RAMALLAH, (PIC)
The Palestinian prisoners’ institutions said on Thursday that this year has been the bloodiest for Palestinian women over the years of occupation, amid the Israeli aggression on Gaza and the genocidal war against the Palestinian people.
This announcement came on the occasion of International Women’s Day, which falls on the eighth of March, in a joint report prepared by the Palestinian prisoners’ institutions, including the Prisoners Affairs Authority, the Palestinian Prisoner Society, and the Al-Dameer Foundation for Prisoners and Human Rights.
The report confirmed that the history of targeting Palestinian women has been one of the most prominent and systematic policies since the early years of the occupation.
It emphasized that Palestinian women have been subjected to war crimes and grave violations, including extrajudicial executions, systematic arrests, and other horrific violations and sexual assaults.
The report added that the crimes witnessed by Palestinian women today have been ongoing throughout the decades of occupation, “and the post-October 7th period was not an exceptional phase in terms of the level of horrific crimes we have witnessed and heard through numerous testimonies.” It explained that the difference lies in the intensity and escalation of these crimes, when compared to periods in which the Palestinian arena witnessed uprisings and popular waves.
The institutions’ report stressed the lack of clear estimation of the number of women who were arrested from Gaza, as some of them were later released, confirming that there are still women who are detained in the Israeli prisons under forced disappearance.
The prisoners’ institutions pointed out that the number of female prisoners in the Israeli prisons, the majority of whom are held in Damon Prison, reached 60, including two from Gaza. They reiterated the lack of information about the exact number of female prisoners from Gaza in Israeli occupation prisons and detention centers.
The report presented the most important data about female prisoners held in Israeli occupation prisons until the date of preparing the report as follows: the number of female prisoners is 60, including two prisoners from Gaza. Among the female prisoners, there are three minors, 24 mothers, 12 administrative detainees, 12 students, and 11 prisoners facing diseases and health problems, including two wounded prisoners.
The report added that the female prisoners are wives of male prisoners, mothers of prisoners, and sisters of martyrs, in addition to the presence of a mother of a martyr among the female prisoners.
The report clarified that there are three female prisoners who have been detained before October 7th, and Israel refused to include them in the exchange deals concluded between it and the Palestinian resistance in November of last year.
According to the report, Israel has escalated the arrests of women, including minors, after the start of the aggression on Gaza, with the number of arrest cases among women reaching about 240, including women from the West Bank, Jerusalem, and the 1948 occupied territories.
For its part, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics reported on Thursday that the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip has killed 9,000 Palestinian women since October 7 of last year.
It added in a statement on the occasion of the International Women’s Day that 75% of the total wounded in Gaza, 72,156, are women while women and children constituted 70% of the 7,000 people missing.
The statement pointed out that half of the two million displaced people in the Gaza Strip are women.
