17 apr 2017 prisoner's day page 1
Barghouti, the imprisoned Palestinian leader who has been likened to the ‘Palestinian Mandela’, is leading the call for a mass hunger strike by Palestinian prisoners from every party and faction beginning on Monday.Every major Palestinian political party has announced their support for the strike, which marks the largest show of unity from every political party since the 2006 election of Hamas. On Sunday, the Palestinian People’s Party (PPP – formerly the Communist Party), the Palestinian Popular Struggle Front (PPSF) both announced their support of the hunger strike.
The PPSF said the hunger strike marks “a turning point in the life of Palestinian prisoners”, and warned of a crackdown by Israeli authorities in response to the unified hunger strike.
Already, one strike organizer has been thrown into solitary confinement, with prison officials claiming he was “inciting” other prisoners into joining the strike.
The strike is known as “Freedom and Dignity”, and the prisoners involved have issued a number of demands.
The demands are as follows:
1. Install a public telephone for Palestinian detainees in all prisons and sections in order to communicate with their families.
2. Visits:
• Resume the second monthly visits for Palestinian prisoners that were halted by the International Committee of the Red Cross last year.
• Ensure the regularity of visits every two weeks without being prevented by any side.
• First- and second-degree relatives shall not be prevented from visiting the detainee.
• Increase the duration of the visit from 45 minutes to an hour and a half.
• Allow the detainees to take pictures with their families every three months.
• Establish facilities to comfort the families of detainees.
• Allow children and grandchildren under the age of 16 to visit detainees.
3. Health care:
• Shut down the so-called Ramla Prison Hospital, because it does not provide the adequate treatment.
• Terminate Israel’s policy of deliberate medical negligence.
• Carry out periodic medical examinations.
• Perform surgeries to a high medical standard.
• Permit specialized physicians from outside the Israeli Prison Service to treat prisoners.
• Release sick detainees, especially those who have disabilities and incurable diseases.
• Medical treatment should not be at the expense of the detainee.
4. Respond to the needs and demands of Palestinian women detainees, namely the issue of being transported for long hours between Israeli courts and prisons.
5. Transportation:
• Treat detainees humanely when transporting them.
• Return detainees to prisons after the visiting clinics or courts and not further detain them at crossings.
• Prepare the crossings for human use and provide meals for detainees.
6. Add satellites channels that suit the needs of detainees.
7. Install air conditioners in prisons, especially in the Megiddo and Gilboa prisons.
8. Restore kitchens in all prisons and place them under the supervision of Palestinian detainees.
9. Allow detainees to have books, newspapers, clothes and food.
10. End the policy of solitary confinement.
11. End the policy of administrative detention.
12. Allow detainees to study at Hebrew Open University.
13. Allow detainees to have end of high school (tawjihi) exams in an official and agreed manner.
The hunger strike beginning on Palestinian Prisoners Day, April 17, comes just after a report was released documenting that Israeli authorities have detained one million Palestinians since 1948. That report was released Saturday by the Palestinian Committee of Prisoners’ Affairs, the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS), and the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS).
The PPSF said the hunger strike marks “a turning point in the life of Palestinian prisoners”, and warned of a crackdown by Israeli authorities in response to the unified hunger strike.
Already, one strike organizer has been thrown into solitary confinement, with prison officials claiming he was “inciting” other prisoners into joining the strike.
The strike is known as “Freedom and Dignity”, and the prisoners involved have issued a number of demands.
The demands are as follows:
1. Install a public telephone for Palestinian detainees in all prisons and sections in order to communicate with their families.
2. Visits:
• Resume the second monthly visits for Palestinian prisoners that were halted by the International Committee of the Red Cross last year.
• Ensure the regularity of visits every two weeks without being prevented by any side.
• First- and second-degree relatives shall not be prevented from visiting the detainee.
• Increase the duration of the visit from 45 minutes to an hour and a half.
• Allow the detainees to take pictures with their families every three months.
• Establish facilities to comfort the families of detainees.
• Allow children and grandchildren under the age of 16 to visit detainees.
3. Health care:
• Shut down the so-called Ramla Prison Hospital, because it does not provide the adequate treatment.
