was a journalist and wanted to be a voice for the voiceless.

“A voice for the voiceless,” Avi spoke sarcastically.

“He then asked me if I was carrying any contrabands or guns or knives.

“I said no, I had none.

“Then he asked me to produce the money of the prize I won. I told him that the money would be transferred later to my bank account.”

“Then one Shin Beth agent demanded in a stern tone that I hand all the money I was carrying with me over to them. They didn’t believe I didn’t have the prize money with me.

“Disappointed, Avi, who was carrying a pistol in his hand, ordered me to take off all my clothes, which I did, leaving my underwear. At the same time, another officer was pointing an M-16 rifle in my face.

“Take the underwear as well,” he said. “I told him I wouldn’t. What do you want from me,” I protested in a suffocated voice.

“Then he ganged up on me and forcibly removed my underwear piece, leaving me completely naked.”

“Avi, training the pistol at me, told me to turn right and turn left, before telling me to get dressed again.

“At that point, I was nearly totally broken emotionally. I felt I was being raped. I cried and pleaded to them to leave me alone, but to no avail”

“Telling me I haven’t seen anything yet, they dragged me to another room where they interrogated me on my speaking tour in Britain, Sweden and Greece.

“Oh, you have not left a place in Europe without speaking at…You know these Europeans, they hate Israel.

“Then another Shin Bet officer began kicking me and pushing me. This lasted for more than ten minutes after which I fainted and lost consciousness. Eventually they began dragging me along the floor by my feet with my head banging on the floor.

“I don’t remember much of what happened to me during this period, but remember a Shin Beth officer piercing his finger right below my eyes and at the lower end of ears. Also, another Shin Beth officer was pressing his large boots against my neck as I was lying unconscious on the ground.

“I thought I was dying. I remained in a state of unconsciousness for up to 90 minutes until a medical doctor, who was carrying an M-16, performed an (electro-cardiogram) or ECG on me.

“Then I heard someone saying the word ‘ambulance.’

“However, before a Palestinian ambulance from Jericho arrived, a Shin Beth officer came to me and asked me to sign a form that I was not being maltreated by the Shin Beth.

“I was too distraught, too confused and too unconscious to say anything.

“Eventually, I was taken to the Jericho hospital where I was assured by doctors that I was fine.”

Muhammed Omer said the Israeli Shin Beth inserted a special electronic device into his mobile phone which would enable them to know his whereabouts.

He also called upon his colleagues around the world to condemn in the strongest words the “criminal and disgraceful Israeli behavior” which he said “only befits criminals and thugs, not states, let a lone states that claim to be civilized, western and democratic.”

The Dutch Foreign Ministry has protested the traumatic treatment meted out to Muhammed Omer and demanded and explanation.

Similarly, the Dutch Embassy in Israel reportedly has raised the issue with the Israeli Foreign Ministry.

The Shin Beth, Israel’s chief domestic security agency, controls all aspects of Palestinian lives and is widely believed to systematically and grossly violate the basic human rights of Palestinians.

http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/en/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s7iGTfTYyQ5unHG0EoqDtY3ZwFewc6o8mVq43D84V4J0aJBiY1phXevYzNIWbaAQ4CGlk4iygLgxXgih4wRtWVzMmJhrLK4OVRQz2aNQLD5m4%3d

Israel shaken by troops' tales of brutality against Palestinians
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/oct/21/israel

When You Shoot the Messenger: Israel Brutalizes Palestinian Journalist

This was an act of racism and retribution, against a man who dared expose the world to the brutal realities of the Israeli Occupation, and Zionism's escalated war against the Palestinians.

When You Shoot the Messenger
Mel Frykberg, IPS

GAZA CITY, Jul 3 (IPS) - The assault of IPS Gaza correspondent Mohammed Omer has left Israeli security personnel with a lot of explaining to do. And they are not doing a very good job of it.

Omer was abused and assaulted by Israeli security personnel at the Allenby border crossing into Israel from Jordan as he tried to return to his home last week in the Gaza Strip.

Omer was returning from Europe where he had addressed European parliamentarians on the situation on the ground in Gaza. In London he picked up a prize as joint winner of the 2008 Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism (along with IPS correspondent Dahr Jamail).

Omer, who also reports for The Washington Report, told IPS he was verbally abused, strip-searched at gunpoint and physically beaten. He was later hospitalised with broken ribs and related trauma.

Israeli officials denied to IPS in Jerusalem that the award-winning journalist had been mistreated. They said the Gazan journalist had "lost his balance" after being searched on "suspicion of smuggling in illegal items."

The officials were unable to explain how Omer, who is still hospitalised and in severe pain, "lost his balance" and then broke his ribs and severely bruised his arm in the "fall".

The Israeli officials could not explain what illegal items they suspected Omer could have smuggled in. He was assaulted after he had passed through the x-ray machine and his belongings had twice been searched. The officials said only that they would look into the matter further.

Omer's situation is neither unique nor rare. Both Israeli and international human rights organisations have accused Israel of regularly mistreating and abusing Palestinians both at border crossings and during arrests.

Reporters Without Borders has "condemned abusive behaviour by Israeli security agents towards Palestinian journalists moving around the Territories or returning from visits abroad."

