According to the prisoner’s support and human rights association (ADDAMER) a total of 4700 Palestinian prisoners are currently inside the Israeli occupation’s prisons with over 32 women and 170 child prisoners.
Palestinian prisoners live in terrible conditions where they are subjected to torture and persecution along with continuous and unjustified solitary confinement and denied their right to proper health care, family visitation
most of those detained are transferred to prisons inside the green line AKA ‘Israel’ making it almost impossible for their families to visit them which is an put an added psychological toll on prisoners’ mental wellbeing as well as functions as a breach of articles 49 and 76 of the fourth geneva convention which clearly dictates that all individuals shall be held captive in their occupied territories and shall not be transferred.
“Protected persons accused of offenses shall be detained in the occupied country, and if convicted they shall serve their sentences therein.”
The same article includes the right that prisoners “shall receive the medical attention required by their state of
health.”
and to that “Proper regard shall be paid to the special treatment due to minors.”
The article also stressed the rights of visitation, “Protected persons who are detained shall have the right to be
visited by delegates of the Protecting Power and of the International Committee of the Red Cross, in accordance with the provisions of Article 143.”
According to records provided by the united nations found that since 1996 lawyers have been denied access to their clients held in prisons and detention centers in Israel.
With over 640 administrative prisoners who are not being offered any explanation concerning the reasons for their arrests, they arent provided any clear idea about the term to which they are sentenced as their imprisonment period actively gets prolonged. they are denied the right to a fair trial or just a trial with sealed records with no ability for counselors to trie or appeal any sentence as they are given no access to the cases’ records–if there are any.
The practices against the Palestinian indigenous demographic are not haphazard but a part of a larger systematic racist Israeli crusade with the aims of driving Palestinians away an ethnic cleansing of sorts that if doesn’t force Palestinians out, makes their lives excruciating intolerable as they are subjected to discrimination and persecution in their homeland.
Physical and Psychological Torture
Isreal performs a number of illegal physicals, and sensory and psychological torture that is not accepted by international law. these grievances have been documented by AlHaq which reported a number of illegal practices against Palestinian captives
Physical forms of torture employed in dealing with Palestinians include:
(a)beating: beatings on the bottom of the feet, known in the OPTS as falaka (ruled a “classic” form of torture by the European Commission in the Greek Case)
severe beatings all over the body (noted in the Greek Case as one form of torture and ill-treatment)
beatings with truncheons or other implements (identified with torture by the Human Rights Committee in Estrella v. Uruguay, considered torture by the UN Special Rapporteur, and found to be torture by the Inter-American Commission in the Colombia cases)
fractures resulting from beatings (judged to constitute torture by the Human Rights Committee in Saldias v. Uruguay) and beatings that cause wounds, internal bleeding, and fractures, etc.
which are considered common forms of physical torture by the United Nations Special Rapporteur);
b) kicking the male genital organs (classified as a form of torture and ill-treatment in the Greek Case);
c) various forms of asphyxiation or suffocation for limited periods of time (identified with torture by the Human Rights Committee in Estrella v. Uruguay, considered torture by the Inter-American Commission and the UN Special Rapporteur);
d) electric shock and burning with cigarettes (discussed in the Greek Case as forms of torture and ill-treatment, and by the Inter-American Commission and the UN Special Rapporteur as constituting torture);
Sensory deprivation through a combination of methods consisting of shabeh — which comprises a number of forms of position abuse including wall-standing, hooding, or blindfolding. sleep deprivation, and food deprivation (considered torture by the European Commission, the Human Rights Committee, the Inter-American Commission, and the UN Special Rapporteur and argued to constitute ill-treatment by the European Court).
Lastly, the Israeli occupation employs various forms of psychological coercion such as
a) isolation in small enclosed spaces accompanied by food and water deprivation and denial of access to toilets, and other forms of prolonged incommunicado detention (recognized by the European Commission, the Human Rights Committee, and the Inter-American Commission as methods of psychological torture and by the UN Special Rapporteur as forms of physical and mental torture)
b) Threats to kill the detainee or to torture and harm relatives (identified with torture by all of the fora reviewed).
Health Negligence
The occupation state doesn’t shy away from subjecting detainees to health negligence but rather premeditatively reinforces it. with over 60% of prisoners being diagnosed with chronic diseases according to The Palestine Detainees Studies Center. it with a number in need of urgent medical intervention.
Stories of medical neglect vary from unattended appendicitis to cancer treatments.
whenever we think of medical neglect in this time and age one can but refer to Israa Aljabees who is struggling as she sustained severe burns which the occupation prison services didn’t grant any attention to her deteriorating medical state as she lost most of her fingers along with the ability to breath properly through her noes only to be denied
The Israeli occupation Prison Service refused to fund a necessary operation on her nose, which was recommended by her physicians.
Palestinians Dead Inside Israeli Prisons
As of Apr 17, 2022, The number of martyrs among Palestinian prisoners has reached 227 martyrs, including the death of Sami Al-Amour due to the deliberate medical negligence—a cruel and slow killing—in addition to the hundreds of freed prisoners who died as a result of diseases they contracted within the prison, according to a recount by Addameer.
Palestinians Fight Back
With Palestinians being the underdog in this scenario where they hardly stand a chance in front of a major occupying power supported by the world’s largest nations– namely the united states of America with military aid to Israel reaching at least 3.8 billion US dollars– and enforcing whatever it pleases giving zero regards to international law and to conventions they partake in, the Palestinians an only possible form of resistance to their unlawful incarceration is carrying on the battle of empty bellies through hunger strike.
The administrative prisoners have been in a state of boycott to Bench Trials that are held only to wash the illegal aspect of the whole detention process for administrative detention which Amnesty International, has described as a “cruel, unjust practice which helps maintain Israel’s system of apartheid against Palestinians.”
Currently, Khalil Awawdah and Ra’ad Rayyan are in a state of hunger strike as they protest the unjust nature of their captivity with the former entering his 103rd day and the latter entering his 68th with Abdullah Albargotiy joining in entering just his fifth day today as he protests his solitary confinement and halting his right of visitation.
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