Freed Palestinian MP Khalida Jarrar recounts painful jail experience 

Palestinian lawmaker and member of the Political Bureau of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Khalida Jarrar, has recounted her painful experience as a female prisoner in Israeli jails including the death of two of her family members while in detention.

Speaking to Quds Press, Jarrar said the most painful experience was the death of her own daughter, Suha, only two months prior to her release. Israel barred her from attending her daughter’s funeral.

“During my last arrest, my daughter died, and in the one before that my father died,” she said.

Jarrar explained that during her latest detention from which she was released only two months ago, the Israeli Prison Authority deliberately transferred her, for a whole month, on a daily basis, either for investigations in Al-Maskobiya Prison, or for trial in Ofer Prison.

She explained that the Israeli Prison Authority took advantage of the coronavirus pandemic to deprive prisoners of their visitation rights for over nine months.

READ: Horrific tales of Palestinian girls in Israeli jails

Speaking of the prison conditions, she pointed out that the Prison Authority deliberately restricts female prisoners by placing surveillance cameras in the outer courtyard to limit their privacy, adding that “the amount of air that enters the detention cells is insufficient”.

“The showers area is located outside the rooms, so if the prison administration prohibits the prisoners from leaving their cells, days could go by without a shower,” she said.

Fifty-eight-year-old Jarrar was detained from her home in Ramallah city on 31 October 2019 and accused of membership in the PFLP, a group banned by Israel.

She had been released from Israeli jails months earlier, in February, after spending 20 months in administrative detention.