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7.3 The Weaponisation of Care

7.3 The Weaponisation of Care

Care, as Annick TR Wibben et al. argue, is part of feminist peace research in which our embodied lives are interconnected “through the potential of peace”, and, furthermore, “through the actual and potential violences that tie our histories irreversibly together” (Wibben et al. 2018, 14)1. Though a lot of the methods used in torture are indifferent to the biological sex of the person subjected to its tactics, there are specific methods in use aimed at the binary gender view of men and women. Gendered differences in torture can be understood through the concept of abject embodiment, which focuses on how torture affects the relationship between the body and the self within the confines of imprisonment. As for the definition of abject embodiment, I use the concept as defined by Dennis D. Waskul and Pamela van der Riet, who understand abject embodiment as:

[A] state in which coherent bodily boundaries erode and the self has little control over the leaking of blood, urine, feces, vomit, bile, pus and various other hideous body fluids. Its untidiness violates not only biological but also normative boundaries. What is ordinarily inside now comes out, not only threatening the concretion of the body but also resulting in an ominous seepage of matter of physical, personal, moral, and social significance. (Waskul and van der Riet 2002)2

I borrow from Tiina Vaittinen the understanding that even in its “bare” vulnerability, the body is politically powerful (Vaittinen 2015)3, even though it is the political power wielded by the body that is the reason it finds itself being tortured with the aim of ridding the body of that very power. In her research on An Ethics of Needs, Vaittinen argues that the body in need of care emerges as the subaltern of our present epistemic order as something that cannot be heard and is muted (Vaittinen 2022)4. In spaces of torture, interrogation, and imprisonment, tactics that target urination, defecation, and menstruation exploit the body’s natural processes of waste excretion and self-cleansing. This weaponisation of care, which includes forced abject embodiment, will be explored further in this section. Ultimately, I will demonstrate how the body’s natural expulsion of waste, processes that are often considered taboo, can be manipulated as a means of control. In other words, these societal taboos are not merely reflected in such tactics but are actively transformed into tools of oppression. The torturer seeks to render the subjected body powerless within a rigid hierarchy of dominance. This is done through animalistic dehumanisation, degrading any perception of civility, rationality, and competence (Roberts 2020; Bongiorno et al. 2013)5 6. Hence, this section on abject embodiment and the weaponisation of care will examine the various ways in which bodies are subjugated within power hierarchies through dehumanising and humiliating tactics imposed on the confined body.

While reading Threat (Baker and Matar 2011)7, a book about Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails, I came across Osama Barham’s autobiographical account. He was arrested 18 times in total and recounts one particular arrest in 1993. From the outset, the interrogator established a tense atmosphere: “I’ve set aside fourteen days for you. They brought me here and cut my vacation short, so I have a personal beef with you. ... They call me in when there’s a stubborn case, so I’ll consider yours either my personal success or failure.” (Barham 2011, 98)8. This shows that there are people in the Zionist system of oppression who specialise in torture as a profession with the privilege of happily enjoying holidays. As Osama recounts, his torture was so brutal that he was hospitalised:

They drove me in a police car to the Tel Hashomer hospital, where a doctor apparently told them to stop the beating for two days. Two days later, the interrogators told me that the hospital report had stated that I’d been acting and was able to withstand the beatings. During the two days in which they didn’t beat me, they sat me down on a low chair that was bolted to the ground and placed a filthy, stinking bag on my head. My hands and feet were tied down, and I was denied sleep for hours on end as the interrogation went on. The interrogation continued, but the torture took another form. (Barham 2011, 97)8

Based on Osama Barham’s account, care can be understood as weaponised: medical interventions are not offered to heal or protect, but rather to legitimise the violence inflicted and to prolong the suffering of the individual by partially restoring health. The doctor’s role appears not to be to stop the abuse entirely but merely to regulate it, advising a temporary pause in beatings rather than condemning or preventing them. This gives the illusion of medical oversight while enabling further mistreatment.

