gelatik
19.05.02, 21:31
AL KHALIL (HEBRON), May 19 – 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.
