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Torture and Famine in Notorious Negev Prison
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Palestinian
abductees live in miserable conditions in flagrant abuse of law
and basic human rights.
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With
additional reporting by Maha Abdel-Hadi, IOL Palestine correspondent
PALESTINE,
May 28 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – Arab-Israeli Knesset member Ahmed El-Tibi was
appalled by the conditions inside the notorious internment camp of
Ketziot-Ansar III in the Negev desert, which he visited Monday, May
27, among a delegation of Arab-Israeli Knesset members, notably Talb
El-Sanea.
“Two
buildings of cells, each designed for killing a human being both
physically and morally,” said Tibi describing the Ketziot-Ansar
III prison. “They at once bespeak the wicked mentalities of the
designers of an internment camp that is a model of the kind of
treatment the Palestinians get inside Israeli prisons.”
“The
prison is without air, ventilation, natural light, sight range or
electricity,” Tibi told IslamOnline. “Conditions there are
appalling.”
Tibi
went on to describe the miserable conditions the Palestinian prisoners
live in and the inhuman food rations they get, the fact which calls
for investigation of the dangerous situation inside the Ketziot-Ansar
III.
The
notoriety of Ketziot-Ansar
III derives from the atrocious detention measures in an internment
camp that defies all international laws and norms.
The
conditions in which the prisoners are being held are, in many
instances, flagrant abuses of both the law and of basic human rights.
Men are kept 20 to a tent and are forced to sleep on planks of wood on
the ground; they have no mattresses. Each man has 2 blankets only. In
the Negev, the temperature plummets to zero or just above at night.
Many men are suffering because of the cold, especially as some have
little or no clothing.
Food
is strictly rationed: 1 tomato is shared by 4 men, a pot of yogurt by
8. Schnitzels, still frozen, have sometimes been offered. Each
prisoner is given 10 cigarettes per day.
There
are no basic supplies of items for personal hygiene, coffee or tea,
paper or pens. The men have been given nothing and the tents have no
electricity.
If
they are seen to move out of the tents, the soldiers have been ordered
to point their rifles, with their fingers on the trigger, ready to
shoot. In addition, the guards inside are all armed, which is in
direct contravention of the law.
The
newly reopened Ketziot-Ansar III tent prison, which operated during
the first Intifada, is located deep in the Negev desert. At its peak,
Ketziot held 5,000-6,000 Palestinian administrative detainees at one
time in hundreds of tents spread out along kilometers of desert sand.
The
prison was noted for its difficult conditions - severe desert heat,
freezing winter weather, poor sanitation and total isolation. The
prison closed shortly after the Oslo process began.
The
reopening of the tent prison has raised serious concern that the
Israeli military intends to continue its mass arrests and send
thousands of Palestinian men to the Negev desert for indefinite
periods of time without charges or trial, Palestine Monitor reported.
The number of prisoners in the Ketziot-Ansar III had reached 450 by
May 20. There are already 1500-2000 Palestinian prisoners held in
Israeli prisons, some for decades.
One
prisoner, Ahmed Azzam, said he shares with another prisoner an
extremely small cell unfit for even one. IslamOnline learned that
Azzam was tortured for a full forty days – the time of the
investigation.
Ammar
El-Bakri, a prisoner from occupied Jerusalem, spoke of the humiliating
routine inspection where prisoners are stripped naked. Those who
refused to strip, including Dawood El-Shaweesh, Mohammed Dirawy,
Mohammed Abu Libda and Abdul-Azil Omar, were badly beaten.
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