PIC - The Ministry for Prisoners' affairs stated in a recent report that throughout the month of June the Israeli occupation authority (IOA) continued a campaign of kidnappings in all parts of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Jerusalem. They seized more than 380 Palestinians, as well as four Egyptians in the Negev region on the grounds that they had crossed the Egyptian-Palestinian boundaries and entered a military zone. That is in addition to hundreds of workers kidnapped from inside the Green Line. Riyad al-Ashqar, the director of the information office of the Ministry, clarified that last month marked a major escalation by the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) against Palestinian fishermen. Gunboats abducted 16 Palestinian fishermen and took them to the port of Ashdod for questioning on matters related to the smuggling of weapons into Gaza. They are pressured to become informants in exchange for permission to return to fishing.
He added that the occupation kidnapped, in an unprecedented incident, the first of its kind, an infant, Muhammad Musa (4 years old), at the pretext that he had been throwing stones at police cars. A total of more than 31 children were abducted, including three children under the age of 12 from the village of Hizma, to the northeast of Jerusalem.
He also pointed out that the occupation kidnapped three women. One of them, Nahed Talib Farhat of Ramallah, was tortured after being kidnapped at the Atara checkpoint north of Ramallah. She was attacked and beaten by soldiers, dragged on the ground, trodden underfoot, and blindfolded and handcuffed before being transported to prison. Not only that; the house of a deputy in the Legislative Council, Dr. Mariam Saleh, was broken into and searched. Her son Salah was kidnapped, after being assaulted and beaten, along with his brother, Abdullah, and his mobile phone was confiscated along with some documents.
Sick Prisoners
Al-Ashqar pointed out that prison authorities continued to show no respect for the lives of sick prisoners in the prisons. This has led to the deteriorating health of many of them and has endangered the lives of some due to the failure to provide them necessary treatment. The prisoner Munadil Sharqawi, from Jenin, lapsed into a full coma in Megiddo Prison after failing to receive proper medical treatment for months on end.
Meanwhile, doctors announced that the prisoner Imad al-Deen Zu'rub, of Khan Yunis, has been diagnosed with cancer. He had been suffering from swollen glands under the armpits and in the groin for a number of years, but throughout that period the prison administration failed to provide him the necessary treatment or even a proper examination, which gave the cancer time to spread.
Al-Ashqar continued: Two operations performed in Ramle Prison Hospital on the prisoner Mahmoud Sanakra (age 26), from the Balata refugee camp, failed to ease the pain of spinal discs that ruptured during torture in the course of his interrogation. Another prisoner, Atif Mahmood Wuraidat of Hebron, has suffered a precipitous decline in health as a result of heart disease, diabetes and high blood pressure.
Al-Ashqar pointed out that the prisoner Ali Mahmood Safoori of Jenin has undergone serious disfigurement as a result of skin tumors spreading across his face and body for several months; meanwhile, the prison administration of Hadarim has refused to provide the necessary treatment. In another case, the prisoner Ra’id Haddad of Gaza, who is in Nafha Prison, has been complaining of severe pain in the urinary tract and colon, while the prison administration continues to put off providing him with appropriate treatment.
Extensions and the Courts
Al-Ashqar disclosed that last month Israeli kangaroo courts issued orders for more than 220 administrative detentions. Some were of new prisoners; some were first-time renewals of prisoners already in administrative detention; while some detainees underwent the latest in a series of ongoing renewals of detention. Sinan Muhammad Abu Ayish, a prisoner from Nablus, had his administrative detention extended for the second time after having completed a sentence of 6 years. Administrative detention was extended for the fifth time in a row for prisoner Hashim Azmouti of Jenin. The female detainee, Siham Awad al-Haih of Hebron, had her administrative detention renewed for the second time.
He pointed out that the IOA is still holding the prisoner Subhi Abdullah Abu Lawz of the Gaza Strip, despite his having completed his sentence of 2½ years nine months ago. The reason given is that he was born in Egypt and holds Egyptian papers.
Al-Ashqar referred to the Israeli military court in Ofer, which sentenced the prisoner, Kamal Jameel Abu Shanab of Tulkarem, to three life sentences. The District Court of Beersheba sentenced the prisoner Tamer Tarasha, of the Gaza Strip, to a term of 19 years and sentenced the prisoner Musa Adam Akhleel to life in prison.
He stressed that the suffering of prisoners being held in solitary confinement continues to multiply. The IOA is holding more than 100 prisoners in isolation in different locations for long periods, as long as ten years for some prisoners. Others are facing the specter of deportation to Jordan, including two brothers, Talib and Umar ibn Awda of Tubas, who finished serving their sentences more than a year ago.
In the past month, al-Ashqar said that the prisoner Fakhri Barghouti, the second longest-held Palestinian prisoner, completed his thirty-first year in the prisons of the occupation and started on the thirty-second year. The list of prisoners who have spent more than 20 years in prison has now increased to 103 prisoners.
Escalating Actions
The Director of the Information Service of the Ministry of Prisoners, Riyad al-Ashqar, stressed that during the last month the Israeli prisons authority (IPA) has stepped up punitive actions against the prisoners, especially those who have refused to wear orange uniforms. The IPA has imposed a series of punitive policies on the prisoners, including solitary confinement, the levying of heavy fines of up to 2000 shekels (about $520) per prisoner, and restrictions on clothing being brought to prisoners during visits by their families and lawyers. This is done in order to force them to wear the prison uniforms. They have also confiscated many of the prisoners’ clothes.
He added: "In a provocative step, the management of one of the Israeli prisons has undertaken an inventory of prisoners’ clothing, leaving them a certain number of garments while confiscating the rest and putting them in storage."
The Continuation of Torture
Contrary to Israel’s media disinformation campaign that torture is not practiced against Palestinians held in its prisons, the Israeli Public Committee against Torture, in its annual report published last month, revealed that the army and interrogators engaged in diverse types of torture and ill-treatment of Palestinian prisoners immediately upon their arrest or when they are transferred to detention centers or prisons. The Committee asserted that it had documented that reality with the testimony of more than 600 Palestinian prisoners who have been subjected to torture.
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