JEDDAH, (PIC)
The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) called for an urgent investigation into the violations committed by the Israeli occupation authorities against Palestinian prisoners in their jails, and to compel them to respect international conventions.
In a press statement on Friday, the Organization expressed its concern over the continuation and intensification of the Israeli occupation’s brutal crimes and unprecedented violations against thousands of Palestinian detainees, which have been documented by specialized legal institutions.
Human rights institutions have documented dozens of testimonies from Palestinian prisoners from the Gaza Strip who were released by the Israeli occupation. The prisoners gave horrific testimonies about methods of torture and various crimes they were subjected to in the dungeons of the Israeli prisons, including execution, torture, starvation, rape, isolation and enforced disappearance.
The OIC said that the Israeli crimes against the Palestinian prisoners “have led to the martyrdom of 20 prisoners since October 7, 2023, in addition to the martyrdom of dozens of detainees whose identities have not been revealed so far.”
The Organization also condemned “the continued campaigns of arbitrary arrests carried out by the Israeli occupation forces, which has led to an increase in the number of Palestinian prisoners to more than 9,700, including 80 female detainees, 52 journalists, more than 250 children, and more than 3,380 administrative detainees held without charge or trial, and about 600 detainees serving life sentences.”
The OIC called for an urgent international investigation into the inhumane conditions and ongoing Israeli violations against Palestinian prisoners in Israeli occupation prisons, which amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, and constitute a blatant violation of all the standards and rules stipulated in international humanitarian law.
It called on the international community and the specialized human rights institutions to assume their responsibilities and work to compel the Israeli occupation authorities to deal with Palestinian prisoners in accordance with the relevant international covenants.
The Authority for Prisoners’ Affairs had previously confirmed that the image conveyed is just a small part of the full picture of what prisoners, especially from the Gaza Strip, are subjected to, pointing to horrific facts about the treatment of prisoners.
Since its invasion of the Gaza Strip on October 27 last year, the occupying army has arrested thousands of Palestinians, including women and children, and later released a small number of them, while the fate of many others remains unknown, amid testimonies of systematic torture against the detainees.
