Prisoners, Propaganda, and the Battle Over the Gaza War Narrative

Despite a temporary pause in Israel’s massive bombardment and ground operations in Gaza, the humanitarian catastrophe continues to worsen. With more than 15,000 dead Palestinians and whole neighborhoods and towns left in ruin, Israel’s defense minister has defiantly vowed to dramatically escalate the attacks inside Gaza the moment the truce ends. This week on Intercepted, Jeremy Scahill and Murtaza Hussain discuss the state of the war as well as the propaganda campaigns being waged by each side. Then Roy Yellin, head of public outreach at Israel’s leading human rights organization B’Tselem, discusses recent developments on the hostage and prisoner exchanges, how the crisis has impacted Israeli society, and describes the conditions faced by Palestinians when they are thrown into Israel’s military court system. Yellin also explains the state sponsorship of violent Israeli settlers, the mass detentions underway of Palestinians in the West Bank, and the dangerous nature of Israel’s far-right Interior Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

Jeremy Scahill: This is Intercepted.

Welcome to Intercepted. I’m Jeremy Scahill.

Murtaza Hussain: And I’m Murtaza Hussain.

JS: Well, Maz, we’re speaking right now in the midst of this period where there’s been an extension of the temporary truce between Hamas and the Israeli state. And I thought it would be good just to start off by taking stock, since there’s a pause in the massive bombardment and ground operations that have been going on for many, many weeks.

It’s intensifying in the West Bank, and we can talk about that, but in terms of Gaza, we have this moment where there is this pause in the intense bombardment and ground operations, to take stock of where things are in this war right now, because we don’t hear almost anything about the ground war that’s being fought between Hamas and the Israeli forces. We did see, during at least one of the hostage handovers, Hamas choosing to do it right in the center of Gaza City, a place that the Israelis had said that they had conquered.

So, clearly there’s a projection of an image that Hamas wants to send during this moment when the eyes of the world are focused on it. But give us your sense of where we are right now in this utterly horrifying war that’s been going on now for seven weeks, Maz.

MH: Sure. I think the images of the last few days show that Israel is nowhere close to achieving its military objectives in Gaza to date. It’s been over a month of very, very intense bombardment and invasion of the Gaza Strip and, clearly, what we can see from the hostage release and the presentation that Hamas has done around it in its own channels, that their command and control structure is clearly still intact. Their leadership is still directing events, they’re able to conduct negotiations and communicate with the outside world, and they’re also able to go on the streets of Gaza and draw crowds, and carry out events, like this exchange, with minimal disorder.

So, what we’re seeing is an organization which has not been broken by this assault. There have been some estimates from the Israeli side of how many Hamas fighters they think they have killed during the war so far, and the numbers are in the low thousands. Even the most conservative numbers still put it not anywhere near a level [where] you’d say, “Hamas has been destroyed.” Hamas is believed to have around 30 to 40,000 fighters, and the loss of a couple thousand fighters is something they’ve surely accounted for when they started this operation.

So, I think it shows that this war is nowhere near its completion, and whatever that Israel has done in this massive bombardment of Gaza — which has killed many, many thousands of civilians and destroyed much of Gaza City — they haven’t defeated Hamas. Hamas is still there, and they’re still very, very much in control, and embedded, in Gaza. 

JS: And Maz, you’ve been monitoring the official communications coming from Hamas. I mean, they had their social media accounts shut down — TikTok blocked, Twitter, Facebook — but they still are operating, to an extent, on Telegram.

What is the messaging that Hamas is sending out throughout this conflict? Because there are two very distinctly different narratives, in terms of what’s coming out of Israel and what’s coming out of Hamas, but Hamas does regularly send out updates and videos.

So, give a sense of what you’re hearing from Hamas’s media channels.

MH: This is very important because, since October 7th, in the Western press and Israeli press, there’s been a very particular narrative of what happened on that day and happened since, specifically focusing on the atrocities against civilians, and that aspect of the operation.

If you look at Hamas’s own official channels, which is used to speak to the Arabic-speaking world, and its own followers, and supporters, and potential supporters, the entire thing is depicted as a very professional and sanitized military operation for the most part, by no means focused on civilians, a very successful assault on the Israeli military. And, since then, they’ve depicted themselves as treating hostages very well, acting, basically, in accordance with what we call human rights standards, international law, even in their own channels’ description.

So it’s a very, very different view of the entire situation. And, if you’re consuming Hamas media and Hamas channels, your understanding of what happened on October 7th and what’s happening today will be very, very different from what it is if you’re consuming CNN, or Israeli news, and so forth. And I think that represents the very, very important bucketing, informationally, of how people are understanding this war at the moment.

Because, if you look at Hamas own depictions, they’re very clearly the good guys in their own narrative, and a lot of people do follow that narrative. And they don’t trust what they see in other media outlets.