• Terminate Israel’s policy of deliberate medical negligence.
• Carry out periodic medical examinations.
• Perform surgeries to a high medical standard.
• Permit specialized physicians from outside the Israeli Prison Service to treat prisoners.
• Release sick detainees, especially those who have disabilities and incurable diseases.
• Medical treatment should not be at the expense of the detainee.
4. Respond to the needs and demands of Palestinian women detainees, namely the issue of being transported for long hours between Israeli courts and prisons.
5. Transportation:
• Treat detainees humanely when transporting them.
• Return detainees to prisons after the visiting clinics or courts and not further detain them at crossings.
• Prepare the crossings for human use and provide meals for detainees.
6. Add satellites channels that suit the needs of detainees.
7. Install air conditioners in prisons, especially in the Megiddo and Gilboa prisons.
8. Restore kitchens in all prisons and place them under the supervision of Palestinian detainees.
9. Allow detainees to have books, newspapers, clothes and food.
10. End the policy of solitary confinement.
11. End the policy of administrative detention.
12. Allow detainees to study at Hebrew Open University.
13. Allow detainees to have end of high school (tawjihi) exams in an official and agreed manner.
The hunger strike beginning on Palestinian Prisoners Day, April 17, comes just after a report was released documenting that Israeli authorities have detained one million Palestinians since 1948. That report was released Saturday by the Palestinian Committee of Prisoners’ Affairs, the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS), and the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS).
Israel’s decades-long policy of detaining Palestinians from the occupied West Bank and Gaza, in prisons inside Israel, and depriving them of regular family visits is not only cruel but also a blatant violation of international law, said Amnesty International, ahead of a mass prisoner’s hunger strike which begins next week, to mark Palestinian Prisoner’s Day on 17 April.
Testimonies gathered by the organization from family members and Palestinian prisoners detained in the Israeli prison system shed light on the suffering endured by families who in some cases have been deprived from seeing their detained relatives for many years.
“Israel’s ruthless policy of holding Palestinian prisoners arrested in the Occupied Palestinian Territories in prisons inside Israel is a flagrant violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. It is unlawful and cruel and the consequences for the imprisoned person and their loved ones, who are often deprived from seeing them for months, and at times for years on end, can be devastating,” said Magdalena Mughrabi, Deputy Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International.
“Instead of unlawfully transferring prisoners outside the occupied territories, Israel must ensure all Palestinians arrested there are held in prisons and detention centres in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Until then, the Israeli authorities must stop imposing excessive restrictions on visitation rights as a means of punishing prisoners and their families, and ensure that conditions fully meet international standards.”
According to the PNN, Palestinian prisoners preparing to embark on next week’s large scale hunger strike are making a series of demands including calling for an end to Israel’s restrictions on visits and contact with family members. Palestinian detainees held on security grounds are barred from making phone calls to their families. The hunger strike was announced by imprisoned Fateh leader Marwan Barghouthi. A number of other political parties and prisoners have announced they will be joining the strike.
Under international humanitarian law, detainees from occupied territories must be detained in the occupied territory, not in the territory of the occupying power. They must also be allowed to receive visitors, especially near relatives, at regular intervals and as frequently as possible.
According to the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society, there are currently 6,500 Palestinian prisoners, including at least 300 children, detained on security-related grounds in Israeli-run prisons and detention facilities. All but one of the 17 facilities are located inside Israel.
The vast majority of prisoners are men, 57 are women, including 13 girls under the age of 18. Thirteen of those imprisoned are Palestinian Legislative Council members. At least 500 people are held without charge or trial in administrative detention, a practice which flouts safeguards required by international law to prevent arbitrary detention.
The Palestinian Prisoners’ Affairs Commission spokesperson Hasan Abed Rabbo said that at least 1,000 prisoners are prohibited from receiving family visits on “security grounds”. He added that currently there are around 15-20 prisoners held in isolation, who are banned from any contact with other prisoners and family visits.