Furthermore, the hospital report is used as a tool of coercion. Instead of acknowledging Osama’s suffering, it discredits him, labelling this pain as “acting” and justifying continued abuse. This transforms care into a means of control rather than relief. The medical system, which should function as a safeguard, instead reinforces and validates the interrogators’ actions, ensuring Osama remains subjected to inhumane treatment.

Osama recounts how one of the torturers told him: “You, Osama, are with us for 90 days, as prescribed by law. After that we’ll request another 90 days from the High Court. You’ll be with us either until you’re finished or we’re finished. We’re stronger. We’re a nation. You’re done for sure.” After the torture had recommenced, the interrogators engaged in the shaking tactic mentioned in the previous section. Osama continues:

I began to feel an intense pain in my hips, made worse by the kidney stones I’d been suffering from even prior to my arrest. My kidneys had apparently become infected from the pressure caused by the shaking and my attempts to resist. The pain was indescribable. I told the interrogator about the pain in my kidneys and my swollen left hip. However, instead of calling a doctor, he took me into the interrogation room and tried to extract a confession out of me in exchange for medical treatment. He placed a canvas bag over my head, blocking my vision, and pressed my right side with the inflamed kidney up against the corner of a metal filing cabinet. I screamed. He relieved the pressure slightly and then began to direct questions at me. Then he hit my genitals hard. (Barham 2011, 98)8

Here, it is clear that care is not only denied but actively weaponised through deliberate neglect and coercion. Unlike Osama’s stay in the hospital, where medical intervention was manipulated to justify continued abuse, here, care is withheld entirely and used as a bargaining tool to extract a confession. Rather than relieving pain, the interrogator exacerbates it. By pressing Osama’s inflamed kidney against a metal cabinet and physically assaulting him, he not only denies care but actively intensifies Osama’s suffering. This turns medical neglect into a method of torture, reinforcing the idea that the well-being of Palestinians in Israeli prisons is entirely at the mercy of their captors.

Osama’s ailing body is held hostage. The indescribability of the pain he feels is what Scarry describes as “world destroying” due to its intensity (Scarry 1985, 29)9. Every weakness inside the tortured body can potentially be used to create more pain, and the torturer will not hesitate to weaponise bodily ailments. Torturers frequently employ methods designed to break down a person’s mental and emotional defences. This can include isolation, sensory deprivation, and the infliction of psychological trauma. Such tactics are intended to create a sense of helplessness and dependency, undermining the victim’s sense of self and ability to think and act independently.

Moreover, the words by the Israeli torturer, “We’re stronger. We’re a nation. You’re done for sure,” directly relate to the erasure of Palestinian identity by positioning the tortured person, Osama, as powerless, stateless, and ultimately disposable in the face of Israeli dominance. I find the assertion “We’re a nation” particularly significant, it establishes a stark contrast between the torturer, who claims the legitimacy of statehood, and Osama, whose identity and belonging are implicitly denied. By framing imprisonment and torture as an indefinite, legally sanctioned process, Osama, as Palestinian, is placed outside the protection of recognised legal and national structures.

Furthermore, I interpret the phrase “You’re done for sure” as signalling not only physical and psychological destruction but also the erasure of identity itself. Osama is reduced to a subject of control, with no agency over his future. His existence is framed as irrelevant in comparison to the strength of the Israeli state (“We’re stronger”), suggesting that his identity, and by extension Palestinian identity, holds no power in this dynamic. The indefinite extension of detention (“another 90 days”) serves as a reminder that his existence, at least within this context, is contingent on the will of the oppressor, reinforcing a sense of erasure, disposability, and dehumanisation.

In this way, the statement functions as more than just a threat, it reflects a broader strategy of domination through erasure, where Palestinian identity is systematically dismantled by physical and psychological means.

7.3.1 Targeting the menstruating body

The weaponisation of care also becomes especially evident when examining the menstruation of Palestinian women in Israeli prisons, where, during interrogation and exposure to torture, their basic needs are neglected or manipulated as a form of control. Fearing shaming and consequential exploitation, Palestinian women in Israeli prisons try to avoid prison authorities from finding out when their bodies are menstruating, especially during interrogation sessions, as periods become another tool to exert further pressure to force women into confessions (Shwaikh 2022)10.