JS: Yeah. And it’s been interesting to watch Hamas, every night of the handover of the Israeli hostages — very, very quickly — has a rapid media response force that puts out, I would say, fairly highly-produced videos. Clearly, they’re using drone photography, and cutting then to on-the-ground photography, and some of the scenes are very well lit. They’re clearly thinking in terms of the information war here.

But what we’ve seen in some of these videos released by Hamas as Israeli civilian hostages are being handed over to the Red Cross is these masked Qasim Brigade fighters, lifting up elderly Israeli women and placing them gently into the Red Cross vehicles, or pushing the wheelchair of one of the wounded teenagers, kids waving at them. And you have to be really careful, on a moral level, of any video that is released of hostages, and that has to be the clear context for this. I don’t think you can say, oh, this tells us a definitive story, but it does tell us something about what Hamas wants to project.

They also published on their Telegram channel what they claim was a letter written by one of the hostages, essentially thanking them for treating her and her very young daughter well as they were in captivity.

Now, in the Israeli press, the portrayal of how the hostages were treated… First of all, there’s very little information coming out. The Israeli government has not liked it when some former hostages or their family members have spoken, because some of them have said, actually, we were treated with respect, and people described, at certain stages, we had food, and at other stages, it seemed like there wasn’t food, and that the access to medicine was inconsistent.

But we clearly are seeing Hamas trying to project an image of itself as treating these hostages essentially as a strategic asset, rather than as people we want to torture in our underground tunnels. I’m saying that that’s the image that they’re trying to project in these videos.

MH: Yeah, it’s very interesting. You point out these videos they’ve put out, they’re very highly produced. Clearly a lot of resources and time and thought has been put into the idea of having an information strategy that’s almost as important as the military strategy for Hamas.

Israel and Hamas are in a competition for global public sympathy and support, and also regional sympathy and support within Israel/Palestine, and also the broader Middle East. And putting out these videos, portraying this image, whether it’s true or not, that’s actually secondary to the point. It’s very, very important, because they know that they need this international support, international perception of them as a responsible actor, in order to win politically in the end, which is ultimately the goal of this operation when they embarked upon it.

I think that it’s very unlikely these videos, and the letter, for instance, will convince the Israeli public, because the Israeli public is reeling from the killings of civilians, which we know did happen on October 7th. But the rest of the world, there’s still a lot of mixed feelings about what took place, because of the context when it took place, the killings now taking place of Palestinian civilians, and the perception that Gaza was under siege and suffering for so many years, and some sort of explosion was inevitable as a result of Israeli policy. So, I think that still remains to be seen.

But I do think that the fact that Hamas is trying to portray this image is very, very important, because it’s showing that it wants to be perceived as a responsible political actor, it wants to be perceived as a party which engages in exchanges and political dealings which is rational, and which can be comported with international law, or just basic political negotiations.

So, I think that, in doing so, it doesn’t want to be seen as ISIS, which is completely outside the international system. It wants to be seen more as something like the Viet Cong or the [Irish Republican Army]; a party which engages in violence, engages sometimes in human rights abuses but, ultimately, is a rational political actor which can be dealt with. And in doing these exchanges, it’s actually having a win. It’s showing that, despite what happened, we’re still in that bucket, and we’re still in the zone of politics, and you can deal with us.

JS: And also, if you’re monitoring Arabic language media, or even Arab media in English, you’re seeing a lot of stories about the suffering endured by Palestinians who are being released under this exchange deal, and you’re hearing the stories of teenagers, and the conditions that they were held under, and the fact that they were being prosecuted and held, in military court system.

And Hamas clearly is trying to juxtapose the image it wants to portray, and how it’s treating the Israeli civilian hostages with the stories that are coming out from Israeli prisons in the mouths of the newly released Palestinian prisoners.

There’s a number of surreal things that we’ve learned in recent days, too. It seems like, around the time when Benjamin Netanyahu was on the ground in Gaza wearing his flak jacket, and his t-shirt, and giving his speech in front of Israeli troops, that Hamas’s head, Yahya Sinwar, actually went down into the tunnels where some of the Israeli hostages are being held. And, according to people who were there when he came down — hostages — he spoke with almost flawless non-accented Hebrew to the prisoners. And he, of course, learned Hebrew, because he was a prisoner in Israel’s jails for years, and assured them that they were not going to be hurt, and that they’re working on a negotiation to get them released. 

It’s interesting because Mohammed Deif, the head of the Qassam Brigades … If you follow Hamas-aligned media, there’s been a lot of stories over the years. He’s a very mysterious figure, Israel tried to assassinate him a number of times, he’s escaped from prison, he’s sort of a legendary figure. But they’ve tried to paint an image of him as having modernized and regulated the Hamas militia, the Qassam Brigades.

And so, he also — he and Sinwar — clearly are making a play to be accepted in the Arab world as a legitimate force, a guerrilla army with a political wing. But, also, it’s aimed beyond that. It’s aimed at a broader public, globally, that is increasingly very, very concerned, if not utterly outraged, at what Israel is doing in Gaza with this scorched-earth campaign.