“Ahmed”, a 32-year-old from Hebron currently held in administrative detention in Ketziot prison in the Negev/Naqab desert, whose name has been changed to protect his identity, has only had one family visit, despite spending five and a half years in an Israeli prison, on and off between 2005 and 2017.
He told Amnesty International that he was joining the mass hunger strike in the hope that it will pressure the authorities to allow his 70-year-old mother, who has been repeatedly denied a permit, to visit him. He said he had been arrested seven times in total. His administrative detention order is up for renewal on 29 July.
“I have had one family visit while in jail. In 2006 my mother and father were able to visit me because my father was sick. He was 75 then, it was the last time I saw him. He died while I was in prison,” he said.“ No one can visit me, my mother is in her seventies and she is denied a permit for security reasons…I don’t know when I will be released or how long I will be in prison for, I want to be able to see my family.
The Israeli authorities are using the permits to punish me… I don’t know how long [my mother] has [left] and if I will be able to see her if or when I am released.”
Najat al-Agha, a 67-year-old woman from Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip, told Amnesty International that her son, Dia al-Agha, 43, has been imprisoned in Israel for the past 25 years. At the age of 19, he was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted on murder charges.
He is being held in Nafha prison in Mitzpe Ramon in the south. “I don’t know why I get rejected. I am 67 years old. What security threat am I to Israel? All I want is to see him and make sure he is well. I don’t know how long I will live, any visit can be my last. I am scared of dying without seeing him,” his mother said.
“Every time I apply for a permit I get rejected. It is almost a year that I haven’t seen my son, it is devastating. They are punishing us, they are trying to break us.”
According to Israeli Prison Service regulations, all prisoners are entitled to family visits once every two weeks. However, in reality, because Palestinians from the Occupied Palestinian Territories must apply for permits to enter Israel, they can visit much less frequently.
The Israeli Prison Service regulations also allow the authorities to rescind a prisoner’s right to family visits on security grounds.
Gaza prisoners continue to be most affected by Israeli restrictions as the Israeli military grants permits to families from the Strip only once every two months.
This policy affects around 365 prisoners from Gaza currently detained in Israel. In addition, Hamas prisoners along with other prisoners living in the same prison wings, are only permitted one monthly visit, irrespective of where they come from.
Since 1969, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has been responsible for mediating and facilitating all aspects related to family visits, for prisoners from the West Bank and Gaza, without any logistical or financial assistance by Israel. West Bank and Gaza residents apply though the ICRC to receive permits and rely on them to arrange transportation to the prisons in agreement with the Israeli Prison Service.
In July of 2016, the ICRC reduced the number of visits coordinated for prisoners’ families from the West Bank from two, to one a month. An ICRC representative told Amnesty International that the decision was taken in order to better manage ICRC resources, due to low family attendance for visits.
The reduction does not affect women, children and hospitalized prisoners and, since then, the ICRC has introduced three additional annual visits for all prisoners, during major holidays.
“Reham” (not her real name), a 27-year-old Palestinian woman from Ramallah, whose brother has been imprisoned in Israel for 15 years, was 12 when he was arrested. He is serving a 30-year prison term and is currently held at in Hadarim detention facility.
She said that the uncertainty of waiting for the outcome of an application for a visitors permit had placed considerable strain on her family.
Since October 2016, Reham was denied regular permits on security grounds, she now has to renew her permit following every visit. Her sick mother was only allowed to visit her brother twice in four years before she passed away. He was not permitted to attend the funeral.
According to Addameer Association, for most West Bank residents visiting detained relatives the journey to prison takes between eight to 15 hours depending on the prison and place of residence. Relatives of prisoners are subjected to lengthy body searches and sometimes strip searches.
“The Israeli authorities play with our emotions, they torture us and punish us. They try to break us to tire us, so that we would want to visit our relatives less because of all the humiliation, searches, abuse and insults by soldiers or prison guards,” Reham said.
In addition to calling for lifting restrictions on family visits, the hunger striking prisoners are making a series of demands including calling for an improvement of access to medical care; calls for increasing visit duration from 45 to 90 minutes; calls from women prisoners for family visits without glass barriers to allow mothers to hold their children; an improvement in detention conditions including easing restrictions on the entry of books, clothing, food and other gifts from family members; restoring some educational facilities; and installing phones to enable prisoners to communicate with their families.
