Early in the morning on April 6, my cousin, Layan, was abducted by Israeli soldiers in the occupied West Bank. She was seized during a raid on her home in the town of Birzeit, situated in the heart of the West Bank and home to Birzeit University, where Layan is a graduate student.
Layan is one of 3 million Palestinians in the West Bank, living in a limbo as a Palestinian on her ancestral land, in a town where she and I can trace back the stories of our ancestors for thousands of years but where life has been made all but impossible by Israel’s military occupation, now in its 55th year.
While the world focuses its attention on Israel’s brutal onslaught against Gaza, violent repression by Israeli soldiers and settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank has surged to levels not seen in decades.
My family does not know why Layan was taken. What we do know is that she is one of over 5,500 Palestinians currently detained by Israel, and one of over 3,500 being held under so-called “administrative detention” without charges or trial — meaning we might never know why she was abducted.
The use of administrative detention has skyrocketed in recent years. As the number of Palestinian prisoners has increased by over 100 percent this time last year, so has their detainment without charge or trial.
Palestinian prisoners describe widespread torture, poor sanitary conditions, and lack of adequate food, water and medicine. Human rights organizations have repeatedly condemned Israel’s administrative detention system, which they say is used to silence dissent and intimidate the Palestinian population.
Israeli soldiers have disclosed the routine practice of sleep deprivation against Palestinian detainees. Israel will even hold onto the bodies of deceased Palestinians, sometimes for months or even years, refusing to return them to their families.
We have no idea where Layan is being held. As is typical for Palestinian detainees, she does not have access to a lawyer and she cannot contact her family or friends. We have no way to know how long she will be held or who to contact for information.
This is not the first time that Layan has been imprisoned by Israel’s occupying army. In July 2021, she was arrested for participating in nonviolent protests at Birzeit University. Then, like now, Layan was abducted from her home in the middle of the night. She was taken to a prison within the 1967 borders of Israel proper, which violates the Fourth Geneva Convention. The Convention states that an occupying power should not remove residents of that territory outside of the occupied territory.
Today, Layan is a prisoner in the land of her ancestors, unable to protest or go to school without crossing Israeli military checkpoints; she cannot sleep at night without fear of soldiers invading her home. She does not have the right to due process or basic prisoner’s rights.
As an American, I wonder if my tax dollars paid for the handcuffs around Layan’s wrists or the cage that holds her. I wonder what my parents would do or feel if it were me and not Layan. I wonder the same about the over 9,000 other Palestinian prisoners, about their families.
While the U.S. has waged war in the name of spreading democracy, it blatantly refuses to hold Israel accountable for its deeply undemocratic actions in Gaza and the West Bank, including its treatment of prisoners like my cousin.
The Biden administration and our elected representatives must heed the overwhelming demands of their constituents to hold Israel accountable for its decades of oppression, to pressure Israel to end the wave of repression in the West Bank terrorizing those like my cousin, and to join the call of millions of Americans for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza.
