The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Mansa Musa:

Welcome to this edition of Rattling the Bars. I’m your host, Mansa Musa. The number of Palestinian detainees in Israel custody has been on the rise. A population now marked by a revolving door where ceasefire releases are being eclipsed by new arrest campaign. Despite the release of nearly 2000 prisoners during the October 2025 ceasefire, or I must say so- called ceasefire, a massive wave of new detentions and occupied territories of Palestine has effectively reset the scales of incarceration. Join us today is Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi, the founding director and senior scholar of the Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diaspora Studies Program at SFSU, a Yale educated sociologist. She is the principal investigator of Teaching Palestine. Welcome, doc. How you doing today?

Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi:

I’m okay. I’m okay. I’m as best as could be expected under the terrible conditions that we’re living under.

Mansa Musa:

Before we go into a more detailed thing what’s going on with our occupation, give update as on what’s going on with the Palestinian prisoners and this recent roundup that there just taking place.

Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi:

Yes. The situation of Palestinians in general, and I’m really glad that you said so- called ceasefire because the ceasefire agreement was signed, but unfortunately, as usual, Israel, the settler colonial regime of Israel, with the big assistance of the United States, have not lived up to any parts of the ceasefire agreement. Palestinians have. However, the starvation is continuing, the bombing and killing of Palestinians continuing, the siege is continuing, and the prevention of medicine and food is continuing. The Palestinian community, the Palestinian society, the Palestinian forces have deemed that one of the most dire conditions of the Palestinian is the prisoners. The prisoners, because one is that there is now at least 9,300 Palestinian prisoners. The numbers change. If we talk tomorrow, there will be different numbers. Israel has released in the ceasefire some numbers of Palestinian, but it doesn’t even release the numbers that they agreed upon.

They haven’t released the numbers of the long-term prisoners. They haven’t released the numbers of the sick Palestinians. It’s almost 87 to 100 people who have died in prison. Some have been people who have … We talked last time, we talked, we talked about Hadar Adnan, who died when he was on the hunger strike. He was conducting hunger strikes just to improve the conditions of prison, let him see his family, these things of the sort. And he died. They forced him to die. There are other prisoners who had cancer, who they would not give them any kind of relief, even going to die in a hospital because they needed medical care and so on. All of this actually is in violation of the four Geneva Convention, which Israel has signed being mindful of Jews who were being deported during the Holocaust,

Mansa Musa:

During

Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi:

The Second World War. Okay, the Jewish Holocaust. And so these are something that have been deteriorating more and more. And there have been many updates to the For Geneva Convention. It didn’t stay until the 40s.This has been updated every year, more and more and more. The situation is so bad that it is exactly, as you said, revolving door. Palestinian prisoners get freed more. There are 350 children now in prison. In January last year, there were they actually released all the women who were in prison and all the children in 19th of January. Now there are women in prison who are being … Every time the lawyer, only the lawyer who goes to see them, and this is a Palestinian lawyer from the 48 areas, which means that this is Palestinian prisoner who has Israeli citizen, Palestinian lawyer, because Palestinian lawyers from the West Bank can go visit.

And forget about Gaza. No lawyers can go at all. They go to visit them. They’re being raped. All the prisoners are getting much, much less food. They get very small portion of food, like a little, little, like a little bit supply of almost and red. There is no such thing as writing to their families, writing, going to school. All of these things that prisoners accomplish as a result of their struggle. It wasn’t a gift. Now all of it is finished. The other thing is that now Israeli which is supposed to be parliament, has already finished and approved the first reading of the bill to execute Palestinian prisoner. And now they even have perfected how to execute Israeli doctors even. Israeli doctors who have perfected also how to torture, now even refuse to participate in the death penalty in killing Palestinian prisoners. So now they are perfecting how to deal according to Israeli Channel 13, which is Israeli police TV, not police, TV, Israeli TV, has all said that they’re going to choose three guards, three prison military who have served in Gaza, are going to choose them to shoot at the same time so nobody knows which one of them has killed.

I mean, it’s all of this stuff and they’re going to put them in another step citizen. It’s all of this not perfecting all of this. These things that actually were very perfected during Nazism and are perfected in the United States, fascistate. And they’re doing all of this stuff and they’re continuing how to kill people, how to torture them, how to implement more collective punishment, which is also banned, by the way.