Testimonies gathered by the organization from family members and Palestinian prisoners detained in the Israeli prison system shed light on the suffering endured by families who in some cases have been deprived from seeing their detained relatives for many years.
“Israel’s ruthless policy of holding Palestinian prisoners arrested in the Occupied Palestinian Territories in prisons inside Israel is a flagrant violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. It is unlawful and cruel and the consequences for the imprisoned person and their loved ones, who are often deprived from seeing them for months, and at times for years on end, can be devastating,” said Magdalena Mughrabi, Deputy Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International.
“Instead of unlawfully transferring prisoners outside the occupied territories, Israel must ensure all Palestinians arrested there are held in prisons and detention centres in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Until then, the Israeli authorities must stop imposing excessive restrictions on visitation rights as a means of punishing prisoners and their families, and ensure that conditions fully meet international standards.”
According to the PNN, Palestinian prisoners preparing to embark on next week’s large scale hunger strike are making a series of demands including calling for an end to Israel’s restrictions on visits and contact with family members. Palestinian detainees held on security grounds are barred from making phone calls to their families. The hunger strike was announced by imprisoned Fateh leader Marwan Barghouthi. A number of other political parties and prisoners have announced they will be joining the strike.
Under international humanitarian law, detainees from occupied territories must be detained in the occupied territory, not in the territory of the occupying power. They must also be allowed to receive visitors, especially near relatives, at regular intervals and as frequently as possible.
According to the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society, there are currently 6,500 Palestinian prisoners, including at least 300 children, detained on security-related grounds in Israeli-run prisons and detention facilities. All but one of the 17 facilities are located inside Israel.
The vast majority of prisoners are men, 57 are women, including 13 girls under the age of 18. Thirteen of those imprisoned are Palestinian Legislative Council members. At least 500 people are held without charge or trial in administrative detention, a practice which flouts safeguards required by international law to prevent arbitrary detention.
The Palestinian Prisoners’ Affairs Commission spokesperson Hasan Abed Rabbo said that at least 1,000 prisoners are prohibited from receiving family visits on “security grounds”. He added that currently there are around 15-20 prisoners held in isolation, who are banned from any contact with other prisoners and family visits.
“Ahmed”, a 32-year-old from Hebron currently held in administrative detention in Ketziot prison in the Negev/Naqab desert, whose name has been changed to protect his identity, has only had one family visit, despite spending five and a half years in an Israeli prison, on and off between 2005 and 2017.
He told Amnesty International that he was joining the mass hunger strike in the hope that it will pressure the authorities to allow his 70-year-old mother, who has been repeatedly denied a permit, to visit him. He said he had been arrested seven times in total. His administrative detention order is up for renewal on 29 July.
“I have had one family visit while in jail. In 2006 my mother and father were able to visit me because my father was sick. He was 75 then, it was the last time I saw him. He died while I was in prison,” he said.“ No one can visit me, my mother is in her seventies and she is denied a permit for security reasons…I don’t know when I will be released or how long I will be in prison for, I want to be able to see my family.
The Israeli authorities are using the permits to punish me… I don’t know how long [my mother] has [left] and if I will be able to see her if or when I am released.”
Najat al-Agha, a 67-year-old woman from Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip, told Amnesty International that her son, Dia al-Agha, 43, has been imprisoned in Israel for the past 25 years. At the age of 19, he was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted on murder charges.
He is being held in Nafha prison in Mitzpe Ramon in the south. “I don’t know why I get rejected. I am 67 years old. What security threat am I to Israel? All I want is to see him and make sure he is well. I don’t know how long I will live, any visit can be my last. I am scared of dying without seeing him,” his mother said.
“Every time I apply for a permit I get rejected. It is almost a year that I haven’t seen my son, it is devastating. They are punishing us, they are trying to break us.”
According to Israeli Prison Service regulations, all prisoners are entitled to family visits once every two weeks. However, in reality, because Palestinians from the Occupied Palestinian Territories must apply for permits to enter Israel, they can visit much less frequently.