MH: Yeah, absolutely. I think that, from Hamas’s perspective, the longer that they survive in this conflict, the more they can claim success, because they’ve gone toe to toe with Israel for about a month and a half now under extreme duress, and they’re still intact. They’re still fighting, they’re still organizationally, clearly functional inside Gaza. None of the main three leaders of Hamas — Yair Sinwar, Mohamed Deif, or Marwan Issa — have been killed so far. They still appear to be in control of Hamas itself.

So, the longer this goes on, the more the political costs add up for Israel, and the more the benefits actually, in some way, add up for Hamas. Because, despite the destruction, their motto and their modus operandi is resisting the Israeli government, and the more they can say they’re doing that while their rivals in the Palestinian national movement are not, the more that their own star will rise throughout the areas where Israel’s occupying; not just Gaza, but also in the West Bank.

JS: And just a final note on this, Maz. As Israel’s Defense Minister Gallant said after the extension of the truce by a couple of days, that the enemy, when this is done, the enemy is going to first face the bombs of the Air Force, then they’re going to face the rifles, then they’re going to face the ground invasion, and then they’re going to face the bulldozers. And Joe Biden and his administration while, on the one hand, trying to plant stories that portray Biden as very, very deeply concerned about the humanitarian conditions caused by this operation and trying to do what he can to extend the pause to get more humanitarian aid in… Biden’s own rhetoric has made clear that it’s narrowly focused on a period to get the hostages out, and that he’s all in for… It’s a regime-change war, and Biden is all in on it. That Israel is saying they’re going to fight until Hamas is done, and there’s serious questions, given what we’ve seen from Hamas, and they’re embedding within … I don’t just mean “embedding,” like literally having soldiers, but they’re integrated fully throughout Gazan society. The idea that they were able to stop all rockets when the ceasefire was done, that they were able to make sure that there was total compliance with the agreement, gives you a sense of how in control they actually are.

And so, Biden is basically signing the U.S. up for what is almost certainly going to become an extremely bloody quagmire for the Israeli military.

MH: Yeah. I think Biden, in the sense of trying to support Israel, is not supporting them in the way that’s really effective. He’s egging them on, in some sense, into a situation where there seems to be no exit. They’re going to fight Hamas till it’s destroyed, but what is that going to mean in terms of political damage to Israel, loss of soldiers in their own army, but also occupying Gaza as an occupying force at the end of it, in an area where they’re not very popular and have very little legitimacy. And they’re also stretched, occupying the West Bank and trying to defend the northern border as well, too.

This entire idea of destroying Hamas is so distant and so difficult, and the end result is so ambiguous for Israel that, really, it’s not helping them, in some sense, to enable an objective that has no real plausibility of being achieved.

JS: All right, Maz, today we are going to go to Israel to get the perspective of an Israeli human rights activist who has worked on prisoner issues, also works on the fate and lives of the Palestinians living under the Israeli occupation in the West Bank, and specifically works on the issue of how Palestinians are treated once they are thrown into Israel’s military justice system.

MH: We’re now joined by Roy Yellin. He’s the Director of Public Outreach for B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights group. Roy, welcome to Intercepted.

Roy Yellin: Thank you for having me.

JS: Roy, let’s begin with the situation in the West Bank. Of course, since October 7th, we’ve seen an outbreak of new Israeli settler violence. We’ve seen raids by Israeli forces into Palestinian communities. And, by the latest numbers I understand, there have been more than 3,000 arrests of Palestinians.

Give us a sense of what exactly has been happening over the past seven weeks in the West Bank.

RY: The West Bank is now, it seems like it’s a pressure cooker which is about to explode, and that’s the sense that most people on the ground have. Because, when we’re talking about unprecedented levels of settler violence, and also security forces, Israeli army and Israeli police raids on Palestinian towns and villages, we have to remember that the amount of violence was already high before October 7th.

So, we’re seeing an exacerbation of a situation that was really the worst on record, and B’Tselem — the organization I work for — has been in this business for over 30 years, so it’s really tough, and it’s very volatile. And, while many in Israel and around the globe are extremely fearful of opening another front in the West Bank, seeing this violence, this horrid, horrendous amount of death and destruction spread from Gaza to other areas, we have to remember that, for certain elements — political elements, both in Palestine, but mainly in the Israeli government — this is their war plan, this is the fulfillment of their agenda, so they’re actively trying to push for that.

There are elements, senior ministers in the government that want to see this violence spread because that might give them [an] excuse to do further forcible transfers, or mass atrocities on a larger scale, because they want violence, and they see that violence as a legitimate political tool. Which is, of course, something we reject entirely.

JS: To what extent is this current violence — I mean, as you rightly point out this is not new, but we are seeing an intensification of it — to what extent is this being supported by the Israeli state itself, by the Israeli government? I’m referring to the violence of the settlers that we’ve seen over the past seven weeks.

RY: I think that this narrative, that the settlers are somehow separate from the state, is false.

