"Women In Struggle"

A Documentary by: Buthina Canaan Khoury

The film "Women in Struggle" will present four characters of Palestinian women ex-detainees who speak about their imprisonment followed by their motives and reasons for their actions while showing the major obstacles in the Palestinian daily life. Their feelings when they were released from prison will be revealed as well as their efforts and difficulties in integrating back into the Palestinian society. While seeing their present living conditions we hear about their past experiences and their individual future outlook.

Originally those women took unusual roles and choose to fight occupation as men would. Their different experiences were not easy nor were they pleasant and they had paid a high price because of these experiences, did it effect or change their lives, did they manage to tolerate the suffering that was caused and did they ever realize the high price before going through this experience or not??? To be involved in a political struggle is costly on all levels but to be a woman and choose to fight is far more complicated. The reasons and motives for these women to choose to take a role vary and are of no less significance than a man's reasoning however the occupation is the major cause for their involvement.

You wonder whether after going through these experiences if the motives are still there or if they took a shift in another direction because the pain was unbearable and life has to continue regardless of anything, and what affect age may have had on these decisions. Did the suffering stop once they were released from the physical prison, or do they carry it inside of them? Finally, was it worth it for them? Do they have any regrets and how has it changed the way they view themselves? Can people understand that one is not born to fight but situations can make and force one to do so?

This film never views them as being terrorists or accuses them of being criminals. We as Palestinians are like any other nation in the world who could not exist without standing for their rights or without resisting occupation. In order to lift the injustice that was created by the arrogance of another nation and blindness of the rest of the world. So is the Western world ready to hear and see that from a women perspective??????

Visually I used the traditional filmmaking where I followed each character separately to obtain a subjective point of view by using a DV camera. Also, to study the different perspectives from inside by following them throughout the different changes that had been taking place along with the recent Intifada. Different images have been shot with extra care and quality by myself (the director) covering the characters in various events using a Mini DV. Furthermore, some archival footage and black / white photos for the characters at past events were chosen carefully to reflect the credibility of their involvement.

This film intends to tell the truth. It aims to change the views by not accusing the characters instead to preserve their dignity by making who ever will see this film try to understand why and how.

**********************************************************************************

Film's Main Characters:

AYSHA
Aysha is a fifty-three year old woman who has a very gentle beautiful face; an artist who paints her painting from flower leaves. She was briefly married and now is divorced without any children. Aysha lives by herself in a small village near Ramallah who recently decided to write her autobiography and is working in the Union of Writer's Office based in the city of Ramallah. Throughout the years, Aysha has changed her political views. She was captured in the early 70's after having done a few military operations and planted a bomb in Israel that exploded where a few Israelis were killed and many others were injured. She was sentenced to prison for a life time but served ten years before being released. Aysha lived in exile for many years after being released from the Israeli prison. She returned to Palestine after the Oslo Peace Agreement.


RAWDA
Rawda is a heavy set woman in her late 40's who was involved politically. While trying to prepare for a military operation in her house in Jerusalem, the bomb prematurely exploded and herself and some of her collogues were injured while others from her political group died in the explosion, no Israelis were injured.
Rawda will talk about her later effects of her suffering. Rawda talks about her life with emotional influence and presents her suffering in many simple ways. Rawda suffered from being disowned and abandoned by her family and local residents for many years because of her several untraditional steps in marrying a Muslim partner that was an ex-detainee. Rawda never followed the normal traditional Palestinian female path. Her life was full of challenges because of her unusual choices.

Rasmieh Odeh
Rasmieh is in her 50's, she was Aysha's comrade in planning and organizing to plant the bomb. She was captured and tortured with Aysha and spent the same number of years as Aysha did and was released with her too during the same first exchange of detainees deal between the PLO and the Israeli government. She had continued her studies and became a lawyer.

Terry Bulata
Terry was in prison for few times for different short periods. She had met Rawda and became good friends and had followed her steps of marrying from another religion.

She lives in Jerusalem and carries the Jerusalem ID and married to a West Banker from Abu-Dees who happened to be next to Jerusalem and where the Israelis decided to build the Wall which passes right next to her house. With the new and continuous changes in the Israeli laws, her husband is living under the threat to be kicked out of his own house and to have the family split. They have two daughters.

**********************************************************************************

Historic Background of the Palestinian Women Prisoner Movement:

The Palestinian Women Prisoner Movement was a special and quite unique experience throughout the years of the detainees' struggle. However, it has deep inner suffering because it reflects the progress of the Palestinian society by having more and more women getting politically involved and taking a major role in contributing to the Palestinian struggle.

There is a lack of resources, little information documenting the numbers and the names of the Palestinian women prisoners being involved in the struggle. According to the information that is made available, it is shown that about ten thousand Palestinian women were detained. The majority of the women were detained between l968 and l976 in addition to the first Intifada as well as the current Intifada. The updated statistics for the current Intifada is sixty-three women prisoners and the number is on the rise.

With the growing struggle against occupation, many women became involved politically so more women were detained and were put in three women political prisons. The first was in Nablus, the second in Jerusalem (referred to as Al-Masqubieh) and the third prison was in Gaza. The women that were detained usually were from a diverse background including young women, old women, new wives, mothers, and even women suffering from different chronic diseases.

The Palestinian women movement went through a very painful and heroic journey against the occupation throughout the history of the Palestinian struggle. In the earlier part of the movement, the Palestinian political women detainees were placed in the same jail with criminals at one of the first prisons in Ramla called Nive Tritsa where a long and painful struggle of rejecting Israeli prison treatment began.

The women detainees demanded separation between themselves as political prisoners and other criminals. They suffered through constant hunger strikes, demonstrations, refused to obey orders and refused to work in order to improve their treatment and the human life conditions in jail such as quantity and quality of food and medicine, to be allowed to have newspapers, listen to the radio and be allowed to have personal clothes. Thereby these women created the independent organized detainees institution behind bars by creating a council to negotiate the rights and needs of women detainees with the Israeli prison administration.

Many of the women detained suffered from many methods of torture while being detained. These types of methods included the first and most cruel weapon of threatening and attempting rape in order to break these women and humiliate them into confessing. The second method was the physical and psychological torture used to terrorize them. The psychological torture was represented in the emptiness, the waiting, the quietness, and the loneliness.

The physical torture included being forbidden to see family, to eat, to sleep, to socialize and even to sit. This type of torture also meant that many women had to stand for a long time with a dark dirty bag covering their head and face, with hands and legs cuffed. Although it did not leave immediate physical marks on their bodies, it caused painful humiliation and different long term diseases such as rheumatism, disk, ulcers, and affected blood pressure. Furthermore, using loud music, different crying voices, listening to others being tortured and being physically beaten in different parts of their bodies was used intensively against the detainees.

Following the signing of the Oslo Peace Agreement many of these women detainees took a legendary stand in l996 and refused to be released in small groups thus their release was delayed an extra four months on the basis they created the logo "no peace without the release of all women and men detainees." In l997, the campaign to release the prisoners was successful for the women detainees only.

The long journey of the women detainees was about to finish but due to the failure of the peace process the last page of this book in the struggle of women detainees was not yet written. So until this day, Palestinian women are still suffering behind Israeli bars.

Back to Artists