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7,000 Palestinians Detained in Israeli Prisons
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Nearly 7,000 Palestinians are detained by Israeli forces
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Report
By Awad Al Rajoub, IOL Palestine Correspondent
AL
KHALIL (HEBRON), May 19 (IslamOnline) – Nearly 7,000 Palestinian
detainees are being held in 19 Israeli prisons, out of which 4,000
were detained during the last nine weeks. These detainees are facing
various kinds of agonies which start from the moment they are abducted
till the moment they are released.
Ever
since the latest Israeli invasion of Palestinian territories, the
Israeli occupation forces have barred lawyers and human rights
organizations from visiting the detainees which made it very difficult
to determine the circumstances and places of detention.
The
Israeli military law number 1500 which had been frozen for nine years
was reactivated. Instead of 8 days, the law stipulates that residents
could be detained for 18 days without being tried or without them
getting in contact with their lawyers. This law was activated on March
29. Previously, it only functioned during the pre-Oslo agreement era.
The
occupation forces also reactivated the policy of administrative
detention which is banned internationally. Over 900 administrative
detention decisions were carried out, which included several members
of the Palestinian security forces and which ranged from 3 to 6 month
renewable detention periods.
Hisham
Abdul Razzaq, the minister of prisoner of war affairs in the
Palestinian authority said that the function of the ministry is linked
with the development of the situation in the Palestinian territories
and added that it has been limited after the co-ordination with the
Israeli side was halted and due to the hurdles that the occupation
places in front of the ministry’s work.
Speaking
to IslamOnline, Abdul Razzaq said that since the latest Israeli
incursions more than 4,000 Palestinians were detained and nearly 3,000
are in Israeli prisons before that.
From
his side the Palestinian PoW club said that they are assisting the
families of the detainees financially, in coordination with charity
organizations.
Eissa
Qaraqe, the director of the club said that the detainees are
distributed over 19 Israeli detention center. “We have organized a
sit in front of the Red Cross headquarters in Bethlehem calling for
the release of Marwan Al Barghouti, the secretary general of the Fatah
resistance movement in the West Bank and for the rest of the
detainees.”
He
added that nearly 400 detainees were given live sentences in the
Israeli prisons and the oldest one was Ali Abulsukar who have spent
nearly 26 years in Israeli prisons, also serving a life sentence.
He
added that there are 10 detainees who have spent more than 20 years
and that 250 prisoners have been suffering various illnesses and 120
were injured.
With
regards to the female detainees, he said that 19 of them were in the
Al Ramla prison and another 7 were being questioned in other prisons.
Sahar
Francis, a lawyer from the Conscious Association in Jerusalem said
that the detainees in the Ofar prison near Ramallah have been
subjected to various forms of humiliation. “Many of them were left
during the latest incursions into the open air in the cold and others
were tortured in the questioning centers,” she said.
The
families of the detainees have also expressed their anxiety on the
well-being of their detained relatives because they have been barred
from seeing them for over two years.
The
called on the international community and human rights organizations
to do their best to release them or at least intervene with the
Israeli forces to allow their relatives to visit them.
Suad,
the wife of Mohammad Ibrahim Abu Ali, from the village of Yatta, south
of Al Khalil (Hebron), one of the oldest detainees, detained since
August 8 1980, and sentenced for life.
“Nothing
can compensate me for my husband who was detained in his youth and is
now over 50 years old,” she said.
When
asked about her husband’s health Suad said: “Due to being
subjected to extreme forms of torture my husband is now very weak.
There are four surgeries done to his eyes.”
Her
daughter Philistine, 25, said that she thinks a lot about him and
wonders about how life would be different with her father around. “I
feel that thinking about him will compensate me for the father that we
only know through a distance. I never stop thinking about the
fatherhood which other people experience.”
Meanwhile,
the Palestine PoW club called on human rights organizations and the
Palestinian authority to intervene to release 10 of the injured
detainees who were not included in the Church of the Nativity deal.
The
club said that they are part of the 85 who were released from the
church but because they were injured by Israeli gunfire and because
they had to leave for treatment, they were detained by Israeli
soldiers.
The
club also expressed their concern for the well-being of Sheikh Khalid
Tafesh, one of the political leaders for Hamas Resistance movement and
the imam of the Omar Bin Al Khattab mosque in Bethlehem.
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