The Palestinian Center for Prisoners’ Advocacy stated that the situation of prisoners and detainees from the Gaza Strip held in Israeli occupation prisons has reached an unprecedented level of danger and continues to worsen by the minute, due to a series of consecutive punishments and violations devised and implemented by all levels of the occupation in the most inhumane ways, targeting not only thousands of Palestinian prisoners but humanity as a whole.
Lina Al-Tawil, the director of the center, said that since the ongoing assault that has lasted for two consecutive years, the occupation has arrested more than 3,200 men and women from Gaza. They have been subjected to field torture, followed by humiliating and degrading interrogations, during which the most brutal methods of coercion and degradation were used. Many of them have been forcibly disappeared for months, without their families, or even legal teams, being able to reach or meet them, let alone view their legal files, which in many cases do not exist at all.
Al-Tawil reported that dozens of detainees from Gaza have died, either within hours of their arrest, during interrogation, or later due to medical neglect while being held in military detention camps and prisons lacking the most basic conditions of human life. She stressed that all of this has taken place amid an unprecedented level of international neglect and domestic distraction from their plight.
Regarding the occupation’s response to thousands of requests submitted by lawyers and both local and international legal institutions, Al-Tawil noted that Israel has rejected most of these requests. In the few cases it responded, the process was deliberately slow, in what appears to be a calculated attempt to evade international and UN calls urging Israel to comply with international treaties and conventions that guarantee legal and humanitarian protection for any individual subjected to arrest or detention.
In a media briefing, Al-Tawil called on the Palestinian public, international institutions, and UN bodies not to abandon their role or give in to despair and frustration in the face of Israel’s disregard for all efforts made to alleviate the suffering of prisoners and detainees. She urged a reorientation of approach to this issue and to build upon recent international positions expressed by several countries and organizations worldwide to ensure genuine support and protection for the thousands of Palestinian prisoners and detainees.
