Occupied Jerusalem- Palestinian prisoners in Israeli occupation prisons – since the launch of the war on Gaza – have been living in difficult living and humanitarian conditions, as Israel has employed the “Al-Aqsa Flood” and emergency regulations, to isolate the prisoner movement, rob it of its achievements, abuse the prisoners, and isolate them from the outside world, by preventing family visits, and prohibiting even meeting with lawyers. .
Under the umbrella of the state of emergency, crimes against humanity are being committed against prisoners in Israeli occupation prisons, and the Israeli Prison Service continues to intensify and adopt retaliatory and repressive policies against prisoners.
This comes in parallel with the occupation authorities’ escalation of arrests in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem, affecting about 5,000 Palestinians, at a time when hundreds of Palestinians who were kidnapped from the Gaza Strip during the ground incursion are being detained.
In this interview with lawyer and human rights activist Khaled Mahajna, who is active in defending the prisoner movement From the Palestinian interiorWe highlight the painful reality of the prisoners and the challenges they face in the occupation prisons, since the seventh of last October.
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What is the reality of the prisoner movement in Israeli prisons after October 7?
Israel is waging a war on the prisoner movement, isolating the prisoners from the outside world, and continues to torture them, assaulting them with severe beatings and abuse, depriving them of even family visits, clothing and basic necessities, as well as preventing them from meeting with lawyers, and keeping them almost 24 hours a day in overcrowded cells and department rooms. Preventing them from resting and going out to the square.
All the achievements they had achieved through years of struggle and strikes were withdrawn from the prisoners. All electrical appliances were confiscated, including television and radio, as well as books and the Holy Quran, in addition to confiscating all the prisoners’ clothes and keeping them in the same clothes since the beginning of the war, with only one spare change for each prisoner.
I met a number of prisoners in court sessions. They were complaining about the poor living conditions in prisons, as they were deprived of the most basic rights and necessities to sustain life. Since the beginning of the war, prisoners, for example, have been prohibited from shaving their heads and beards.
The prisoners – all of whom I met – spoke of the state of hatred with which the prison service deals with them, whether they are shackled with iron shells, insults, insults to God, threats of death and execution, daily inspection of rooms, deprivation of treatment, and deliberate neglect of the condition of sick prisoners who are living a slow death.
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What are the conditions of prisoners in prisons during the shadow of war?
Prisoners suffer from difficult living conditions, and face difficult oppressive and provocative practices, including torture, constant beatings, and starvation. The meal allocated for one prisoner, for example, is served to 7 or 10 prisoners, not to mention that the quality of the food is poor and the meals are poor.
Prisoners are prohibited from purchasing from the prison shop, the “canteen,” where the most basic needs, including clothes, are not available. In addition to this, there is overcrowding in the rooms and various sections of the prison, and many prisoners lie on the floor when sleeping.
The prison administration relies on provoking prisoners by playing the Israeli national anthem, “Hatikva,” over loudspeakers, with the aim of undermining the morale of the prisoners and breaking their will, while the Israeli flag is raised inside the sections and at the entrances to the cells.
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What are the reasons for the abusive measures adopted by the Israeli Prisons Administration against prisoners?
We are talking about a retaliatory policy launched by Israeli Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir since he took office, as the war on Gaza was exploited to intensify these abusive measures and continue with repressive policies under the pretext of a state of emergency.
The war on Gaza came to give Ben Gvir a cover to continue the war he started against the captive movement with the aim of isolating it from the Palestinian people. These measures come despite previous warnings from some leaders of the security services who opposed giving Ben Gvir the opportunity to be alone with the prisoners, for fear of the outbreak of an uprising inside the prisons.
However, with the world preoccupied with the war on Gaza, Ben Gvir has the opportunity and space to implement and practice his brutal and repressive policy that aims to single out the prisoners, isolate them, and take revenge and abuse them. They are in the direct target of this war, since the prisoners constitute the compass of the Palestinian struggle, which is the case. What Israel fears.
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How were 6 prisoners martyred in prisons during the war?
After October 7, and under the pretext of a state of emergency, everything changed, as Israel considers itself in an existential war with the Palestinian people, and the Israeli security services are aware of the status and importance of the captive movement in the Palestinian struggle and uprisings.
Therefore, abusing, oppressing, and humiliating prisoners is part of the war waged by Israel against all Palestinians.
With everyone busy in the war on Gaza, the prison administration continues to isolate prisoners and escalate against them in the confines of prisons, by expanding the implementation of Ben Gvir’s policy, approach, and plan aimed at executing prisoners.
Ben Gvir gave the Israeli prison administration the green light to implement the slow execution plan, and this plan is implemented and implemented around the clock without accountability, without oversight, and without any deterrent.
The policy of liquidating prisoners has become within the reach of any prison guard, so we see the assassination of 6 prisoners during the period of the war on Gaza, and it is expected that this policy will continue and other assassinations of prisoners will be carried out in the future.
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What are the implications of the Israeli judiciary’s attempt to evade the recent exchange deal?
Since the implementation of the exchange deals began during the last days of the truce, we have warned of the consequences of Israel trying to circumvent the exchange agreement and the deal, whether through the prosecution or the court system, as those who were released, especially from Jerusalem and inside Palestine, are retried, despite their liberation under international auspices.