The worldwide press freedom organisation said it had "recorded five incidents of wrongful arrest in the past ten days. One journalist is still being held, while another needed hospital treatment after being subjected to brutality and humiliation at an Israeli checkpoint by members of Shin Bet (Israeli internal security service)."

But what made Omer a particular embarrassment to Israel's slick PR machine was the media attention, both domestic and international, the issue attracted. The Guardian and Independent in London were among several media publications that reported at length the treatment Omer had been given.

Furthermore, the involvement of the Dutch Foreign Ministry and its demand for an investigation placed additional heat on the Israeli government, which maintains good relations with The Netherlands.

While Israel has legitimate security concerns, arising now from rockets fired from Palestinian territories (which Israel's own defence staff warned the Collective Punsihment of Gaza would provoke), a part of the Jewish state's battle for survival is clearly the visible and widespread efforts it makes at winning the publicity war -- winning the hearts and influencing the minds of the international public and more importantly their governments, especially in the U.S. The Israel lobby in the U.S. is one of the most active such lobbies in the world.

To this end Israel does not look kindly on those organisations or individuals who show the Jewish (Zionist) state in a critical light. Israel recently barred a UN human rights delegation from visiting the Palestinian areas on a fact-finding mission, the leader of the group said on Tuesday.

"Israeli authorities did not allow us to visit the Palestinian territories," said Prasad Kariyawasam, head of the UN panel, adding that "no reasons were given by Israel because they do not recognise our mandate."

(And they know exactly what the panel would find, as they are fully aware of the reprehensible conditions created by their Collective Punishment of Gaza, which constitutes a War Crime.)

This was not the first UN mission to be barred by the Israeli government. Richard Falk, professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University (and a U.S. Jew) and the UN's Special Rapporteur on human rights in the occupied territories was recently refused entry.

His predecessor, South African law professor John Dugard, a former anti-Apartheid activist, was also persona non grata. Dugard had drawn parallels between Israel's treatment of the Palestinians and the former Apartheid system in his native country.

(He'd also said Israel's treatment of Gaza mimiced the behaviour of the Nazis regarding the Warsaw Ghetto.)

Another South African anti-Apartheid activist, Bishop Desmond Tutu, was forced to enter Gaza from Egypt to conduct an investigation on behalf of the UN into the Israeli killing of a Palestinian family under questionable circumstances. He too was deemed a problem.

Omer clearly constitutes a threat to Israel's public relations effort, going by his many vivid and revealing reports through IPS on the humanitarian and political situation on the Palestinian side – just the sort of remarkable work for which he won the award. Omer has been remarkably effective in giving a "voice to the voiceless", his own mission, and that of IPS.

What Omer had to endure is a part of a wider and continuing pattern. Israeli human rights organisation B'Tselem told IPS that all too regularly the Israeli security forces have been involved in the indiscriminate killing of Palestinian civilians.

"Currently we have a petition before the Israeli Supreme Court requesting the security forces investigate the death of each and every Palestinian civilian, something which does not happen as Israel defines the current conflagration as one of armed conflict in which 'collateral damage' occurs," B'Tselem director Jessica Montell told IPS.

Human rights activists also accuse Israel of encouraging an attitude of indemnity in its security forces by seldom bringing Israeli perpetrators of abuse against Palestinians to justice, or when they do, letting them off lightly in comparison with the punishment meted out to Palestinians who commit acts of violence against Israelis.

Over the last couple of years another Israeli human rights organisation, Yesh Din, has helped Palestinian complainants to lay charges against Israeli settlers and military personnel in the West Bank. It escorts Palestinians to meetings that Yesh Din coordinates with the police and military because Palestinians are not allowed to enter Jewish settlements, where the police are based, or military bases, on their own.

"Conviction rates are around 10 percent of cases opened due to what we consider unprofessional investigations," Lior Yavne, Yesh Din's research director told IPS.

"In many instances the paperwork is either 'lost', or the police or military personnel involved in the investigations claim they are 'unable to identify the perpetrators'," he added.

Israeli security personnel have enormous discretion when dealing with people passing through its borders, and because of the legitimate security threats, can abuse these powers with people who they consider to be either bad publicity or who simply happen to annoy them, according to a number of foreign journalists who have been subjected to this treatment.

The doctor treating Omer told him that the arm injuries sustained by Omer were similar to those he himself had sustained when he was interrogated by the Shin Bet ten years ago while in custody.

"The Israelis were trying to punish me for the work I am doing and getting the message out," Omer told IPS from his bed in the European Hospital in Gaza. "But they won't break me. As soon as I am better, and my limbs are working properly, I will be back on the beat and reporting what is happening. They have made me more determined than ever." (END/2008)


http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43056

Award-Winning Palestinian Journalist Brutalized by Israeli Shin Bet
https://publish.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/07/402401.html

Israel shaken by troops' tales of brutality against Palestinians
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/oct/21/israel

10-year-old subjected to torture by Israeli soldiers
http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m45397&hd=&size=1&l=e

Palestinians Catch Settler-Extremist Attack On Film
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/06/400996.html

In Bid to Provoke Gaza War, Settler-Extremists Fake Kidnapping
https://israel.indymedia.org/newswire/display/9236/index.php

I see the zionists are out in force,once ,more defending the nazi's offspring: zionist israelis