The Israeli Prison Service regulations also allow the authorities to rescind a prisoner’s right to family visits on security grounds.
Gaza prisoners continue to be most affected by Israeli restrictions as the Israeli military grants permits to families from the Strip only once every two months.
This policy affects around 365 prisoners from Gaza currently detained in Israel. In addition, Hamas prisoners along with other prisoners living in the same prison wings, are only permitted one monthly visit, irrespective of where they come from.
Since 1969, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has been responsible for mediating and facilitating all aspects related to family visits, for prisoners from the West Bank and Gaza, without any logistical or financial assistance by Israel. West Bank and Gaza residents apply though the ICRC to receive permits and rely on them to arrange transportation to the prisons in agreement with the Israeli Prison Service.
In July of 2016, the ICRC reduced the number of visits coordinated for prisoners’ families from the West Bank from two, to one a month. An ICRC representative told Amnesty International that the decision was taken in order to better manage ICRC resources, due to low family attendance for visits.
The reduction does not affect women, children and hospitalized prisoners and, since then, the ICRC has introduced three additional annual visits for all prisoners, during major holidays.
“Reham” (not her real name), a 27-year-old Palestinian woman from Ramallah, whose brother has been imprisoned in Israel for 15 years, was 12 when he was arrested. He is serving a 30-year prison term and is currently held at in Hadarim detention facility.
She said that the uncertainty of waiting for the outcome of an application for a visitors permit had placed considerable strain on her family.
Since October 2016, Reham was denied regular permits on security grounds, she now has to renew her permit following every visit. Her sick mother was only allowed to visit her brother twice in four years before she passed away. He was not permitted to attend the funeral.
According to Addameer Association, for most West Bank residents visiting detained relatives the journey to prison takes between eight to 15 hours depending on the prison and place of residence. Relatives of prisoners are subjected to lengthy body searches and sometimes strip searches.
“The Israeli authorities play with our emotions, they torture us and punish us. They try to break us to tire us, so that we would want to visit our relatives less because of all the humiliation, searches, abuse and insults by soldiers or prison guards,” Reham said.
In addition to calling for lifting restrictions on family visits, the hunger striking prisoners are making a series of demands including calling for an improvement of access to medical care; calls for increasing visit duration from 45 to 90 minutes; calls from women prisoners for family visits without glass barriers to allow mothers to hold their children; an improvement in detention conditions including easing restrictions on the entry of books, clothing, food and other gifts from family members; restoring some educational facilities; and installing phones to enable prisoners to communicate with their families.
16 apr 2017
The Israeli security services arrested 400 Palestinians since October 2015 for their social media posts, especially those published on Facebook.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz said in a report on Sunday that the Israeli security services imposed strict censorship on social media websites to identify those who have intentions to carry out attacks.
The Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) developed, in cooperation with the intelligence services, a data bank based on an automatic sorting of the Palestinian posts and comments on social media.
The Israeli security services arrested this number of Palestinians after an in-depth examination and monitoring of the posts of 2,200 Palestinians who were accused of having motives that suggest the possibility of carrying out attacks.
The Hebrew website NRG said that the Israeli authorities consider Silwad town, near Ramallah city, as the city which has the largest number of would-be attackers.
The website pointed out, quoting a senior Israeli officer whose identity was not disclosed, that the Israeli army and the intelligence services are following up the inciting posts and working to stop the flow of money to Silwad where anti-Israel armed attacks are being allegedly planned and confiscate the equipment allegedly used for manufacturing weapons.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz said in a report on Sunday that the Israeli security services imposed strict censorship on social media websites to identify those who have intentions to carry out attacks.
The Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) developed, in cooperation with the intelligence services, a data bank based on an automatic sorting of the Palestinian posts and comments on social media.
The Israeli security services arrested this number of Palestinians after an in-depth examination and monitoring of the posts of 2,200 Palestinians who were accused of having motives that suggest the possibility of carrying out attacks.
The Hebrew website NRG said that the Israeli authorities consider Silwad town, near Ramallah city, as the city which has the largest number of would-be attackers.