There are many legal flaws and loopholes in the mechanism for implementing the recent exchange operations, as Israel released the female captives and cubs without handing them any legal document related to invalidating the previous ruling or dropping or canceling the indictments against them to ensure that they will not be prosecuted in the future and retried again.
Such loopholes allow Israel to re-arrest and circumvent the exchange deal in the future. For example, prisoner Fadwa Hamada was sentenced in 2017 to 10 years in prison, and during her period of captivity, new indictments were filed against her on charges related to assaulting female guards, according to the claim, and she was released according to the recent exchange deal. .
But we were surprised, days after her liberation, that she was invited to appear before the Israeli court again to continue her trial on the same charges. According to international norms, the moment a prisoner is released, all files still pending in the courts are closed.
Therefore, in order to overcome these loopholes and to prevent Israel from having any opportunity to re-arrest any liberated prisoner, the parties that sponsored the exchange agreement must pay attention to all these details and demand that Israel adhere to its obligations.
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Why do the Israeli authorities prevent visits to prisoners and keep them isolated from the outside world?
As part of the repressive measures, Israel imposed a new reality, according to which it isolated all prisoners from the outside world, by preventing visits from families, lawyers, and human rights organizations that examine the conditions of their detention and what is being done to them inside the cells and isolation sections, in order to obscure the miserable conditions that the prisoners live in, which are akin to death. Slow.
The Israeli authorities do this for fear of exposing, revealing and conveying the horrific details and violations against prisoners to public opinion.
The occupation prison administration isolates prisoners without legal or legal oversight or follow-up. These procedures contradict international conventions and norms in everything related to dealing with prisoners of war, their rights, and the circumstances of their families, but they go beyond laws and decisions through the state of emergency declared under the shadow of war.
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Does Israel fear any contact with prisoners during the war?
By isolating prisoners from the outside world, and depriving them even of communication with each other inside prisons and detention centers, the Israeli authorities aim to terrorize them, seek to dismantle the unity of the prisoner movement, and prevent them from receiving any information about what Israel is doing against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Israel fears that the prison front will flare up and enter into a direct confrontation and battle with the prisoners against the backdrop of the war, and the outbreak of an uprising inside the prisons, which Israel views as dangerous.
The confrontation with the prisoner movement is not an easy matter for Israel, which sees the prisoners as a force to be reckoned with, and they have an influence on the course of what happens in the Palestinian arena, especially when the conflict with Israel intensifies.
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How do you explain the widespread wave of arrests in the West Bank since the “Al-Aqsa Flood”?
The occupation forces launch daily arrest campaigns in the West Bank and Jerusalem, extending administrative detention to hundreds, as about 5,000 Palestinians were arrested during the war.
Israel aims to terrorize and intimidate the Palestinians and deter them from any attempt at uprising or comprehensive confrontation during the war.
All of these arrests have no legal basis or even military justification, and are carried out without any legal or judicial framework and without any legal justifications, in light of the declared state of emergency. They can be placed in one context, which is the opportunity to impose control and monopolize the Palestinians in the West Bank, and to practice crimes of hatred, hate, and revenge. .
Every day, hundreds of Palestinians in the West Bank are brought to trial in Israeli military courts, and in most, if not all, cases of arrest are only for deterrence and intimidation under the pretext of war.
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What about the prisoners from Gaza and those kidnapped from the Strip during the war?
There is complete concealment about the repressive measures being practiced against them, as they have been isolated from all other prisoners in special sections, and no one knows or knows the details of their life, nor information about what they are exposed to, the conditions of their detention and interrogation, and the mechanisms for investigating them.
However, according to some leaks regarding, for example, food, each group of Gaza detainees – estimated at dozens – is provided with one carton of milk that they all share and one loaf of bread over the course of two days.
This in itself is considered a blatant violation against the prisoners of the Gaza Strip, practices that reflect slow execution through detention in miserable conditions and collection centers that lack the necessities of life, in addition to the practice of all forms of torture against them.
Some of the women were detained in Damoun prison, the other men and women were detained in military facilities belonging to the Israeli army in the Negev, and some in the “Anatot” camp near Ramallah.
Lawyers or Palestinian and international human rights organizations were not allowed to visit the Palestinians kidnapped from Gaza, in order to check on them and determine the conditions of their detention and the nature of their treatment by investigators or the Prison Service.
There is a complete, comprehensive and frightening blackout – at the same time – on everything that is happening or going on with regard to the women, youth and elderly prisoners of Gaza.
However – through the testimonies of some of those recently released from the Gaza Strip – there are horrific details that the army and various Israeli authorities practice against them, including torture, oppression, abuse, humiliation, and retaliatory practices because they are from Gaza.
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How does Israel deal with detainees who it claims were involved in the “Al-Aqsa Flood”?
Israel is detaining hundreds of people from the Gaza Strip without trial or legal follow-up and holding them hostage, alleging their involvement in the events of October 7.
The Israeli judiciary, the police, the intelligence service and other investigation agencies affiliated with the army are facing major legal problems and dilemmas in how to deal with them legally, the nature of the charges that are expected to be brought against these detainees, the problem of legal representation and pleading for the detainees, and the trial mechanism and penalties that may be imposed on them.
I believe, and from past experiences, (there is) a large portion of the detainees who will not recognize the legitimacy and legality of the Israeli courts to try them, and they demand that they be considered prisoners of war, and that they be dealt with accordingly.