Mansa Musa:

Let me ask you- Yeah,

Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi:

Go ahead.

Mansa Musa:

You got two different legal systems as it relates to the Palestine. How are they getting away with it? You tried settlers in selling court and you tried Palestinians in military court with the same, you can have the same identical action. I can be a settler, state sponsored terrorists against Palestinians. And then when I’m a Palestinian and I’m throwing a rock, how is it that I’m being subjected to a military tribunal versus the sellers being subjected to criminal tribunals?

Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi:

Actually, there are different laws that all of them actually violate international law, international legal system. One is that there is a system for the Israeli state for Israeli state that includes Palestinians who were not driven away in 1948. Almost three quarter of a million Palestinians were driven away, kicked out in 1948 when Israel was founded. So these Palestinians are considered Israeli citizens and they are subjected to Israeli law. Now, the law is stringent, more stringent for Palestinians than it is to Israelis. Now, when Israel occupied the West Bank, Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem, Golan Heights and Sinai, in 1967, they annexed Jerusalem the same way they annexed the Golan Highs. And now Israeli law applies to these conditions. So in Jerusalem, this is what’s interesting. In Jerusalem, what applies to Israeli Jewish citizens in Jerusalem does not apply to Palestinians. So if a Palestinian youth who’s 16 years old gets arrested, there is different law than applies to kids than applies to Israeli.

So Palestinian children who 16 years old are treated as adults while Israeli children who are 16 are treated as children, juvenile law. This is one thing. Now, this is for whatever, whatever offenses they might call. Now with the West Bank and Gaza, they are supposed to apply the fourth Geneva Convention, which applies to civilian population occupied in the condition of war. The occupied areas are occupied. So it’s not supposed to apply anything that has to do with occupation of war, including transferring in the case of prisoners, civilians to the country that is occupying. So all Palestinian prisoners that are all of them transferred to the conditions of the Israeli state per se. This is all illegal. They should not be moving Palestinians from

Mansa Musa:

Gaza.

Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi:

Palestinians from the West Bank, they should not. Children, women, they should not be moving any of them, let alone the torture, let alone the denial of food, let alone of visits. There are laws that govern prisons. Okay. Whatever we think of prison, there are laws. So this is something that is different. Israel actually doesn’t really care much about Palestinian, let’s say civilian, social prisoners and so on. They actually flood Palestinian communities inside Israel with guns and drugs. So Palestinians kill each other. Something we do not, it’s not unfamiliar to people who live in the United States the way the United States government also does to

Mansa Musa:

Communities

Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi:

Of color, our communities and so on. And then they come and say they are killing each other. So they don’t worry about them. But this is what they do to Palestinian, but they don’t care about that. That’s not something that they care about. But they flood guns. And then in the West Bank, for example, let’s say now, there are a lot of settlers, colonists, more colonists that are taking over more Palestinian lands and they are supported by the Israeli military because the West Bank is under the control of the Israeli military. Nevermind also occurs and all of the agreements that they signed with the PLO and so on. That doesn’t apply. They take more and more. The settlers come attack Palestinian older farmers, for example, taking the crop of alives, taking care of their land, traveling from Mahab brothers in the West Bank and they live in different cities in Nables, Ramallah and Jerusalem, they don’t visit each other.

They don’t visit each other. They can visit each other if they go to a man, for example, Jordan, like for any, they get a permit to go. That’s where they see each other outside of the country. They cannot go for funerals. They don’t go for weddings or so because these are very rich.

They go there, they travel in their cars because the settlers might attack them and the Israeli military stands by and watches them. So there are multiple laws. This is why Palestinians say this is exactly like Upperthide law. There is one law for Israeli Jews and there is another law for Palestinian Arabs. And this is something that has already been … I mean, not only South African leaders and the Uperthird leaders have said it again and again and again. Every single part of international law, including the International Committee of Council of Justice, the ICJ, all of them, human rights, everybody has already agreed that there is upper time. People

Mansa Musa:

Do

Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi:

Not disagree with that. Yeah, go ahead.

Mansa Musa:

Talk about how the fact that they’re detaining people without charges and how that plays into the occupation and what do they say about Palestinians having right due process and law?

Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi:

Okay. You’re under occupation. Under occupation as a Palestinian, you have no rights. Even though there’s supposed to be rights that govern. And let’s say, for example, now on the West Bank, it used to be West Bank and Gaza, and sometimes in Jerusalem, but it doesn’t really work because there is no jurisdiction for Palestinians. The International Committee of the Red Course, for example, is supposed to be going visiting prisoners who are arrested without charge. This is called administrative detention.

Israel can arrest Palestinians up to six months without any charges, can even take them to court without any charges. You don’t know what the charges against you can hold them up for 18 months of 18 days or a month without actually having a lawyer without the ICRC. All of this is the first junior of a convention. And then there is also emergency laws that the British colonialism had when it was controlling Palestine, colonizing Palestine. Israel has inherited called emergency laws, 1943. Israel has taken adopted. They didn’t adopt all the laws. They adopted them. And part of it is actually the goal of it is called collective punishment. In order to … They think they can deter Palestinians from resisting the occupation, lack of freedom and so on. And in order to scare the families to prevent their children from participating.

Mansa Musa:

So

Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi:

This is something to scare people, to humiliate them, to punish them, and also to break their spirit, to break their resistance, to break their dignity. So this is something that it actually has been condemned in every single human right council and everything. It’s against international law, against everything, but they do it. You can be walking the street and they can take you and you try. And I know it happened to many members of my family. We have to actually try to find where are they? In what prison they are. In order to go to the Red Cross and say to them, “Can you please go see if they are okay? If they are alive, if they’re sick, are they getting insulin,” for example, for diabetes. There is no way they do not allow. It’s not only the regular visit. For example, prisoners since October 7th, 2023, haven’t gotten any visits from their families.

None. It’s only if the lawyers can see them once in a great while, but you don’t. And then they extend the administrative prison again and again and again, which allows the Israeli state through the Israeli military to keep them in prison again and again and again without saying what are they charged with, what are they saying without presenting them with any charges? And they say, “This is secret. This is for the protection of security.” Every time Israel gets stuck with something, it says it’s security. Once you say it’s security, all Israeli law, even civilian law stops and says, “It’s security. It’s the security. We can’t do anything about it. ” So it’s like a catch 22.

Mansa Musa:

It’s

Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi:

Circular. So you cannot do anything about it. Go ahead.

Mansa Musa:

Talk about the use of unlawful combating in Gaza versus what’s being done in the West Bank on a military law.

Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi:

It’s a legal combat. This is the new term they came up with.

This is something that was in Idaho, but they call it illegal combatants. And they actually applied it for somebody like Dr. Pasam Abu Sophia, who was the director of the hospital and he was there. He stayed in the hospital to defend the hospital because Israel was reading it. People who have no places, Israel has been bombing buildings, apartment buildings, homes. And then Palestinians went and they set up tents in order to stay in. And actually sometimes Israeli military said, “You cannot be in this area. You need to move somewhere else.” They moved into another place. They bombed them again. They bombed the tents. They bombed the people who have refugees again and again and again. Remember, 70% of the people in Gaza are refugees from 1948. So they’re multiple generation refugees. They’re not. And then when they say, “Oh, they invaded Israel. They didn’t invade.

They actually were going back to their homes.” I mean, that’s what was going on that people even missed that. Anyway, so they went to Dr. Hassan Osapi is a doctor. He’s a medical doctor providing medicine to people. They kept threatening him and he said, “I’m not going to go. ” His son was martyred. His own son was killed. He himself was attacked in the hospital. And he said, “I’m going to stay with my patients. I’m going to stay. This is my job. I’m a medic. I’m a doctor. I’m going to continue providing help to the people. ” And then they kicked him out and they took him and they called him illegitimate enemy combatant. “What did he do? He is protecting. He’s a medic. He’s a doctor. He’s doing his job. And until now, and they took a video of him, we hosted actually in our teaching Palestine open classroom.

We hosted his lawyer along with doctors against Aperthide doctors here in the US. And she spoke about … She had just visited him. And one time the Israeli ministers who settler, Bingve, visited him in prison and took a video. And this is all part of it is to chill and scare Palestinians. See how we are? It doesn’t matter if somebody is prisoner or a doctor or something, we’re going to scare them. And they showed how he is emaciated and that they don’t let his family know about him. It took very long time to actually even find out where he was. So he is one of the people who’s on the list of people who are being punished. He’s a doctor. And so he’s now illegitimate. What is it? Enemy combatant, an illegitimate enemy combatant is considered somebody who is providing medical services. He’s a doctor.