The website pointed out, quoting a senior Israeli officer whose identity was not disclosed, that the Israeli army and the intelligence services are following up the inciting posts and working to stop the flow of money to Silwad where anti-Israel armed attacks are being allegedly planned and confiscate the equipment allegedly used for manufacturing weapons.
Several Palestinians, including students and academics, were arrested by the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) at daybreak Sunday.
A PIC news correspondent said Israeli military patrols stormed Nablus and searched dozens of Palestinian homes near An-Najah Campus, before they subjected their inhabitants to intensive questioning.
Journalist Ahmed Teim, a resident of Rafidia, said an IOF patrol stormed Palestinian apartments in the area after they smashed all the entrance doors in the hunt for university students.
The IOF further ravaged Palestinian commercial shops and seized surveillance cameras.
Other Israeli military troops have been spotted near Amman Street and Joseph’s Tomb, east of Nablus.
At the same time, the IOF stormed the home of the Palestinian student Ibrahim Abed, enrolled at An-Najah University, in Nablus’s western town of Tel.
Lecturer at An-Najah University Dr. Mustafa al-Shanar was rushed to a hospital after Israeli soldiers broke into his family home at the crack of dawn and wreaked havoc on the building, his family told the PIC.
Al-Shanar’s son Assem has also been held in Israeli jails.
Meanwhile, ex-prisoner Aref Ahmed Salim was kidnapped by the Israeli forces from his home in Azzoun town, east of Qalqilya.
The IOF further sealed off the main entrance to the town with a makeshift checkpoint and carried out abrupt combing operations across the area.
The campaign culminated in the abduction of the Palestinian citizen Muhtada Dalal, the son of the slain Palestinian protester Ma’zouz Dalal, from his family home in Qalqilya.
A PIC news correspondent said Israeli military patrols stormed Nablus and searched dozens of Palestinian homes near An-Najah Campus, before they subjected their inhabitants to intensive questioning.
Journalist Ahmed Teim, a resident of Rafidia, said an IOF patrol stormed Palestinian apartments in the area after they smashed all the entrance doors in the hunt for university students.
The IOF further ravaged Palestinian commercial shops and seized surveillance cameras.
Other Israeli military troops have been spotted near Amman Street and Joseph’s Tomb, east of Nablus.
At the same time, the IOF stormed the home of the Palestinian student Ibrahim Abed, enrolled at An-Najah University, in Nablus’s western town of Tel.
Lecturer at An-Najah University Dr. Mustafa al-Shanar was rushed to a hospital after Israeli soldiers broke into his family home at the crack of dawn and wreaked havoc on the building, his family told the PIC.
Al-Shanar’s son Assem has also been held in Israeli jails.
Meanwhile, ex-prisoner Aref Ahmed Salim was kidnapped by the Israeli forces from his home in Azzoun town, east of Qalqilya.
The IOF further sealed off the main entrance to the town with a makeshift checkpoint and carried out abrupt combing operations across the area.
The campaign culminated in the abduction of the Palestinian citizen Muhtada Dalal, the son of the slain Palestinian protester Ma’zouz Dalal, from his family home in Qalqilya.
Longest-serving Palestinian female detainee Lina Ahmed al-Jarabouni was released from Israeli jails on Sunday morning after she had served a 15-year-sentence.
43-year-old Lina al-Jarabouni, from Akka (Acre) city, was released from Israeli prisons, where she had been locked up for 15 years.
Al-Jarabouni was arrested by the Israeli police on April 18, 2002, and sentenced to 17 years in jail on charges of affiliation with the Islamic Jihad Movement and assisting Palestinian protesters in carrying out anti-occupation operations.
Al-Jarabouni’s health status has taken a turn for the worse in Israeli prisons. She has been diagnosed with severe abdominal infections. Three years earlier she underwent a surgery to remove her gallbladder.
In a brief statement after her release, al-Jarabouni said that the prisoners' message to the Palestinian people is "unity" for the sake of those prisoners, adding that they spent long years in harsh imprisonment conditions and are in need of constant support. She hoped that all would participate in solidarity events with the prisoners on their day marked on 17 April.