We are defining settler violence as state violence, albeit [an] unofficial one. The settlers are not wearing uniforms, but they are carrying guns that were provided by the army and the police. They are provided with complete blanket impunity from any type of offense that they commit against Palestinians for many years, so they also know that there will be zero consequences for them taking this weapon and using it as they’re doing. So, this type of separation, and saying there’s good Israel and the settlers are bad, is not the actual, accurate description.

What we see here is Israel trying to keep plausible deniability to a policy of land takeover. And, of course, now, when there is a government which is emboldened by many, many years of inaction by [the] international community, they see that it worked when they did like, a very, very, step-by-step [process], and a very slow and measured pace in order to fly under the radar of criticism, but now they feel like they’re more emboldened, and they also feel like all gloves are off, because there is a combat [situation] ongoing, there is a lot of hatred.

And all the focus, all the eyes are on what happens with Gaza. People are worried sick about their relatives, they’re worried about missiles hitting them from the north of Israel, from Hezbollah in Lebanon, or from Gaza. And they pay little attention to what the settlers are doing, and what other elements of the government are doing in order to aid that.

So, I wouldn’t say this is separate; this is state violence. Because, if Israel would want, it can stop this at any second, and we’re talking about something that has not — again, I want to stress this — what we’re documenting hasn’t started on October 7th, it’s just intensified since then. But this is a long ongoing effort by the state to forcibly displace Palestinian in certain areas that Israel wants to take over their lands, and transfer it into Jewish hands. And this is what we’re documenting. This effort is bearing fruit right now.

MH: The previous Friday, negotiations began for ceasefire and exchange of prisoners between Hamas and the Israeli government. Briefly, can you tell our listeners a bit about what we know about how these negotiations are progressing, or what the mechanics have been for Israel and Hamas to actually embark on this exchange of prisoners?

RY: So, I think, from the very, very beginning of this round in the conflict, it was very clear that the only way to bring back civilians that were taken captive by Hamas would be to have a prisoner exchange deal.

I want to start and say that I don’t want to fall into this false narrative that makes [it sound like], OK, they have hostages, and we have hostages, and then we exchange them, because I think this is morally repugnant. Taking children — toddlers, in some cases — elderly women and men from their homes is not comparable to, having all the difficulties and problems of the Israeli military judicial system… it’s not the same.

But it’s clear that Hamas is not an organization that is going to abide by international humanitarian law. I mean, murdering people is even worse than taking them captive. And it was clear that the only way to release them is to exchange. Israel has many Palestinian prisoners. Too [many]. And we were calling for a hostage release deal, because we think that placing civilian lives is the most crucial thing, no matter on which side [they land on] this conflict.

It took several weeks, I think, [since] discussions or rumors of negotiations have been accompanying the military campaign all along. And, on Friday … Actually, it was announced on Wednesday that they struck a deal to release, at least, women and children that are held hostage in Gaza, in exchange for Palestinian prisoners that serve sentences in Israeli prisons, with kind of a ratio of three Palestinian prisoners per Israeli kidnapped person.

And, since Friday, after a delay of a day, we’ve been seeing this gradual release of prisoners each night. I have to say it’s gut wrenching, and also nerve wracking, to happen to see if the ceasefire and if the exchange is going to take place. And it’s also very, very… It’s an emotional roller coaster to see the families reunite with their loved ones. I think everybody is sitting in front of their televisions and crying, because it’s a really emotional situation. Also, keeping in mind that many of those people have to find out that a lot of their family members are gone, or are still in Gaza held hostage, and they have no home to return to, because their places of residence have been pretty much burned down or demolished, destroyed in this. 

And where we are today, we’re kind of anxiously awaiting to see whether this is going on, if this is going to happen today, and if it goes further, because we want the ceasefire to continue, and the exchange to continue, until all of the people are released, and I think this is the only way to do it.

Also, in terms of alleviating the dire and really serious, horrible humanitarian situation in Gaza, the ceasefire is sorely needed. I have to say that, as far as I’m concerned, I don’t think that humanitarian aid should be part of any deal. I think humanitarian aid is essential for civilians, and Israel should have let all the humanitarian aid that the civilian population in Gaza needs to enter from day one. I think bearing it and making it part of the condition is part of the problem, of using civilians and civilian lives, civilian needs as a bargaining chip in a very, very cruel political deal, which is unacceptable, and makes suffering on both sides of this really unbearable.

JS: In a moment, we’re going to talk about the condition that the Palestinian prisoners are held in, and some of the process under which they are tried and held, and what rights are afforded to them.

But, just to stay on this subject that you’re discussing of the Israeli hostages, it hasn’t gotten a lot of attention in terms of nuance, but it would be great if you could talk about the protests and the position that of some of the families of the hostages being held in Gaza. Because, while we see a lot of images of people engaged in the kind of collective suffering because of the loss of their loved ones, or not knowing what’s going to happen to them, we don’t hear a lot about what they’ve been saying about Netanyahu’s response, or the Israeli government response. And there are reports in Israeli media that indicate that a deal could have been made much earlier, where there were not as many Gazan civilians, Palestinian civilians killed. Where the Israeli hostages didn’t have to endure yet more time in the custody of either Hamas or Islamic Jihad, or other groups.