The following testimony from a Palestinian woman, interviewed by Malaka Shwaikh, offers a harrowing account of the conditions endured by Palestinian women in Israeli prisons, particularly in the context of menstruation and the denial of basic hygiene products. She recounts witnessing a fellow prisoner’s desperate pleas for sanitary protection being ignored, leading to extreme measures for managing her period. This testimony highlights the weaponisation of care, where the denial of fundamental needs serves as a method of control, humiliation, and psychological torture:

I remember once I was with another prisoner. She was on her period. She demanded [the Israeli authorities] in Arabic, in English, and in Hebrew that they give her anything she could use. Nobody listened to her. They put us both in isolated cells next to each other, separately. An isolated cell, for those who do not know, is basically a bathroom. It is a small space, much like a bathroom. At the end of the room, there is a toilet; and you sleep on a slightly elevated surface. On this surface, there is a very thin mattress. Underneath this mattress, there are dead insects. It is dirty. It smells horrible. And it is covered in a blanket. And this blanket . . . the number of prisoners who have used it, without it being washed, is likely in the thousands. It had not been washed in decades because its smell was rotten. The room was filled with spiderwebs, insects, cockroaches. Small ones, big ones. Because you are in a bathroom, basically. She started crying during the interrogation, when she asked them for hygiene products. She pleaded: “Please, help me. Give me anything.” They refused. She was forced to rip apart the blanket with her own teeth. This blanket was extremely dirty. I am sure of it. And I started crying. I asked “how could you use this blanket?” She said “I have no other choice.” This is the most basic right a woman deserves in prison, during an interrogation. She is a woman, and this is a basic necessity. (Ayah as quoted in Shwaikh, Malaka. 2022. "Prison Periods: Bodily Resistance to Gendered Control." Journal of Feminist Scholarship 20 (20). https://doi.org/10.23860/jfs.2022.20.03., 42)

This testimony starkly illustrates the weaponisation of care, where the deliberate denial of basic necessities, specifically menstrual hygiene, becomes a tool of control, humiliation, and psychological torment. Care, in its fundamental sense, involves the provision of essential needs, particularly in vulnerable situations. However, in this context, the very absence of care is weaponised to intensify suffering and erode the dignity of imprisoned women. The weaponisation of care in this testimony is not only a means of control and humiliation but also a direct assault on the prisoner’s agency, her ability to act, make choices, and maintain autonomy over her body.

The prisoner’s repeated pleas in multiple languages, Arabic, English, and Hebrew, highlight the systematic and intentional nature of this neglect. The refusal to provide hygiene products is not an oversight; it is an active decision to strip her of agency over her own body. By withholding something as basic as sanitary products, the prison authorities exploit menstruation, turning a natural bodily function into a source of distress, shame, and physical discomfort. This form of neglect is not incidental but strategic, operating not only through material deprivation but also by exploiting cultural taboos, whether real or assumed, around menstruation, to deepen control and humiliation.

The conditions of the isolation cell further reinforce this weaponisation. The space is described not just as unclean but as deliberately uninhabitable, filled with insects, covered in filth, and pervaded by the stench of decay. The presence of a blanket that has been used by thousands without being washed serves as a grim symbol of institutional neglect and the stripping away of basic human dignity. It is within this space that the prisoner is forced to find a means to manage her period. In an act of desperation, she tears the blanket apart with her teeth, a moment that encapsulates the extreme deprivation imposed upon her. The blanket, an object typically associated with warmth and protection, becomes instead a site of contamination and degradation, showing how even the materials of care are rendered harmful within the prison system.

The emotional response of both the menstruating prisoner and the narrator further underscores the psychological violence embedded in this form of oppression. The prisoner’s pleas and tears during interrogation reveal the deep humiliation and distress caused by this denial of care. Meanwhile, the grief of the fellow prisoner recounting this story, her tears at witnessing such suffering, demonstrates the communal impact of this form of weaponisation. This is not just an individual experience but a shared trauma, where the denial of care functions as a means of breaking both the body and spirit of prisoners.

