The Israeli occupation continues to violate the rights of Palestinian prisoners in an escalating manner since the beginning of the war on Gaza. Human rights reports reveal harsh detention conditions and systematic torture practices, while preventing visits and withholding information from prisoners.

The head of the Palestinian Prisoners Club, Abdullah Al-Zaghari, said that the extensive and continuous arrest campaigns carried out by the occupation during the ugly war on the Gaza Strip resulted in the arrest of more than 10,000 Palestinians from the territories occupied in 1948.

Al-Zaghari added - during an interview for the humanitarian segment on Al Jazeera - that there are thousands of prisoners who were arrested from the Gaza Strip, and no one was able to register and document their names because the occupation continues to practice the policy of enforced disappearance and not disclose any information related to prisoners from the Strip.

According to a statement issued by the government media office in Gaza, the number of detainees in the occupation prisons since the beginning of the war has reached 5,000 detainees, while the Wall Street Journal indicated that 60 prisoners have died in the occupation prisons since October 7, and the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel explained that torture is practiced in 3 main centers.

Al-Zaghari pointed out that the occupation classified 1,415 prisoners as "irregular combatants" and reactivated the "irregular combatant" law to try them, explaining that this law violates all international laws.

He explained that these prisoners cannot be communicated with at all, and there is no information about them with international institutions or the International Red Cross, which has not been able to visit any Palestinian detainee or prisoner in the various occupation prisons to this day.

Demand for urgent investigation

Al-Zaghari pointed out that the vast majority of prisoners are civilians and innocent, unarmed citizens who were arrested during displacement from the north to the south or during house raids.

According to Al-Zaghari, the occupation used to detain the prisoners in a military base called Sde Teiman camp, which was transformed into a prison where thousands of people from the Gaza Strip were detained in “small mobile homes,” each containing 140 prisoners who were subjected to daily brutal torture that defies human imagination. They were left blindfolded, handcuffed and with their feet and hands tied, without food for days and weeks, and dogs gnawed at their bodies, and some of them were subjected to sexual abuse.

Regarding visiting prisoners, Al-Zaghari said that the occupation completely prevents this, but some time ago it began changing some laws that allowed lawyers to visit them.

He added that the occupation places great obstacles in front of these lawyers, because those who were able to visit Sde Teiman prison did not exceed 3 or 4 lawyers who met with a small number of prisoners.

The head of the Palestinian Prisoners Club revealed that these prisoners explained to the lawyers that they were subjected to gang and individual rape, that they were being beaten, and that some were killed and executed inside the prison.

Al-Zaghari called on the International Committee for the Palestinian Territories and Jerusalem to investigate what happened, by examining the surveillance cameras inside the prison sections to see for themselves these atrocities.

Source: Al Jazeera