But talk about that dynamic, the protests of the families of the hostages being held, and whether or not Netanyahu actually could have made a deal of this almost exact nature much earlier.

RY: I’m in the business of trying to make factual statements, so I’m very, very cautious. But I also read reports of a possible deal. We also heard from credible sources that there were different negotiations, and that Netanyahu said no.

I think it’s very clear to a lot of people in Israel that this government is surviving on borrowed time. The failure of Netanyahu starts even before October 7th, but October 7th is… I mean, this is his responsibility. He’s the prime minister, he ignored numerous warnings from the top echelon of the Israeli military. Everybody that has a brain, they saw that he is disintegrating the country with his attempt to release himself from the many corruption allegations that he’s facing in court. And he was willing to take very, very bold risks, including fracturing the army, conceding a lot of things to his far, far right coalition members.

And the result was that the Israeli military and intelligence failure on October 7th… So, the people were taken because of him, and now, we all understand that, in many respects, we already lost, because the people that died, you cannot bring them back. So, the best thing you can do to cut your losses is to bring the people that are still alive, and this is what the family members of the people that were held captive were demanding. And, of course, it touched every heart of — or, not every, this would be an exaggeration… But a vast majority of Israelis were identifying with their plea to bring back their loved ones and, eventually, it created enough political pressure and enough political interest for the government to accept the deal.

JS: It seems like we, at this point… And it’s totally understandable why, these people have just been through an unspeakable horror, the Israeli civilians who have been released. Maybe share some of what you have heard about their time in captivity during these past seven weeks.

What kinds of stories are you hearing about how people were treated as hostages, and what they and their families have been saying about their time in captivity?

RY: I mean, the stories are just starting to come out. People need some time first to recover. Not all of them are in great medical shape. You can see visibly that a lot of them lost weight. Some that had medical conditions that were ongoing, the conditions worsened. One is now in intensive care with severe risk to her life.

I read that some of the children that were ill were not treated well, they didn’t receive medical attention as they should have, and I think the stories will continue to come. But this is like… No one really was expecting them to be top-notch.

I have to say another thing in this regard. We’re talking about people [who] are civilians, they’re not part of the conflict. Preventing any type of connection between them and their families, and not even letting families know what their condition is psychological torture for the person who is imprisoned, and to the family.

There is a lot of resentment and anger in Israel towards the International Red Cross for not visiting the people that are held captive in Gaza. But this is misdirected, misdirected by Israeli politicians, because the Red Cross cannot come and visit people if the party who is holding them is not letting them do so. So, this resentment is frustrating for people, and they’re looking for an outlet to that.

But that’s another thing. Being held for so many weeks, not knowing, having no connection to the outside world is difficult. We do know that some of them were able to hear reports in Israeli media, so there was a television or a radio there, and they could understand that people are worrying about them, caring about them, and working to get them released. So, at least that. 

MH: It seems that Hamas is using the issue of prisoner exchanges and hostage releases to extend the ceasefire period. Is there a point beyond which you think the Israeli government or public would not want to continue the negotiations, and continue with the offensive, given that Netanyahu and others have said that continuing it is a priority of the government in general? 

RY: First, we have to remember that there are elements in the government that voted against the prisoners’ exchange as it was, because they thought the military campaign should continue. And some people — I think it was the finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, from the far-right Jewish Zionist party — said, on the very first day, that we have to forget about the people that were kidnapped, and just fight Hamas. And put that aside, sort of like erase them, and consider them collateral damage. So, I think there are political powers that, at a certain point will say, we have to resume the fighting.

I think it changes when it comes to the general public. The general public is more interested in seeing people back. And, also, it’s a relief for, I think, most people to not hear about dead soldiers, because Israel has also… I mean, the daily death toll of Israeli soldiers in Gaza is also something which is very, very difficult to process and to deal with.

So, I think there’s a difference between what the politicians would like and what the public would prefer, and there would probably be some balance yet [to come]. But also, there’s another possibility, which is totally outlandish, but I think it’s worth at least mentioning, which is: if people really consider Israel to have superior power, and Hamas feels that it has some responsibility, or bears some responsibility, for the civilians in Gaza, they can yield. They can release all the prisoners, and they can leave Gaza, and the war will end.

I mean, we can imagine a lot of scenarios, if you want to think about what is moral, what is just, what is the right thing to say, to do. And I’m very highly critical of my government. I think Israel is pushing all the wrong buttons dealing with this, but I also have to say that I’m lacking Palestinian critical voices about Hamas, and the disruption that it brought on Palestinians in general, and also on the Palestinian cause, because if they want a free Palestine, I don’t see how what they did is promoting that.

JS: Let’s talk a bit about the Palestinian side of this situation. And by Palestinian, I don’t mean the Hamas side; I mean, the Palestinians who are being held by Israel in prison. And the Israeli government has put out a list of 300 names that it says are available for a negotiated release in return for the return of the Israeli hostages.

