The Ministry of Prisoners and Ex-Prisoners in Gaza said that most of the Gaza Strip’s prisoners held by the Israeli occupation are languishing in secret prisons and camps amid an unprecedented blackout.
The ministry added – in a statement – that the occupation authorities rejected repeated requests submitted by the International Red Cross to visit detainees from the Gaza Strip.
She described what prisoners are exposed to in the occupation prisons as “an extension of the occupation’s crime committed against the Palestinian people.”
The ministry called for an international investigation into the occupation’s crimes against prisoners and the opening of detention centers to international organizations, and at the same time held “the occupation and the American administration responsible for the ongoing crimes against the Palestinian people.”
Yesterday, Friday, the British newspaper The Guardian revealed that Palestinian prisoners in an Israeli prison in the Negev Desert are subjected to systematic torture, causing many of them to suffer serious health complications.
The newspaper said that the hands of detainees in Sde Timan prison remain shackled all the time, and that at least one of the detainees had his hand amputated due to being constantly shackled.
The Guardian quoted two of those who work in the prison as saying that the prisoners are tied up even inside the hospitals where they are transferred blindfolded, and they are in difficult health conditions and their rights are violated.
The newspaper added that the detention center, which is located about 29 kilometers from Gaza, consists of two parts, the first of which is a fenced area inside which about 200 Palestinians are held in what look like cages, and the other area is a field hospital made of tents inside which dozens of wounded prisoners deprived of painkillers are held. .
Torture and violations
According to a prison guard’s account to the Guardian, all the detainees in the field hospital were handcuffed, blindfolded and semi-naked, and some of them underwent amputation of limbs, while some of them underwent major abdominal or chest surgeries.
According to the same sources, detainees are forced to stand for long hours or kneel, are subjected to severe beatings with batons, and are not even able to move their heads or speak inside the prison.
One of them added, “Sometimes you hear the sound of screaming and intense beating, so much so that it seems as if the beating was hitting a metal wall because of the intensity of the sound.”
A few days ago, the American CNN network – in an investigation it published – reported Israeli testimonies that Palestinian detainees live in extremely harsh conditions in this Israeli prison.
He added that doctors in the detention center sometimes amputate prisoners’ limbs due to injuries resulting from constant handcuffing, and medical procedures sometimes performed by unqualified doctors, as the air is filled with the smell of neglected wounds left to rot.
The Israeli war on Gaza, which began on October 7, left tens of thousands of Palestinians martyred and wounded, most of them children and women, and about 10,000 missing amid massive destruction and famine that claimed the lives of children and the elderly.
Israel continues the war despite its demand by the International Court of Justice for immediate measures to prevent genocide and improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza.