Faces in Prison

On Monday my course had an excusion to an Israeli prison up north of Tel Aviv. Due to the size of our group, we were split into three groups and taken to different sections.

My group was first given an introduction to the prison by the education officer and then an intelligence officer spoke with us.

According to the intelligence official, around 60% of Israeli prison inmates are Arabs, and this was immediately apparent. Outside, Arab families waited to see their loved ones - small children ran around as if in a playground, but their games involved standing in front of the prison gates when they opened for as long as possible before guards with M16s came out to escort vehicles filled with prisoners out of the compound. The windows of the vehicles were covered in bars and mesh, but you could see fingers poking through the gaps and just make out shadowed faces peering out.

Israeli prisons play a double role - as well as holding those convicted of crimes (and housing those awaiting trial), they also hold people held for security reasons; "terrorists", mostly from the West Bank.

We didn't see the "big terrorists" (as the adults were called), but we were taken by the cells of the "little terrorists": those aged between 14 and 18. These boys and young men are held in Israel, despite their families living in the West Bank. I wondered how often their families were given the necessary permission to come and visit them.


Snapshot: Silent Faces, Staring Eyes

We were taken into an open cemented area, like the rest of the prison it was cramped and in bad repair. We were shown a small 'classroom' (a grey room with a few plastic chairs) and then were then taken to see a small basketball court. As we passed through the one section to the other I suddenly realised that the cells opposite the classroom were filled with silent young faces. The faces stared at us expressionless and emotionless. Some hands grasped at the bars of their cell doors. Their eyes took in everything about our appearance but gave away nothing of what they were thinking.

Those faces haunted me.

Whilst in the West Bank, I met many people with fathers, husbands and sons in Israeli prisons, as well as several men who had spent time there. But what I remember most is the mothers showing us photos of their young sons. I remember how much those mothers suffered at the thought of their sons so far from home.
And suddenly I was seeing their sons.