And he’s not hiding anywhere. He’s right there. Anybody could go and see him. We don’t know what is going to happen to him. There is another doctor a couple of months ago, not a few months ago. He was martyred because he spoke about the sexual torture or another doctor, head of hospital. He spoke about the torture and the sexual torture that prisoners in Stitaman, which is a big prison that Israel constructed. It was a camp for British soldiers during

The colonial. He spoke about that. So they killed him in prison. I mean, this is normal. Normal for the Israeli occupation, for Israeli, settler colonial regimes. This is normal. If they treat prisoner … We haven’t hear anything about good treatment of prisoners, children, women, everybody. This is something that they do every day. Practice status quo. Normal. So this is what they do. They do whatever they want because actually majority of the world is against them, but they get the weapons, the support from the United States. The most powerful country on the face of the universe. Even though they say,” We’re going to stop it. How many times did Trump say we’re going to stop it? “And they don’t stop it. They actually encourage them and now they’re creating a new supposedly international legal framework for colonization, which is so- called peace, whatever, which is no Palestinians are participating in it anyway.

Mansa Musa:

Has it different in the West Bank?

Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi:

In Gaza, they’re doing it in order to justify. Why is it that they’re holding medics, for example? In Gaza, they have a long, long time ago, forgotten about and normalized the question that there is really no Palestinian authority. I mean, it was really never independent Palestinian rule. But in the West Bank already, there are three refugee camps that have completely been destroyed. This is camps that were set up in 1949 and 1950 in June, in Tulkariam and two in Tulkarim. Now they’re moving against other refugee camps near Hebrew in the South, near Bethlehem. And in Nablus there in my hometown, there are three refugee camps that have been attacked again and again and again. In Jenin, 40,000 people in Tulkarium, 30,000 people, they basically evacuated the refugee camp that’s supposed to be temporary since 1948 is no more.

Mansa Musa:

They

Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi:

Don’t even allow. They say,” Okay, you can even go to your home if their home still exists to get whatever belongings you got. And then they shoot at them. So in the West Bank, the rule is completely for the Israeli army. Gaza, there are still places where there is resistance in pockets. There are still resistance and there is still fighting in some areas and Israel wants to end it completely. And so Israel does not control every place in Gaza. So that’s why they come up with all of it because there is the eyes of the world is pointing at it. While they’re not pointing at the West Band, at the West Bank, they are going in there. In all the military, the settlers are going … It’s colonized, but it’s different degrees of colonization, different legal maneuvers and so on just to justify it and to confuse people.

But they’re already evacuating the settlements. They go anywhere. I mean, I know that from what happened to my families and sometimes when I was there visiting my family, that they come in middle of the night raids. My brother, it happened to him in the middle of the night in his pajamas come in and they have him stand in front of another somebody in the building using him as a human shield so they can go and arrest people in case they have bombs or something that will explode in him and take people in the middle of the night, administrative detention, people disappear. Nobody knows where they are. They do this all the time. All the time. They can do whatever they want. And then in the roads, now in the rural areas, especially when the farmers are taking out their crops, like the olives, sometimes in Janine is the lettuce.

In Hebrew, it’s the tomatoes. Our raves, whenever it is like the livelihood, they go and they steal or they burn the trees and then the army is standing there or they beat up older men and they do whatever they want. It’s like you say it’s jungle, don’t even call it a jungle. That will be an insult to the animals because the animals go to eat. But these people are intentionally saddest and they want to basically empty the hole. And they said it so many times. It’s not something I’m inventing. They say that we want to get rid of all the Palestinians, including the children.

Mansa Musa:

As we give a close, I want to talk about the impact, the psychological impact is having on children because children are being tried in military court at young age. Talk about the impact the occupation is having and this outright repression is having on the children in Palestine.

Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi:

I mean, it’s very, very sad. And I think, I don’t know if we talked about it, but I do remember from Aksa and Trifather in 2000, 2001, that one of my nephews was three years old and he could actually distinguish between Apache helicopters and F-15. And it wasn’t funny. This is kind of like the children are understanding the war and so on. The thing is that on the other hand, there is the love of the community. There is the nurturing of the community that when there are breaking of the ceasefire and so on, the children go to their childhood and the community takes care of them, does therapy for them, music and so on. And so childhood should not be like this.