And Roy, I went through that list, the 15 pages of it. I read the allegations against each of the 300 individuals on the list. I read their birthdays, I read how long they’ve been in custody, and I read whether or not they’ve been convicted or sentenced.

And so, first, just at the top-line level, my reading of this is that of the 300 names, 233 of these individuals — and the vast majority of them are teenage boys — have not been convicted at all. Is that correct?

RY: Have not been convicted yet, you mean.

JS: Yeah. They don’t have a conviction, and they haven’t been sentenced. In other words, they have not been found guilty, and they haven’t been sentenced.

RY: No, but I think this is the process, so let me explain a little bit. It’s not like there isn’t going to be a sentence. It’s the trick of the military judicial system in regard to minors, and we’re talking mainly about people that throw stones at soldiers. It’s not something that necessarily really justifies putting a minor in prison. Israel has a policy of, if it’s a security offense committed in the context of Palestinians against Israelis, it’s considered to be a security offense. And a security offense justifies, in the military court system, remand in custody until the trial for the entire endurance of the process, from the interrogation to the indictment.

As a result, it creates a lot of pressure on Palestinian prisoners to take plea bargains, because they are already imprisoned, and the imprisonment can take… I mean, the trial is a lengthy process, it takes at least several months, and all this time they are spending in jail. So, for them, if they take a plea bargain, and the plea bargain also considers the time they already spent in custody as part of the sentence, it shortens the time that they will spend in jail.

And this pressure is unfair, because it also forces people that did nothing to take a plea bargain, because if they would like to prove their innocence, if they have an alibi, the trial might take a year, but they will also lose a year of their life in prison. So, that makes little sense for them.

But, of course, since there are a lot of incidents where Palestinians are resisting the occupation, also with some form of hurling stones, or throwing incendiary devices, or something like that, then Israel has a lot of prisoners, a lot of minors in prison available to do such a deal.

Now, we’ve written a lot of reports on that. We think that this system is bad. And we also have to take into account that this happens in the context of a national conflict, where this is not just young delinquents who are people that have some criminal, problematic, psychotic personality. They feel that they are fighting for liberation, and we have to remember that context, it doesn’t justify this fight for liberation, just doesn’t justify everything, but it is part of the story.

And this is the part that the Israeli society is trying to repress and look the other way, sort of ignore. Because we are talking about hundreds of minors each year [who] are imprisoned, which is a terrible thing, and should never happen in a democracy.

JS: Yeah, I was just trying to establish a basic factual statistic, which is 233 of the people on the list of 300 have not been convicted. They’re in a process of military justice and they have not been sentenced, I was just trying to establish that as a fact. And I appreciate all of the other context, because this is really the heart of what we wanted to ask you about. And I’ve read the B’Tselem reports on this. There’s very important information; I hope everyone reads the reports that your organization puts out.

But let’s use a typical case. You mentioned many of the teenage boys who are being held are there on allegations that they threw stones often at IDF soldiers or other Israeli law enforcement or military forces. So, the Israeli soldiers chase that boy, they take that child; there’s 15-year-olds, there’s younger that have been taken in, as your organization [reported].

RY: There were like several 14 years old.

JS: Yeah, 14. And, if you go back further — not necessarily about the 300 — there’s much younger kids, even. But, on this particular list, 15, 14-year-olds. 

What happens, then, Roy, once those Palestinian children or teenagers are taken by the IDF into custody? Walk us through a typical case. 

RY: So, if they were taken on the spot, they were taken on the spot. But, often, the police or the army knocks on the door of a Palestinian family in the middle of the night, and they take the person they thought threw stones. They are taken without their parent, without their legal guardian into interrogation. They are kept there in conditions which are not very hospitable. And I think, as a minor, it’s especially scary when you have no knowledge of where you are and without somebody, an adult, supervision — an adult that cares for you, of course.

We also have to remember that it’s the army. Not everybody speaks fluent Arabic, so they have difficulties communicating their needs. And then they’re interrogated, and the first interrogation happens without a lawyer and without a parent. Which, of course, in the case of a minor, is hugely problematic.

Now, around 2009, Israel decided to make the system better, so it’s established a juvenile military court, and this sort of improvement begs a lot. I mean, you can unpack a lot by having the need for an army to have a juvenile military court, because the name in itself is… I mean, it’s kind of self-explanatory why it shouldn’t exist.

And, in these types of amendments and improvements, they we’re talking about more meaningful parental supervision. But, in fact, because of the fact that most of the situation and the decision about the remand in custody of keeping the minor incarcerated until the end of legal proceedings take place, even before it gets to the juvenile military court. In effect, the juvenile military court, it plays a very, very minor role, other than approving the plea bargain that the average decent lawyer would suggest to the kid’s family.

And they would say, look, you can insist that your child was not involved. But if you want it, then you have to decide whether you take the chances. Nobody knows with court if they’re going to be proven guilty or discharged. Or you can see your child [in] a shorter period of time, and then it’s more advisable to take the plea bargain.