The absence of sanitary products is not just a denial of comfort, it is a deliberate manipulation of bodily vulnerability, turning a natural process into a source of suffering. In this way, menstruation is transformed into a site of oppression, demonstrating how institutions can wield the withdrawal of care as a method of punishment and control. The testimony reveals that care is not neutral; its provision or denial is always political, always a reflection of power.

As menstruation can last between three to eight days, the stress of potential humiliation Palestinian menstruating women ties in with the argument that regarding the most basic needs of the body, “slow violence takes the form of neglected care needs” as “no human being can survive without care provided by other bodies” (Wibben et al. 2018, 14)1. The refusal of one body, the one in control, to give care to the subjected body in its control is central to the tactic of the weaponisation of care. Not only is care refused when the prisoner’s body needs medical attention or when it comes to keeping the body clean, but it actively aims to make the body suffer more or keep the body filthy through forced abject embodiment. As menstruation can last several days, the slowness of the violence, in combination with the loss agency, attempts to create a feeling of humiliation and shame within the menstruating prisoner. Arguably, the same slow violence can be found in the forced abject embodiment as the build-up of urine and faeces that the body wants to rid itself of has a build-up period that can last for hours but feels like an eternity. These forms of torture aim to break a person’s will, aiming at making them feel powerless and unable to resist the demands of the torturer. This loss of autonomy is central to the process, as it aims to make the victim completely compliant and subservient, eroding their sense of control over their own life.

However, the efforts to remove the agency of self-care of Palestinian women in Israeli prisons lead them into what Shwaikh calls bodily resistance. In the case of Palestinians in Israeli jails, Shwaikh points out how women may refuse to let the prison guards see them bleed and seek alternatives to the lack of sanitary products in order to avoid the shaming and exploitation of psychological tactics used by interrogators to force a confession out of the prisoner (Shwaikh 2022)10. A more detailed understanding of Palestinian resistance to practices of torture will be discussed in the next chapter.

7.3.2 Forced abject embodiment

As most animals, our bodies need to get rid of urine and faeces several times per day, and the inability to do so affects our bodily state of being. Thus, whether shackled or confined to a cell, the body still needs to expel faeces and urine. The torturer knows this well, as the body of the torturer also shares the same needs. What happens then when we urgently need to relieve our bodies but do not have the ability to do so without relieving ourselves creates another urgency. When the prisoner finds itself confined to a room, sat on a chair and put under pressure by interrogators/torturers, the body that needs to relieve itself can become weaponised against itself.

Osama Barham (Barham 2011)8, whose voice we heard earlier in this section, recounts the start of the interrogation process he was subjected to in the early 1980s. He was taken to the Tulkarm interrogation centre, where he arrived in the middle of the night where an interrogator brought in a cup of coffee and ordered Osama to drink it.

I told him that I didn’t drink coffee. He asked whether he should bring me tea or something else. I told him that I didn’t want to drink anything. He left and came back with two crackers and asked me to eat one, but I refused. “You don’t eat from Jews?” he asked. I told him that wasn’t the reason, but didn’t say why I had refused, which was because I feared that they’d prevent me from using the toilet. It was well-known that interrogators would barter with detainees for a confession over permission to use the toilet. (Barham 2011, 94)8

The practice of creating forced abject embodiment also creates bodily and mental pressure. Chemicals like caffeine can stimulate a defecation reflex known as the gastrocolic reflex, which means it creates a bowel movement. During Osama’s interrogation, the aim of this type of forced abject embodiment is for his subjected body to feel the build-up pressure of having to relieve itself. The slow process of the build-up of these bodily pressures would, as Osama points out, make his body feel more and more uncomfortable with the position it is in – in this case, tied to a chair – and his discomfort will, at some point, become visible to the interrogators. The body still needs to relieve itself but is denied this unless the interrogator gets something in return. Urination and the excretion of faeces in society still mainly belong to the sphere of taboo. The public emptying of the body would give the interrogators another way to humiliate and shame the prisoner, increasing vulnerability.

