‘It’s Israeli policy’: Report reveals abuse of Palestinians in prisons

For Palestinians held wrong Israel’s situation network, torture, maltreatment and contempt for beingness isn’t conscionable the norm, it’s the system.

That’s according to report released this week [PDF] by the NGO Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHRI).

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In the report, PHRI reveals the details of astatine slightest 94 Palestinian prisoners killed portion successful Israeli detention. The existent fig is apt acold higher, the report’s authors concede. All of those killed died from either torture, assault, wilful aesculapian neglect oregon malnutrition.

The study builds upon a tranche of grounds of abuse and torture published by a assortment of quality rights organisations, some wrong Israel and internationally.

“It’s not conscionable [far-right National Security Minister Itamar] Ben-Gvir’s policy, it’s an Israeli argumentation directed against Palestinians successful Israeli custody, successful subject and civilian deterioration facilities alike,” 1 of the report’s authors, Oneg Ben Dror, told Al Jazeera.

Included successful the testimonials [PDF] is the lawsuit of 33-year-old Abd al-Rahman Mar’i from the occupied West Bank, whose assemblage – a latticework of bruises, contusions and fractures – was returned to his household aft helium died successful Megiddo situation successful November 2023.

Another prisoner, 17-year-old Walid Khaled Abdullah Ahmad from Nablus, was returned to his household with his assemblage having adjacent to nary musculus oregon abdominous remaining, contempt his household saying that helium had been an jock earlier his apprehension successful September 2024. A post-mortem revealed that Walid died six months aft his arrest, with post-mortem findings indicating helium had suffered “severe and prolonged malnutrition”.

Yet different detainee, 25-year-old Arafat Hamdan from the occupied West Bank colony of Beit Sira, lone lasted 2 days successful subject custody earlier helium died. A benignant 1 diabetic, Arafat needed regular insulin injections to enactment alive. Witnesses to Arafat’s decease study him being brutally beaten and his medicine withheld.

Systems of hatred

Testimonies, authoritative records, and extended grounds collected by PHRI and different organisations bespeak that, alongside Israel’s genocidal warfare connected Gaza, determination has been an unparalleled run of battle against detained Palestinians.

Israel is thought to person arrested much than 18,500 Palestinians since the warfare connected Gaza began successful October 2023. Many of those person fallen unfortunate to the benignant of regular maltreatment documented by rights groups specified arsenic Human Rights Watch (HRW), the Israel-based B’Tselem, and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR).

In summation to the thousands whose detention has been documented, determination are an chartless fig taken arsenic portion of an Israeli argumentation of enforced disappearances successful the archetypal fewer months of the war, legalised done Israel’s Unlawful Combatants Law.

Two years on, galore of those disappeared whitethorn nary longer beryllium alive. “Thousands of Palestinians from Gaza are unaccounted for; of those, hundreds were reported to person been taken by the Israeli military. The interest is that galore of them are nary longer alive,” Ben Dror said.

Accusations that Israel has been torturing its prisoners, including United Nations staff, person tally astir the magnitude of the war. In August 2024, B’Tselem issued its report connected the Israeli situation strategy titled “Welcome to Hell”, detailing the physical, intelligence and intersexual maltreatment meted retired to Palestinians taken into Israeli custody.

Both PHRI and HRW person besides antecedently investigated the circumstantial torture of healthcare workers by the Israeli subject successful stark contravention of planetary law.  Among different instances of the brutal attraction were threats to chopped prisoners’ hands disconnected due to the fact that “they were dentists” and forcing doctors to bray similar donkeys.

Israel has antecedently stated that it treats Palestinian prisoners successful accordance with planetary law.

Palestinians, immoderate holding images of relatives held successful Israeli jails, protestation and telephone for their merchandise astatine Duwar al-Manara (Manara Square) successful Ramallah, successful the Israeli-occupied West Bank, July 21, 2024 [Jaafar Ashtiyeh/AFP]

System of denial

“Sde Teiman is the lone lawsuit that has reached the Israeli public, but we are alert of galore more,” Ben Dror said of the pack rape of a Palestinian antheral successful the Sde Teiman subject prison successful July 2024 whose prosecution, if not perpetration, has divided Israeli society.

“Sde Teiman was lone reported due to the fact that the injuries were truthful extended that the unfortunate had to beryllium admitted to a nationalist hospital, wherever a ample fig of radical became alert of the case,” she continued.

None of the different reports of rape and intersexual maltreatment carried retired against Palestinian prisoners – specified arsenic the suspected, and yet fatal, rape of Dr Adnan al-Bursh successful Ofer situation successful March 2024 – person gained overmuch attraction wrong Israel.

Instead, politicians specified arsenic Ben-Gvir, who has work for Israel’s situation system, are assured capable to actively boast of ensuring that prisoners’ nutrient is reduced to the “minimum of the minimum”, contempt a July report from the Palestinian rights radical Addameer documenting what researchers termed the drastic and deliberate simplification successful quantities of nutrient and h2o allowed to prisoners.

“Haaretz tends to screen these things, but that’s astir it,” Israeli governmental expert Nimrod Flaschenberg said, referring to the fashionable wide Israeli quality outlet. “But if I look astatine the sum fixed to this latest [PHRI] report, there’s nothing. Maybe a fewer idiosyncratic leftist websites person picked it up, but that’s it.”

“People conscionable don’t know. I’m not saying if they did cognize there’d beryllium immoderate large motivation outcry, but there’d beryllium something,” helium continued. “For now, statements similar those from Ben-Gvir connected situation conditions are popular. He wouldn’t accidental them if they weren’t.”

Far-right Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir has boasted of mediocre conditions wrong Israeli prisons [File: Ahmad Gharabli/AFP]

Nevertheless, contempt the overwhelming grounds of maltreatment wrong Israel’s situation network, successful precocious October, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz renewed the prohibition connected allowing planetary agencies, specified arsenic the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), to inspect its prisons.

“Horrific reports connected the attraction of Palestinians successful detention person been met with inaction and ignored, with Israel blocking ICRC entree and autarkic oversight,” Milena Ansari from HRW said. “This isn’t astir isolated abuses, but a broader signifier carried retired with impunity. Without accountability, the unit volition lone deepen, and much deaths successful Israeli detention volition proceed to emerge.”