And then, basically, the juvenile court has very little to do, other than approve the plea bargain. And I’ve been sitting in several proceedings just to look, to understand how the system works. It’s like a rubber stamp, basically. It’s plea bargain after plea bargain after plea bargain. It’s very, very difficult.

The other issue here which is more, in a way, it’s even more pernicious, is the fact that discussions in juvenile court are blocked to the media. And this is the same in Israel. In Israel, to protect the identity of a minor, to not have repercussions for juvenile delinquents further on when they grow up, it’s all behind closed doors, all the discussions.

But when it comes to Palestinians, I think the interests are rather different. Exposing this to the media, to the public, actually serves the interest of the minor better. Because, as I said before, this is not a juvenile delinquent. This is not Criminal Minds. These are children, minors, [who] are acting in the context of a conflict, and they feel that they have national aspiration for liberation and freedom. And, like teenagers, they are doing things to push the boundaries.

It’s not criminal behavior in the typical sense of what we would consider [criminal] behavior. They didn’t go and rob a bank or a candy store. They object to something which in their society is an oppressive force. And this is something that we have to keep in mind, and it’s very, very difficult for Israelis to keep it in mind, because everything is labeled under this blanket concept of terror.

But I think not everything is terror. I think going with a knife and trying to stab a person, yes, that’s horrible. But resisting the occupation, I think it’s different. It’s not the same. Not all offenses were created equal.

MH: Roy, I want to ask you, quickly, in the reports of the current negotiations between Hamas and Israel, individuals subject to administrative detention are not deemed to be included in these negotiations. And yet, we’ve seen in recent weeks there have been an increase of administration detentions in the West Bank by Israeli forces.

Can you explain briefly what this concept of administrative detention is, and how it’s relevant to the Israeli administration of the West Bank?

RY: Well, administrative detention is a very, very cruel measure in which a person is imprisoned without trial. The concept is like something that has to be, in theory, it has to be done in absolutely the most rare cases, where you have to apprehend a person in a ticking bomb situation, where not apprehending them would mean that they would attack.

It’s also done in the framework of taking somebody and putting them in prison. Not for something they have committed, but something they intend to do in the future. So, like the benefit of the doubt, this type of like, well, maybe this thinking, maybe I won’t do it, is out of the question again.

The other thing is that, because there’s no trial, there’s no due process, so people can’t really object or disprove the allegations that are [being held] against them. Moreover, they don’t even know what those allegations are. And human rights organizations have recorded for many years that Israel is very liberal with this use off administrative detention, to the degree which begs the question of whether, really, it’s a preventative measure, or just another parallel track to take away and to imprison people [whose guilt] Israel finds it difficult to prove.

And, of course, in recent weeks, because there’s a lot of tension, and the level of violence is higher, and since administrative detention is readily available for the Israeli security forces, they are using them quite liberally. And I think now the number is over 2,000 people under administrative detention. Those numbers were given to HaMoked, which is an Israeli human rights organization that provides legal services to Palestinians under the Israeli occupation. And this is an all-time high in the number of administrative detainees, and [we’ve been] recording this for many years now.

JS: You know, there’s something — and this is my opinion, but I’m saying it because I think it’s true — I think there’s something really insidious about the way that Israeli government spokespeople have talked about the Palestinian prisoners that are being released as part of this deal. Since Israel released this list, there has been a kind of conviction by fiat on the part of Mark Regev and other Israeli government spokespeople, where they are speaking as though it’s an established fact that these individuals are known, verified, and convicted terrorists. That is the general dominant projection of the Israeli line on this, certainly in the English language media.

And if you monitor what’s being said on social media, this is now being repeated over and over and over again. There is not the nuance that you’re talking about here, about throwing stones, about why someone, including a young teenage boy, might commit what I think we could describe as an act of political violence. You know, throwing a stone, or taking out your anger — maybe your brother was killed, maybe you witnessed your family member being massacred, and you are walking around with this rage over what, in your view, is an apartheid army that is, by brute force, terrorizing your family for merely existing as a Palestinian. That context doesn’t exist.

And it’s so extreme that the interior minister of Netanyahu’s government — Itamar Ben-Gvir — issued an edict saying, “There are to be no expressions of joy.” That’s a direct quote. When these Palestinian prisoners are released, he said, quote, “Expressions of joy are equivalent to backing terrorism, victory celebrations give backing to those human scum, for those Nazis.” And he told the Israeli police to deploy what he called “an iron fist” to enforce this order.

What do you think of what I just said, about the way that the Israeli government talks about these individuals that are being released? But also the order given by the Interior Minister, that people are not allowed to express joy over the fact that their teenage boys are being released after having been put in a military justice system for throwing stones?

RY: Well, first of all, we have to elaborate a little bit about this person who’s [using the word] “terrorist.” Itamar Ben-Gvir was a member of Kach, which is an organization and political movement that was designated as a terror organization by Israel, and also by the United States of America. He’s a supporter of Kahane. When I’m talking about far-right elements of the Israeli government, he’s the embodiment of those elements.

