6/12/2023–|Last updated: 12/6/202301:14 PM (Mecca time)
The French newspaper Le Parisien said that detention conditions in Israeli prisons have deteriorated significantly since the October 7 attack, after the prison authorities announced that under their state of emergency, Palestinian prisoners will not be allowed to leave the cells or visit and will be subject to more frequent surprise searches.
Ruba Assi (23 years old), who spent two years in prison, and Israel released her among 240 Palestinian prisoners as part of a prisoner exchange in the recent truce, said that the Israeli prison authorities, since the Al-Aqsa flood operation, “took everything from the Palestinian detainees,” noting that the conditions Prison has changed radically.
Amnesty International says that it has “testimonies and video evidence – which Agence France-Presse was able to watch – of the torture and ill-treatment of Palestinian detainees who were subjected to violent beatings, humiliation and forced to keep their heads down, kneel on the ground when roll calls were called and sing to the Israelis in horrific detention conditions.”
Palestinian activist Ramzi Abbasi (36 years old), who enjoys a wide following on social media, said after his release from Ketziot prison in the Negev desert, which is known for being the most cruel, “They beat us morning and evening, and prisoners even suffered fractures in their legs or arms after October 7.” October, and they did not receive any treatment,” adding that this prison is “a cemetery for the living, where inmates live neglected, without food and clean clothes.”
revenge
The prison authorities, contacted by Agence France-Presse several times, did not want to comment on these accusations, especially since Amnesty International also points to photos that were widely distributed on the Internet showing “Israeli soldiers beating and insulting detained Palestinians while they were blindfolded and stripped of their clothes.” “And their wrists are tied.”
According to the testimony of a Palestinian from occupied Jerusalem collected by the organization, the detainees were forced to “praise Israel and insult the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), but even when one of the prisoners did so, they continued to beat him.” The prisoners condemned the “retaliation” of the Israeli authorities against them in a letter addressed to International Committee of the Red Cross, sent by one of the recently released men.
The issue of prisoners, which raises concern in the occupied territories, has returned to the forefront with Hamas holding Israeli prisoners, and it constantly repeats that they will be used as a bargaining chip in order to “empty” Israeli prisons of Palestinian detainees.
But the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club notes that Israel, which released 240 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for 80 Israeli detainees, has at the same time imprisoned hundreds of Palestinians.