[Pnews] Palestinian Prisoners’ Day on April 17 - more than 800,000 Palestinians, kidnapped and imprisoned by Israel since 1967

[Prisoner News]

  Special Report: “800,000 Palestinians Imprisoned By Israel Since 1967”

author Wednesday April 16, 2014 12:10author by Translated By, Saed Bannoura
http://www.imemc.org/article/67566

As the Palestinian people mark Palestinian Prisoners’ Day on April 17, 
more than 800,000 Palestinians, including children, have been kidnapped 
and imprisoned by Israel since 1967, while at least 5,000 Palestinians 
are currently held by Israel, a report by the Palestinian Ministry of 
Detainees has revealed.

The Ministry said that Israel is ongoing with its daily invasions, 
assaults and arrests against the Palestinians in different parts of 
occupied Palestine, targeting both men and women, adults and minors of 
varying ages.

It said that since Israel, in 1967, occupied the West Bank, the Gaza 
Strip and East Jerusalem, until the end of 2013, the army had kidnapped 
more than 800,000 Palestinians, including 15,000 women and thousands of 
children, and that the arrests are still ongoing.

“There isn’t single family that did not experience arrest, some numerous 
times”, the report said. “Israel turned every corner in occupied 
Palestine into a prison, detention camp and interrogation facility.”

After the second Palestinian Intifada, the al-Aqsa Intifada, which began 
in late September of 2000, Israeli soldiers have kidnapped more than 
80,000 Palestinians, including around 10,000 children and more than 60 
elected legislators and ministers.

Israeli authorities also issued more than 24,000 arbitrary 
Administrative Detention orders, detaining thousands without charges or 
trial, and imprisoning more than a 1,000 Palestinian women since then.

*Arrests And Brutality Targeting Everybody*

The arrests did not target any certain demographic or age group; 
instead, they targeted all sectors of the Palestinian society, including 
children, seniors, women, men, officials, ministers, legislators, 
political leaders, union leaders, disabled Palestinians, students, 
intellectuals, poets and artists...

Arrests take place every day, and there has not been one in which the 
army has not kidnapped someone. Most of the individuals abducted had 
nothing to do with “security threats”, to use Israel's terminology, yet, 
imprisonment and torture became part of daily life for Palestinians.

According to the report, the real danger is that the vast majority of 
these arrests, and accompanying violations, are direct violations of 
International Humanitarian Law; “The detainees are extremely tortured 
and abused... face the most cruel methods of torture, physical and 
psychological. They are imprisoned under inhumane conditions, are 
humiliated, and even their families are humiliated and assaulted”.

Israel, its security devices and interrogators, continuously violate the 
rights of the detainees as it imprisons, intimidates and tortures 
children, women and even detainees with special needs.

*Detainees In Numbers *

5,000 Palestinians are still behind bars, imprisoned in different 
prisons and detention centers. Most of them are from the occupied West 
Bank. Around 576 of them have been sentenced to at least one life term.

There are 19 Palestinian women and 200 children who are still imprisoned 
by Israel, in addition to hundreds of children who grew up and became 
adults while in prison.

Israel is also still holding captive 185 Palestinians under arbitrary 
Administrative Detention orders without charge, eleven elected 
legislators and dozens of political officials.

The detainees are held in around 22 prisons, detention and interrogation 
camps, mainly in Ramon, Nafha, Asqalan, Be’er As-Sabe’, Hadarim, 
Galboa’, Shatta, Ramla, Damoun, HaSharon, Ofer, Majeddo, and the Negev 
Detention camp.

*Female Detainees*

Detained Palestinian women, including children, face humiliation, 
torture, degradation, and are also tortured and beaten, in addition to 
the threats and harsh treatment they receive while being transferred. 
They also face repeated threat of sexual abuse.

Their suffering continues in solitary confinement, while the army also 
denies them family visits, denies them access to education, and proper 
medical treatment. Many of the detained women have husbands who are also 
imprisoned.

*Ailing Detainees*

More than 1,400 Palestinians need medical attention but are, instead, 
denied the needed medical treatments, and are suffering from 
deteriorating medical conditions. Sixteen of them are continually living 
at Ramla Prison Clinic, which lacks basic supplies and specialized 
physicians.

Some of the detainees are paralyzed and/or amputees, with dozens 
struggling with major life-threatening conditions. They need special 
attention and surgeries, while only prison doctors are allowed to 
examine them.

