Zionist cruelty to Palestinian prisoners

Of the endless list of heinous crimes committed by the Nazi regime of “Israel” in the Gaza Strip, there is one that is hardly talked about: the bestiality with which “Israel” treats Palestinian prisoners, depriving them of the most elementary rights guaranteed by International Conventions, and subjecting them to the most undignified, harsh and violent conditions of incarceration.

International law categorises the majority of Palestinian prisoners as prisoners of war, who are entitled to the protection provided by the Geneva III Convention relating to the Treatment of Prisoners of War. Others are prisoners who are subject to the provisions of the Geneva IV Convention relating to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. “Israel” refuses to apply these Conventions to Palestinian prisoners and detainees.

The latest criminal policy adopted by “Israel” concerns the bill presented by the supremacist party Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) to execute Palestinian prisoners as a way, according to them, to reduce the prison population and rid themselves of the “terrorists”. The public defence of these actions was assumed by the Zionist government’s Minister of National Security, the fascist Itamar Ben Gvir, who declared in an interview with Israeli TV on Sunday (30) that “they should be killed with a shot in the head”.

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On the same day, the Occupation released Dr. Muhammad Abu Salmyia, Director of Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest in the Gaza Strip, after 7 months of attack, kidnapping, and arrest, without any charges being proven against him. Dr. Salmyia reported that all prisoners suffer beatings, are humiliated and many remain handcuffed and blindfolded for several days, with a lack of food, drink and medicine, as well as the bestiality of using dogs trained to perpetrate abuses such as rape.

Aditionally, “Israel” is amputating the feet of prisoners suffering from diabetes rather than treating them. There are cases of sick or injured prisoners who have undergone surgeries without anaesthesia, including limb amputation or bullet removal.

The president of the Palestinian Legislative Council, Abdel Aziz Dweik, 75, denounced the unprecedented torture he was subjected to in the eight months he spent in the Negev prison, located in the south of “Israel”, which he considers the worst prison in the world.

Prisoners kidnapped after 7 October and recently released returned to their families disfigured, having lost weight and even had their facial structure altered by the heinous violations committed by Israeli jailers, to the point that their families and children cannot recognise their parents.

Another serious violation of human rights is the theft of organs from Palestinian martyrs, formally denounced by the Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour.

Medical professionals in Gaza who examined prisoners’ bodies after their release reported organ theft, including corneas and cochleas, the inner part of the ear responsible for auditory function, as well as vital organs such as the heart, liver and kidneys.

The NGO, Euro-Med Monitor, documented and denounced the Israeli army’s confiscation of dozens of corpses from the Al-Shifa Medical Complex and Indonesian Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip.

Recently, Israeli doctor, Meira Weiss, revealed in her book, Over Their Dead Bodies, that organs taken from dead Palestinians were used in medical research at the medical schools of Israeli universities and transplanted into the bodies of Jewish-Israeli patients.

The prisons serve as a laboratory for the development of Israeli military products and services, authorising major pharmaceutical companies to conduct clinical trials on Palestinian prisoners.

Currently, in the West Bank alone, 9,450 Palestinian prisoners are subjected to such violations, a macabre statistic that has only worsened since the creation of the “Jewish state”, and a further 5,500 kidnapped since 7 October in the Gaza Strip. “Israel” criminalises any form of opposition to the Occupation, and successive Israeli governments have made prisons their main instrument of repression and punishment for Palestinians.

According to the International Foundation Solidarity with Prisoners, since 2015, more than 20,000 prisoners have passed through Israeli prisons; and since 1967, more than 1 million! Human rights movements report that 561 Palestinians are serving life sentences and 533 with sentences of more than 20 years, including 40 women, some of whom are pregnant; 250 children, some under ten years old; 3,410 administrative prisoners; and astonishingly, 15 deputies legitimately elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council.

The information or evidence against the prisoners is secret and cannot be accessed by the detainee or a lawyer, per Israeli military orders. Administrative detention is one of the most blatant methods of persecution of Israeli apartheid and can be renewed for an unlimited period.

Among the prisoners are many women and children who suffer physical and psychological violence and are deprived by the Israeli government of attending schools and having access to education, a right established in international agreements and conventions.

The release of Palestinian prisoners from the dungeons of “Israel” and the Palestinian people’s struggle for dignity, for land from the River to the Sea, will always count on the solidarity and support of all people who fight for justice and respect for rights in all corners of the world.

The holocaust of Palestinians by “Israel” cannot become a model, as Nazism and apartheid in South Africa are serving and used by the Zionist regime of extermination in these 76 years of occupation, whose true face is hatred towards the people and serious violations against Palestinian prisoners.

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The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.