The dehumanisation of individuals within the setting of violence, as Kelman argues (Kelman 1976)11, is an indirect form of violence that prevents the formation of a moral relationship with the body of the other, an erasure that conveniently ignores the fact that those who enact this dehumanisation, in this case the Israelis, also piss, shit, and menstruate. Their bodies, no less than those they seek to diminish, remain bound by the same biological needs and vulnerabilities, underscoring the fundamental hypocrisy of such dehumanisation. “[E]xposing the bestial nature of bodies” has to do with “the socially constructed limits of decent human behavior” (cf. Vaittinen 2015; Isaksen 2002, 797--800, 803--4)3 12, revealing how certain bodily functions are framed as uncivilised or animalistic when associated with the other while remaining unremarkable when they belong to those in power.

The denial of care and attempts at forced abject embodiment described above reflect what Nick Haslam calls animalistic dehumanisation, which involves denying the body of the other human attributes, “typically to essentialised outgroups in the context of a communal representation of the ingroup. It is often accompanied by emotions of contempt and disgust that reflect an implicit vertical comparison and by a tendency to explain others’ behaviour in terms of desires and wants rather than cognitive states.” (Haslam 2006, 262; see also Loughnan et al. 2009)13 14. It is this dehumanisation of the subjected individual that justifies the denial of care (Eisenman 2007)15, as both objectification and self-objectification can raise the problematic emotions of shame and disgust in denying our own or others’ biological bodies (Roberts 2008)16.

7.3.3 Birthing in prison

When we consider the human body, one of its most vulnerable moments is during childbirth, both for the birthing mother and the newborn. Chapter Six already discusses how pregnant Palestinian women and unborn children can be targeted at Israeli checkpoints and denied access to routes to the hospital to give both, even in case of an emergency. When researching new life behind Israeli bars, I came across an interview conducted by Sahar Francis, director of the Prisoner Support and Human Right Association Addameer, who spoke with Mirvat Taha, who gave birth while in Israeli detention at the Neve Tirtza Women’s Prison:

As a pregnant woman, I did not receive appropriate treatment. When I was in al-Jalma Prison, a nurse used to come every two or three days to test my blood pressure and pulse, but in al-Ramla Prison, there were no nurses to check on my health condition. When it was time for me to deliver, I was extremely scared, particularly because of the inhumane treatment, which delayed my delivery. I was taken to the hospital with my hands and feet chained, surrounded by four female soldiers, under the pretext of maintaining security. Despite the exhaustion and severe fatigue I felt, they removed the chains only fifteen minutes before my child was born and then they returned the chains and sent me back to jail. I had chest pains and could not breastfeed my son. The administration provided me with formula only twice a day. I was always afraid of losing him. They once confiscated his toys and gifts to punish me. (Mirvat Taha quoted in Francis 2017, 53--54)17

Mirvat’s story highlights how institutional power severely restricts agency, primarily through physical restraint, surveillance, and enforced isolation during childbirth. The presence of a police officer instead of family reinforces the mother’s status as a subject of state control, stripping her of autonomy over an intensely personal experience. Humiliation operates as a tool of domination, further eroding agency by enforcing compliance and powerlessness. The deprivation and degradation of what should have been a moment of joy, the birth of a child, turns the birthing process, as described by Mirvat, into a life-threatening ordeal for both mother and newborn. The stress and fear she endured delayed the birth, while the inadequate provision of infant formula after she was unable to breastfeed justifiably heightened her fear for her child’s survival.

The lack of postnatal care and the prison administration’s rationing of infant formula further diminish maternal agency, effectively denying the mother her role as caregiver and placing her in a state of dependency that exacerbates her fear and suffering. The child’s well-being is thus made contingent not on the mother, but on the very system that confines and disempowers her. The restriction of medical care for birthing mothers in Israeli prisons to the bare minimum. The process of labour itself, which can last for hours, is endured while shackled to a bed, deprived of family presence, and under the constant watch of a prison guard.