And, of course, when he’s talking about no expressions of joy, and this type of brute policing of people’s feelings and expressions, it’s kind of like trying to enforce, and to incite, violence. This is an effort by him to ignite even more tension, and to create even more friction between Jews and Palestinians, because this is his political agenda, and because he is a supporter of terror, he is a supporter. He is a person who thinks violence is a legitimate political tool, so he’s using this violence.

And it’s mind boggling that the Israeli government put somebody like that in charge of the police in Israel, but we are, all of us, we are paying the consequence of having people like that in power. I mean, the entire region is, I think, paying the price, but also Israelis.

JS: To follow up on that, the general way that, though the Palestinian prisoners are being discussed, I do think it’s accurate to say that the dominant narrative is, these are hardened terrorists that are being exchanged for babies, the elderly and civilians.

Now, on a technical level, it’s true that you have people in prison that are being accused of violent crimes, that is certainly true. And they are being exchanged for, to date, only Israeli civilians, including very young children and very elderly people. But, on a political level, what Israel wants to drill into people’s heads — and when I say “Israel,” I mean the state, the government — is these people are all terrorists that are being released. And that doesn’t seem to jibe with the individual cases, or with what you’re saying, Roy, about the nature of the charges that many of these people face.

RY: I think it’s correct to say that some of those people are terrorists. Some of those people, they were convicted of attempted murder, of shooting. But this is some of the people. It’s definitely not all of the people, and it’s certainly not the majority of those people that were slated for release. And I think putting all of them in the same basket is, first of all, like lying by omission, in a way. And it’s covering up the very harsh reality. We’re in a really dark place, and this type of place encourages people to have black and white kind of thinking when, in fact, reality is different shades of gray. The moral reasoning requires [more] complicated equations than this type of black-and-white or binary thinking, of, this is wrong, and we’re the good ones, and they’re the bad ones.

The most unfortunate thing is that the people that are [making] decisions are mostly the type that employ this type of thinking, and also have this thinking that it’s us or them. And they’re saying it, you just have to listen to them. I don’t think that [they] necessarily now have a lot of public support. In fact, the ruling coalition in survey after survey, it seems like it lost touch with the majority of the Israeli public. But they’re still in power.

JS: We only have a moment left, Roy, but the final thing I wanted to ask you about was: if you go to your organization’s website, B’Tselem, and you look at it, you see, right on the homepage, the following quote. “Israel’s regime of apartheid and occupation is inextricably bound up in human rights violations.” And you go on to say that your organization “strives to end this regime, as that is the only way forward to a future in which human rights, democracy, liberty and equality are ensured to all people, both Palestinian and Israeli, living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.”

What we’re seeing right now globally is not just activists who work on the issue of Palestine, raising this issue of an apartheid state. But you’re seeing, now, nation states, including leaders from within the European Union starting to talk in the terms that you, and other activists, and human rights organizations have, for some time.

But I wanted to ask you, as an Israeli, what has it been like to be someone who works for an organization that is accusing your own government of operating an apartheid regime, and now to see so many voices from around the world coming to understand or agree with the conclusions that you and others at B’Tselem, and activists and organizations within Israeli society, have been saying for some time? What is that like for you?

RY: I would say that it’s frustrating, because we were ringing the bell when it was still possible to deal with it, before so many lives [were] lost and families destroyed and people killed. And this is, to be honest, it doesn’t feel like… It’s not like, “we told you so.” It feels more like a failure, because we were trying, and maybe we didn’t try hard enough or we weren’t very successful.

So, it doesn’t feel very good to hear it all around the world, because it’s too little, too late.

JS: Well, on that note, I want to thank you and your colleagues for all of the very, very important work you’ve done over these decades. And we’ll all keep all people who are held prisoner right now, or held hostage, in our hearts.

Roy Yellin, thank you so much for being with us.

RY: Thank you for having me.

MH: That was Roy Yellin. He’s the Director of Public Outreach for B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights group.

JS: And that does it for this episode of Intercepted. Intercepted is a production of The Intercept. José Olivares is our lead producer. Our supervising producer is Laura Flynn. Roger Hodge is Editor-in-Chief of The Intercept. Rick Kwan mixed our show. Our legal review was done by David Bralow. And this episode was transcribed by Leonardo Faierman. Our theme music, as always, was composed by DJ Spooky.

MH: If you want to support our work, you can go to theintercept.com/join. Your donation, no matter what the size, makes a real difference. And, if you haven’t already, please subscribe to Intercepted, and definitely do leave us a rating and review whenever you find our podcasts. It helps other listeners to find us as well.

JS: If you want to give us additional feedback, you can email us at podcasts@theintercept.com. I’ll just say, parenthetically, I’ve gotten a lot of feedback lately.

Thanks so much for joining us. Until next time, I’m Jeremy Scahill.

MH: And I’m Murtaza Hussain.