43-year-old Lina al-Jarabouni, from Akka (Acre) city, was released from Israeli prisons, where she had been locked up for 15 years.
Al-Jarabouni was arrested by the Israeli police on April 18, 2002, and sentenced to 17 years in jail on charges of affiliation with the Islamic Jihad Movement and assisting Palestinian protesters in carrying out anti-occupation operations.
Al-Jarabouni’s health status has taken a turn for the worse in Israeli prisons. She has been diagnosed with severe abdominal infections. Three years earlier she underwent a surgery to remove her gallbladder.
In a brief statement after her release, al-Jarabouni said that the prisoners' message to the Palestinian people is "unity" for the sake of those prisoners, adding that they spent long years in harsh imprisonment conditions and are in need of constant support. She hoped that all would participate in solidarity events with the prisoners on their day marked on 17 April.
Thousands of Palestinian detainees in Israeli jails are expected to go on a mass hunger strike on Monday in protest at Israel’s infringement of their human rights.
A mass hunger strike is to kick off on Monday in Israeli jails to mark the Prisoner’s Day and speak up against the Israeli crackdowns and torture tactics perpetrated against the Palestinian detainees.
At the same time, a series of events is slated to be held across the occupied Palestinian territories in support for the prisoners’ demands.
A mass hunger strike is to kick off on Monday in Israeli jails to mark the Prisoner’s Day and speak up against the Israeli crackdowns and torture tactics perpetrated against the Palestinian detainees.
At the same time, a series of events is slated to be held across the occupied Palestinian territories in support for the prisoners’ demands.
15 apr 2017
Israel has detained, kidnapped and jailed about one million Palestinian citizens since it emerged in 1948 as an occupying power in Palestine, according to Palestinian official estimate.
This came in a joint statistical report released recently on the occasion of "the Palestinian Prisoner Day" by the Palestinian Commission for Detainees’ and Ex-Detainees’ Affairs, the Palestinian Prisoner Society, and the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.
According to their statistics, there are currently about 6,500 prisoners in Israeli jails, including some 57 women and minor girls, and 300 children.
They said that the years of the Palestinians intifadas (uprisings) in 1987 and 2000 were ones of the most difficult times in the history of the Palestinian people, during which tens of thousands of them were exposed to arbitrary mass arrests.
During al-Aqsa Intifada, which started on September 28, 2000, official institutions and human rights groups recorded the occurrence of 100,000 arrests against Palestinian citizens.
The detainees at the time included nearly 15,000 children under age 18 as well as 1,500 women and 70 lawmakers and ministers.
About 27,000 Palestinian internees received administrative detention verdicts, with no indictment or trial, during the 2000 intifada, the report stated. Many of those arbitrary jail orders were issued for the first time against new detainees and the rest were extensions against prisoners already in administrative detention.
Currently, the number of administrative detainees in Israeli jails amounts to about 500 Palestinians, including 13 lawmakers.
This came in a joint statistical report released recently on the occasion of "the Palestinian Prisoner Day" by the Palestinian Commission for Detainees’ and Ex-Detainees’ Affairs, the Palestinian Prisoner Society, and the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.
According to their statistics, there are currently about 6,500 prisoners in Israeli jails, including some 57 women and minor girls, and 300 children.
They said that the years of the Palestinians intifadas (uprisings) in 1987 and 2000 were ones of the most difficult times in the history of the Palestinian people, during which tens of thousands of them were exposed to arbitrary mass arrests.
During al-Aqsa Intifada, which started on September 28, 2000, official institutions and human rights groups recorded the occurrence of 100,000 arrests against Palestinian citizens.
The detainees at the time included nearly 15,000 children under age 18 as well as 1,500 women and 70 lawmakers and ministers.
About 27,000 Palestinian internees received administrative detention verdicts, with no indictment or trial, during the 2000 intifada, the report stated. Many of those arbitrary jail orders were issued for the first time against new detainees and the rest were extensions against prisoners already in administrative detention.
Currently, the number of administrative detainees in Israeli jails amounts to about 500 Palestinians, including 13 lawmakers.
