Encouraging Palestinian prisoners to tell their stories is an important means of struggling against injustice and resisting the use of brute force to oppress people. These narratives can increase the Arab nation’s awareness of the nature of the enemy and increase its ability to confront it.

The example I present today is the story of the Palestinian prisoner Aisha Odeh, where I felt Pain tearing through my chest as I read the horrors of the torture she was subjected to. What about the feeling of a girl who lived through those horrors?

After reading her novel, I also felt grateful to the Islamic Resistance Movement “Hamas,” whose first demand after the Battle of “Al-Aqsa Flood” was to liberate female prisoners and children first, because of the moral nobility that this demonstrates. On the other hand, I sensed the falsity of Western slogans about protecting women, as the West conceals or He accepts the practices of an army that claims to be a representative of Western civilization and to be invincible, but uses his brute force to subject a defenseless girl to all kinds of pain.

As for the Israeli interrogator – who was torturing her – she described him as the ghoul from scary childhood stories. When she screamed in pain, her scream inflamed his enthusiasm, so he beat her with his fist all over her body like a madman, leaving her only a pile of ashes and a Body Lying Motionless.

A homeland under siege

Aisha Odeh wished she would never see her mother cry…but her arrest was a cause of grief for the mother, who tried to defend her daughter to no avail when the soldiers came to the house!

Shortly before that scene, she had made up her mind. She said goodbye to all the youthful dreams of traveling and wandering, and replaced them with dreams of staying in the homeland, confronting the enemy to the point of clashing, and venturing into the unknown despite the difficulties.

Shortly after that scene, she was – in the Israeli car that took her to prison – her mind running through memories of the homeland and memories of her family who faced the Deir Yassin massacre, and she said to herself: Remain steadfast, Aisha… be a model of steadfastness, for men are not more steadfast than women… I will stand firm and face all possibilities. The occupation is absolute evil, and anything less than that is partial evil!

The palm conquers the awl

She faced the arrogance of the occupation soldiers along the way, and then when she arrived at the interrogation center, the slapping, kicking, spitting, and obscene words did not succeed in making her utter a word, so she fired up her will for confrontation.

The investigator asked her: Can the hand face the awl?! She replied: Yes, he can, and said to herself: “Here I am, the hand facing the awl during the investigation, and facing the Israeli official and the soldiers surrounding him… I alone am among them, and I am an equal to them… A feeling filled me with the responsibility of carrying the cause of my people… Yes, I am alone now and have been exposed.” To the beatings and all the insults… many feet started kicking me… but I was charging the will to persevere and challenge with every repeated kick or slap in myself: this is the price of confrontation.”

She adds: “The feeling of superiority over them amplified my sense of self; I became completely united with the cause of my people.”

Waiting for God's relief

The beating continued with the intention of inflicting as much pain as possible, and the soldiers used forms of torture unknown to humanity… She said, it was like being surrounded by powerful floods, who had no choice but to wait for God’s relief.

As for the Israeli interrogator – who was torturing her – she described him as the ghoul from scary childhood stories. When she screamed in pain, her scream inflamed his enthusiasm, so he beat her with his fist all over her body like a madman, leaving her only a pile of ashes and a body lying motionless.

She says about that moment: My thoughts focused on the pain that was burning in my body like wildfire. The sense of time is absent and there is no presence except for pain. The investigator threatened to make her blind, paralyzed, or crazy. Fear shook her, and a question arose in her mind: What would happen to my mother if I became like that?!

Then she remembered the Algerian resistance heroine, Djamila Bouhired, and said to herself: Djamila was tortured, but she did not go crazy. Why am I going crazy?! Be patient, Aisha. It is a case of biting fingers. We are willing to pay the price. Because the occupation is absolute evil.

Aisha says: I was in a whirlpool of conflict, and the sounds of torture from the next room were eating away at my nerves like a saw cutting into a tree trunk. It is siege and oppression with no escape. It is hell itself.