Mansa Musa:

They should

Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi:

Not be scared bombing every single night. They should not have nightmares. They should not be starving. The babies should not die because the blood in their veins froze. And this is what’s been happening now when there is a lot of rain and so on. This is not right, but there is also a very strong care from the community. Community takes care of the children because children are the lifeline. This is the life. Palestinians have been resisting for over a hundred years. It’s really, really important. It’s very, very important. Before we end the program, I really want to talk to your listeners. So people who are hearing, it’s very, very important to have the solidarity from the rest of the world. It has happened in Vietnam. It has happened everywhere around the world. The people will never stop resisting. People will resist

Mansa Musa:

Because

Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi:

They want to live. It’s very important to have the solidarity from the world. So Palestinians don’t feel that they are alone and they are doing their job, but feel people are with them. And now there is a very big appeal from all Palestinians asking the whole world to sign this petition that will supposed to reach one million people by April 17th, which is the International Day of Solidarity with Palestinian prisoners. It’s an appeal to the International Committee of the Red Cross to do its job. I mean, they do what they can, but not enough. They really

Mansa Musa:

Need

Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi:

To do more and to support Palestinian prisoner. Never forget about what’s going on. They are people who sacrifice or their communities refuse to kneel, refuse to kneel like people in every other, whether in Algeria, South Africa, here in the

Mansa Musa:

United

Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi:

States, everywhere. It’s people who are the best of our people, sacrifice, stand up for the community, and they are doing it. And we need to be there to support them. And I will share with you the

Mansa Musa:

Language and share with- Share with the link where you can give access to repetition.

Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi:

Yeah, to share with them, would like definitely to have prisoners come on your show. And I know you have Mahmadal Arda, you have spoken with them. So speak with more people, talk to them. Here, have your listeners listen to their stories, understand what was happening, understand that the spirit will never be broken. I mean, they want to break our spirit. They will never break our spirit,

Mansa Musa:

But

Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi:

The pressure will also reduce these terrible conditions that are

Mansa Musa:

Presidential. Talk about how they get access to sign the petition.

Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi:

I will share it with you and people can sign it, but also can also hold meetings to understand what’s going on. Here, what Palestinian prisoners are speaking, we can definitely make it possible for them to come and speak with you directly, speak people to people. It’s very important for us to also connect because we are also talking about freedom for all people. We go by freedom all. So it’s very important for us to connect to talk about what happening. ISIS picking up, kidnapping. Students from the universities, that’s what Israel does. Goes to

Mansa Musa:

Palestinian

Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi:

Universities, kidnaps people from the universities. There is a lot of collaboration between US ICE, police, and training with the Israeli, Mussad, military, and so on. People really need to understand because we are not just about ourselves as Palestinians. We’re about freedom and dignity for the whole world. When we said in the visibility of justice, we mean it. We are part of the world. We’re not living by ourselves. And we don’t want the military. We don’t want the weapons. We don’t want the killing. We want our children not to have nightmares about being bombed. We don’t want them to die. We want them to be healthy. That’s the kind of life that we would like people to read. Some of the writings the prisoners wrote about love and life and better word.This is this thing and we are entitled to it like

Mansa Musa:

Anywhere

Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi:

Else in the world. We are not a second degree people. Nobody is second degree people because we don’t have the might and power of military. And we think that we are the one person who should own the rest of the world. Yeah. Thank you so much.

Mansa Musa:

And I just wanted to tell our audience, we hear about Palestine, we hear about Israel, and we always get one-sided view of what’s going on over there. As you just heard today, the horrors and the horrific conditions that the Palestinian people are being subjected to for only one reason, the only one reason alone, they just want to live their life like human beings. They’re being treated like animals, they don’t have no due process of right, children being treated as adults in military court. We ask that you look at this story from Dr. Rabab and evaluate this information and find in your mind, would you find yourself treated like this? What would you want somebody to do on your behalf? If you found yourself in the same condition, what would you want somebody to do on your behalf? We only ask that you look at this, that you evaluate this information and you make a decision.

Where you staying at when it comes down to treating people like human beings? Because this is what this is about, treating people like human beings. We as you continue to support the real news and rattling the box, because guess what? We’re actually the real news. Thank you, Dr. Rabab.

Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi:

Thank you. Thank you.