Palestinian writer 'threatened with rape' in Israeli prison

A few days ago, Hazem al-Fakhouri received a worrying call from lawyer Hassan Abadi informing him that he had visited his wife, writer Lama Khater, in an Israeli prison.

The news brought by the lawyer wasn’t good. Abadi's visit to the recently imprisoned Khater, 46, revealed the terrible treatment she, and other female prisoners, has endured in prison since the moment of her arrest until now. 

After her arrest from her home, a handcuffed and blindfolded Khater was transferred to the Kiryat Arba police station near Hebron. 

"There, she was threatened with rape by soldiers who told her, ‘We are 20 soldiers and we can do to you whatever we want. You are our prisoner of war,’” Abadi said.

But the threat was only the beginning. Khater was verbally abused and treated harshly, and, like other detainees, has had to endure full strip searches under the pretext of inspection. 

“For the first time when I visit female prisoners, they tell me that they are subjected to a starvation policy, meaning that the meals provided to them are very few and hardly enough to satisfy their hunger," Abadi said.

"Khater also told me that they sleep on the floor without mattresses and don’t have extra clothes or blankets.”

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