Palestinian prisoners in death camps

Yesterday’s Haaretz announcement that at least 68 Palestinian prisoners have died in Israeli prisons as a result of torture or medical neglect since October 7, 2023 was not the only shocking one. The Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs and the Prisoners’ Club revealed shocking and horrific details of the systematic torture that prisoners are subjected to in interrogation and detention centers and army camps, including abuse, starvation, medical crimes, severe beatings and repression, based on the accounts of a number of detainees who were released, in addition to detention in harsh and painful conditions, with scabies continuing to spread among prisoners due to the lack of any medical care.

The tragic conditions that the prisoners are living in, which can be described as a journey of torment, require everyone to ring the alarm bell and pay attention to the issue of the prisoners in order to gain their freedom and save them from the worst nightmare that a person may know in his life. Hence, the deal being negotiated in Doha is required as soon as possible to save what can be saved and before it is too late. The basis must be to pay attention to the issue of the Palestinian prisoners and not the opposite, because the prisons are crowded with thousands of them.

Israel has exploited a number of army camps, most notably the Sde Teiman camp, which was the primary address for the oppression and torture that reached the point of martyrdom, in addition to the Negev and Ofer prisons and the Teiman camp, in order to use them to practice atrocities and sexual assaults on a large scale.

The camps and prisons, under the directives of the extremist minister Itamar Ben Gvir, are witnessing tightening of all aspects of the prisoners’ lives, especially the minister’s recent visit to the (Raqvet) prison and its opening underground, specifically under the cells of Ramla prison, which expresses the true description of the death camp in which the prisoners eat their food once throughout the hours of the night and day, and they only sleep on hard chairs, and their hands and feet are constantly tied.

A number of prisoners have given loud testimonies, which are at the same time very painful and harsh, about the most difficult types of torture they are subjected to, most notably shackling, beating, insults, humiliation, throwing hot water and sewage at prisoners, leaving them to sleep hungry and in extreme cold, deepening their health crises, and not allowing them to receive treatment and medication, as scabies has spread among prisoners, in addition to a number of investigators and the army urinating on Palestinian detainees, practicing all forms of crimes, abuse and deprivation, and keeping sick prisoners shivering from the cold.

The issue of prisoners is a strategic issue and all human rights and humanitarian organizations and bodies must intervene urgently to pressure Israel to solve their problem and release them, and free them from the camps where they live in death, stressing once again that the exchange deal must come to light to restore the smile to hundreds, even thousands of prisoners, whose rights Israel violates and deprives them of, in revenge for the Al-Aqsa flood.