GAZA, (PIC)
The Commission for Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoners’ Association issued an urgent appeal, in a joint statement on Monday, to the world and international human rights organizations to put pressure on Israel to reveal the fate of Gazan detainees and stop forced disappearance crime against them.
This came after the spread of data about escalating horrific crimes being carried out against Gazan detainees, the latest of which was the data reported by the Israeli Haaretz newspaper which revealed on Monday that hundreds of Palestinians who were detained in Gaza and taken to the “Sde Teman” base near Beersheba were killed as a result of harsh detention conditions, while their exact number and the circumstances of their deaths are not clear.
Haaretz added that the Gazan detainees are kept in fenced compounds with their eyes covered and hands cuffed for most of the day with restricted movement and limited food.
The newspaper reported that the Israeli army detained 500 Palestinians from the Gaza Strip until the end of last November, claiming they belonged to Hamas and Islamic Jihad movements.
The newspaper said that the Gazan prisoners sleep on very thin mattresses in three detention sections, each of which contains about 200 detainees, while a fourth section is being under construction.
The announcement of the martyrdom of a number of prisoners comes after the newspaper revealed a few days ago that 6 Palestinian prisoners were martyred inside Israeli prisons under torture after October 7.
Israeli media had broadcast scenes showing dozens of Palestinian detainees stripped naked and blindfolded, which sparked international outrage.
The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor announced that the testimonies it collected were consistent with the Israeli outlet’s findings regarding the martyrdom of Palestinian detainees from Gaza due to torture in an Israeli center that the Euro-Med Monitor described as a “new Guantanamo”.
It further stated that “the age group of the Palestinian detainees killed while under investigation ranges from minors to elderly individuals.”
Among the crimes committed by the Israeli occupation army against civilians are forced displacement, field executions, random and arbitrary arrests, and harassment.
The Monitor also highlighted how detainees were stripped of their clothes, handcuffed, abused, forced to sit on their knees in open areas, and subjected to severe beatings and harassment despite the very cold weather.
In the prison compound, the light is on all night long. Some detainees were even used by the Israeli army as human shields.
To this end, the Euro-Med Monitor called for “an impartial and urgent international investigation into the Israeli army’s field execution of Palestinian civilians after detaining them from various areas across the Gaza Strip.”