When they threatened to bring her mother and sister-in-law and torture them, her hair stood in horror. She said to herself: What a disaster if they brought them and tortured them. I will not be able to bear it. I might go crazy without being beaten. Oh my God, what kind of people are these? What cruelty does their minds and hearts store?

At that moment, she decided to confess, and said to them: “Aren’t you occupiers? Do you expect us to throw flowers at you instead of bombs? Yes, I planted the bomb. It is the least I can do for my country and my people.”

Feeling guilty and disappointed!

But the occupation is not enough for a person to confess to what he did to himself. It wants all the secrets of the resistance, so the torture and threats continued, until she was forced to confess the location of the weapons store, and this confession left her with an acute sense of bitterness and defeat.

A question exploded inside her: What have I done?! I wanted a challenge; So I confessed to the weapons store, and this confession would lead to the destruction of the house. Before that, I confessed to an operation for which I would be sentenced to life imprisonment.

And here she cried as if she would never stop crying… Tears are like a spring from which rivers flow… as if she were bathing in a sea of ​​tears.

The investigator said to her arrogantly: You have to think about the absurdity of your actions… What can your bomb do in the strong state of Israel that defeated all the Arab armies in six days?!

She replied: It is true that my bomb alone will not be able to do anything in your strong state…but can your state bear a bomb from every one of our people?!

She said to herself: It means that my new equation is a bomb from every Palestinian to confront the strong, arrogant state.

As for me, the idea sparked my imagination, and I believe that every prisoner in Israeli prisons can produce a new idea that contributes to developing the struggle, and this country that is arrogant in its power and American support will not be able to confront a people who think, resist, create, and innovate.

The tree grows new branches!

In the isolation cell, Aisha drew a tree whose branches had been cut off; It sprouted new branches, and wrote underneath it: “It will sprout luscious branches as long as its roots are alive and deep in the ground.”

She also wrote verses for Mahmoud Darwish:

“They blocked the light for me in a cell… and the sun of my torches burned in my heart.

They wrote my card number on the walls…and the Sanabel meadow grew on the walls.”

Aisha's experience demonstrates that torture in Israel is not just a means to extract confessions and information, but is carried out in the spirit of revenge, and brings the occupation officers sadistic pleasure as they watch the prisoner undergo pain. So Aisha asked the investigator: “It seems that torturing people is a hobby that makes you happy?!”

She confessed, gave them all the information, led them to the weapons store, and they blew up her house and displaced her family, but the torture continued in crazy ways, just as monsters attack prey, so her cries and pain did not concern her.

Crushing dignity

Aisha says: “Methods of torture were used aimed at crushing dignity. The Arab defeats were present and strong. I saw them intensifying in that situation and those moments. The rejection of the Arab defeats was embodied in my soul with an absolute will to resist. If the Arabs do not resist this injustice, then I inaugurate it at this moment with complete determination.” The will of the universe to confront injustice, and I refuse to be defeated.

I screamed and was like a sacrifice in which the will to live fluttered before it left it forcefully. My soul left the body, place and time. My soul fled and moved to the other world. I died, then I was happy to return to life, and my soul chanted: My will has triumphed. I am being born again.

What a paradox: I am happy and they are afraid.. I chanted deep down: I have won and they have been defeated.. Yes, they were afraid.. They are afraid that I will become a martyr.”

However, the torture continued and they threatened to use electricity. She remembered Jamila Bouhired, who had experienced electricity, and thought: I am not less than her, so let me try it. She said to the investigator: “If they want me to die, let them come quickly to use the electricity. I want to die… I want to die.”

But after a few days, she heard news of new commando operations and said to herself: Here is our people rising up with their women and men like a mighty rebel, and the occupation will regret it and leave… Our night will not be long and the sun of our freedom will shine; The women of Palestine are flowers of freedom that bloom and rise in Ramallah, Jerusalem, Gaza, and Nablus.”