By Fiona Grahame
A return of all hostages is one of the reasons islanders in Orkney gather on the Kirk Green, Broad Street every Saturday between 1 and 2pm in their Vigil for #Gaza.
Recently at one such vigil as I was laying out the names of some of those who had been killed since October 7th 2023, including those who were so young they were unnamed by their parents, a local man with his grandchild stopped me and said, ‘but I am only interested in the hostages’.
As we looked at the hundreds of individual names of children, teenagers, adults, and babies, killed in Gaza, I asked him which hostages did he mean? He again repeated, ‘I am only interested in the hostages’ – not the aid workers, not the medical personnel, not the babies.
The man, who is also an islander, but one who does not agree with the vigil for all those killed, was referring to the hostages taken on 7 and 8th of October when Palestinian armed groups took over 250 people into captivity in Gaza from Israel. As of 25 June, 116 of them, abducted civilians and captured military personnel, as well as four others taken in 2014, remain in Gaza, held as hostages in dire conditions. According to the Israeli Government, 44 of them are dead. Palestinian armed groups have prevented the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) from visiting the hostages.’
The man was either unaware, or did not care, that ‘Since early November 2023, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have taken into custody thousands of Palestinians in Gaza, mostly men and boys, but some women and girls as well.’ These hostages are being held in military facilities before being transferred to detention facilities and prisons inside Israel and the occupied West Bank. The thousands who have been captured by Israeli forces include at least 310 medical staff and patients.
Families are not told what has happened to their loved ones. Some who are eventually released by the Israeli forces tell of torture, including severe beatings, electrocution, being forced to remain in stress positions for prolonged periods, or waterboarding. At least 53 of those seized from Gaza and the West Bank have died in Israeli detention since 7 October.
It is not known the exact number of the Palestinian hostages taken by Israel, but it is in the thousands. Families do not know if their loved ones are alive or dead.
Immediately after the horrendous attacks on 7th and 8th October Palestinian workers and patients from Gaza legally in Israel were rounded up. Human Rights organisation OHCHR estimates that, ‘out of the 10,300 Palestinian workers and patients from Gaza who were present in Israel on 7 October 2023, – 3,200 were released and transferred into Gaza in November 2023, and 6,441 workers were transferred to the occupied West Bank, while around 1,000 of them remain missing. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has not been permitted to visit the hostages.
All Palestinians detained by Israel since the October attacks have been restricted access to food, water, sanitation and electricity. There is no legal representation permitted to those who have been rounded up and no one knows the exact number who have died whilst in Israeli custody. The bodies of the dead are withheld preventing families from burying their loved ones.
Withholding bodies punishes the families of the deceased, an aspect of collective punishment, which is strictly prohibited in Article 50 of the Hague Regulations and Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
One such case is that of Dr. Adnan Ahmad Ateya Al Bursh, the 50-year-old Head of the Orthopaedic Department at Al Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza City. He died on 19 April in Ofer Prison, an Israeli detention facility located in the West Bank. The doctor was rounded up on 18 December 2023 at Al Awda Hospital, North Gaza, along with several other doctors and personnel of the hospital. At the time he was taken by the Israeli forces, Dr. Al Bursh was in good health with just a minor injury which he had sustained a few days before. Despite being in good health – he died only weeks later whilst in captivity.
Hostage taking has been one of the tactics of this conflict which every day reports horror after horror. The islanders in Orkney who stand in vigil every Saturday, and have done so since October, want all hostages returned. Rounding up civilians, transporting them to detention centres where many will die – their families having no information about their disappearance – took place on October 7/8th but continues to happen, in their thousands to Palestinians.
This Saturday, the islanders will again gather on the Kirk Green, any who wish to join with them are very welcome to do so: calling for an immediate ceasefire, the unhindered passage of humanitarian aid, and the return of all hostages.
The latest film by Mike Robertson of the Orkney vigils can be watched here:
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