Diala Ayesh, a 28-year-old Palestinian human rights attorney, had been attending Palestinian prisoners in Israel’s Ofer Prison 48 hours before her detention by the military forces of Israel.
She had no idea that few hours later she would find herself imprisoned, just like the individuals she had dedicated her life to protecting.
Ayesh was apprehended by Israeli authorities on January 17 at around 2:00 PM at a checkpoint in the occupied West Bank, close to Bethlehem. She was placed under “administrative detention” for 120 days without prosecution or trial when an order was issued by Israeli officials few days later.
Quickly, word of Ayesh’s arrest leaked out throughout the occupied West Bank. She has spent years representing Palestinian political prisoners held in Israeli and Palestinian Authority (PA) jails, frequently on a pro gratis basis.
Her arrest has left her family stunned. It seems like it’s getting more difficult every day. Her sister told the media that “the feeling of loss and of missing someone only increases – it doesn’t get easier.”
Her family believes that she is the powerful one and that we are the weak ones. She is the source of strength for Palestinian community.
Ayesh’s primary worry, while being incarcerated, is the other inmates. As visits to detainees in Israeli jails were discontinued after October 7, Ayesh and their group’s contact to these convicts in the lone Israeli jail in the occupied West Bank represented a little glimmer of optimism.
The Only Hope
A few weeks after her arrest, she instructed Aseel, via her attorney, to get in touch with the families of the inmates she had been monitoring and provide them with the most recent information about their sons, which she had jotted down on a notepad.
According to the human rights organization Addameer, Israeli troops beat, threatened, and insulted Ayesh during her detention. After being sent to Israel’s Hasharon Prison, she was then brought to Damon Prison, where she is still being detained.
When Ayesh worked with Lawyers for Justice in Ramallah, defending Palestinian political prisoners held in PA jails, her work as a human rights defender came to light. She represented the organization in a meeting held at the UN in Geneva last July.
Both the PA and the Israeli occupation have turned their attention to her because of her efforts to record and observe violations against Palestinian captives.
According to Tala Nasser of the Addameer prisoners’ rights organization, Israel has been conducting a “violent mass arrest campaign” since October 7.
She noted that the overwhelming majority of the almost 6,900 Palestinians detained by Israel since October 7 in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem had been placed in administrative custody, demonstrating the arbitrary nature of the country’s arrest practices.
Leader of the political opposition and civil society was also detained by Israeli soldiers in December and placed in administrative prison.
The Israeli military detained several Palestinian women after freeing all but three of them in the most recent prisoner swap with Hamas at the end of 2023. There are now about eighty female inmates housed in the Damon Prison.