The treatment of pregnant Palestinian women in Israeli prisons, as described above, exemplifies the dehumanising nature of torture. Forcing a woman to give birth while shackled, isolated from family support, and monitored by prison guards strips her of dignity and humanity. This practice deliberately transforms a deeply personal and significant event into a degrading and humiliating experience, directly attacking the mother’s identity and fundamental sense of self. Childbirth is inherently tied to identity and the continuation of life. Here, I see several forms of identity being targeted. First, there is the maternal identity, stripped away as Israel denies her the autonomy and dignity associated with this role. Second, there is a clear assertion of the settler-colonial power, reinforcing Mirvat’s status as an oppressed subject within a larger political struggle of Palestinians, which I see as a direct attack on the renewal, hope, and continuity of a new Palestinian generation.

The psychological impact of such treatment is profound. The fear and stress Mirvat endured during childbirth, compounded by the inhumane conditions and lack of medical care, illustrate how torture is designed to inflict lasting psychological trauma. It subjects her body and the newborn to heightened vulnerability within the existing necropolitical power hierarchy. This trauma not only affects the immediate birthing experience but has enduring consequences for mental health and well-being, further undermining the individual’s agency and capacity for autonomy.

By subjecting pregnant women to such conditions, the violence inflicted extends beyond physical and psychological dimensions to include symbolic violence. This process reinforces the Palestinian subjugation within the power hierarchy, demonstrating the extent of control and dominance exerted by the Israeli state.

References

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  2. Waskul, Dennis D., and Pamela van der Riet. 2002. "The Abject Embodiment of Cancer Patients: Dignity, Selfhood, and the Grotesque Body." Symbolic Interaction 25 (4): 487--513. https://doi.org/10.1525/si.2002.25.4.487. ↩

  3. Vaittinen, Tiina. 2015. "The Power of the Vulnerable Body." International Feminist Journal of Politics 17 (1): 100--118. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616742.2013.876301. ↩↩

  4. Vaittinen, Tiina. 2022. "An Ethics of Needs: Deconstructing Neoliberal Biopolitics and Care Ethics with Derrida and Spivak." Philosophies 7 (73). https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies7040073. ↩

  5. Roberts, Tomi-Ann. 2020. "Bleeding in Jail: Objectification, Self-Objectification, and Menstrual Injustice." In The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Menstruation Studies. Palgrave Macmillan. ↩

  6. Bongiorno, Renata, Paul G. Bain, and Nick Haslam. 2013. "When Sex Doesn't Sell: Using Sexualized Images of Women Reduces Support for Ethical Campaigns." PLoS ONE 8 (12): e83311. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0083311. ↩

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  8. Barham, Osama. 2011. "My Arrests, My Interrogations." In Threat: Palestinian Political Prisoners in Israel, edited by Abeer Baker and Anat Matar. Pluto Press. ↩↩↩↩↩

  9. Scarry, Elaine. 1985. The Body in Pain. Oxford University Press. Oxford University Press. ↩

  10. Shwaikh, Malaka. 2022. "Prison Periods: Bodily Resistance to Gendered Control." Journal of Feminist Scholarship 20 (20). https://doi.org/10.23860/jfs.2022.20.03. ↩↩

  11. Kelman, Herbert C. 1976. "Violence Without Restraint: Reflections on the Dehumanization of Victims and Victimizers." Varieties of Psychohistory, 282--314. ↩

  12. Isaksen, Lisa Widding. 2002. "Toward a Sociology of (Gendered) Disgust." Journal of Family Issues 23 (7): 791--811. https://doi.org/10.1177/019251302236595. ↩

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  14. Loughnan, Steve, Nick Haslam, and Yoshihisa Kashima. 2009. "Understanding the Relationship Between Attribute-Based and Metaphor-Based Dehumanization." Group Processes\ & Intergroup Relations 12 (6): 747--62. https://doi.org/10.1177/1368430209347726. ↩

  15. Eisenman, Stephen. 2007. The Abu Ghraib Effect. Reaktion Books. ↩

  16. Roberts, Dorothy. 2008. "SYMPOSIUM: Article II: The Uses and Abuses of Executive Power: ARTICLE: Torture and the Biopolitics of Race." University of Miami Law Review 62 (229). ↩

  17. Francis, Sahar. 2017. "Gendered Violence in Israeli Detention." Journal of Palestine Studies 46 (4): 46--61. https://doi.org/10.1525/jps.2017.46.4.46. ↩