80 of the ailing detainees suffer from chronic conditions, including 15 
who have different types of cancer, while dozens of others suffer 
various other physical and/or mental conditions.

Most of the detainees who fall ill, or develop psychological conditions, 
were completely healthy before they were kidnapped and imprisoned.

Prisons lack appropriate sanitation, are filled with bugs and insects. 
Cells and rooms have high humidity and are overcrowded.

Dozens of Palestinians were taken prisoner after they were shot by the 
army, and were tortured and interrogated, beaten on their wounds and cuts.

Many detainees, while in prison, developed skin conditions, ulcer, 
tumors, kidney failure, eyesight deterioration, slipped discs, diabetes, 
oral conditions, tooth loss and various sorts of psychological 
conditions, are still abused, with their bodies being used for testing 
by pharmaceutical companies.

*Administrative Detainees*

Administrative Detention is the “unknown enemy” which the detainees 
face, as it is a punishment without a charge, without an indictment. 
Administrative detainees are held without trial. Neither they or their 
lawyers are allowed to defend themselves, simply because they face what 
Israel calls a “secret file” that no one is allowed to see.

Each arbitrary Administrative Detention order is usually 1 to 6 months, 
issued by military commanders in the occupied Palestinian territories. 
Such orders target both men and women of different ages, young and old, 
including physicians, engineers, professors, teachers, journalists and 
elected legislators and officials.

Such orders are repeatedly renewed and, in many cases, just as the 
detainees are about to step out of prison, they are informed of a new 
order, often spending months and years under such orders without even 
knowing when, or if, they will ever be freed.

*Veteran Detainees*

Following the resumption of direct Palestinian-Israeli talks in late 
July of 2013, and after years of stalemate, Israel was still holding 
captive 104 veteran detainees, held since before the First Oslo 
Agreement of 1993.

Under American mediation, Israel and the Palestinian Authority in the 
West Bank reached an agreement for the release of all 104 veteran 
detainees, in four stages.

In return, the Palestinian Authority vowed not to file any new 
application to join the different UN and other international 
institutions which, as a result, would allow them to gain international 
recognition, during the nine months of direct talks.

Israel implemented the first three stages of release, and backed down on 
the fourth, which supposed to be implemented by March 28, 2014. 30 
veteran detainees were supposed to be freed, but Israel voided the deal.

The release was supposed to contribute to stability in the region, a 
part of the ongoing talks, free of violations and invasions, but Israel 
blatantly continued with its ongoing assaults, arrests, invasions and 
assassinations.

The United States, the mediator of these talks, along with the 
International Community, need to act, putting pressure on Israel to halt 
its violations, to respect its commitment and to release the detainees, 
if it is seriously willing to resume peace talks and reach a final 
status agreement.

*Tragic Conditions *

The living conditions which detainees face in Israeli occupation prisons 
are tough, extremely harsh, especially in the face of such a wide range 
of violations and abuses which include but are not limited to torture, 
medical neglect and solitary confinement – this all in addition to 
repeated denial of family visits, malnutrition and blackmail, most often 
by way of children.

This is happening in addition to repeated attacks against the detainees 
in their rooms, night raids and searches, high fines, all different 
sorts of violations. Simply put, Israel is violating all international 
conventions and is denying them the most basic of human and prisoner 
rights.

According to detailed and documented reports by the Ministry of 
Detainees and various human rights groups, 205 Palestinian detainees 
died after being arrested since the year 1967.

Seventy-three of them died due to extreme torture; the latest casualty 
was Arafat Jaradat from Sa’ir town, near Hebron, who died less than two 
weeks after being kidnapped and repeatedly tortured by Israeli 
interrogators.

Fifty-three Palestinian detainees died due to lack of medical attention; 
the latest casualty being one Hasan Toraby from the northern West Bank 
city of Nablus.

Seventy-two Palestinians were executed after the soldiers kidnapped 
them, and seven were shot and killed while in prison.

These violations, and the unacceptable conditions which detainees face 
in Israeli prisons, require every Palestinian in the country, and around 
the world, to act in highlighting the suffering of the detainees, and to 
engage in solidarity acts which expose the serious violations and crimes 
perpetrated on them by the Israeli government.

Activists around the world, including all international institutions, in 
defense of both human and prisoner rights, are also called upon to act, 
in order to oblige Israel to respect those human and civil rights, to 
respect International Law, the Fourth Geneva Convention and all related 
treaties.

-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
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