250 days on, Israel continues to carry out crimes against detainees: Rights group
The Palestinian Prisoners’ Club has said that Israeli authorities continue to hold 9,170 Palestinians from the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, in prisons, where they are being subject to systemic violence.
In a statement, the organisation said there has been an increase in detentions since October 7 and also in the “level of crimes that accompany the arrest campaigns, most notably field executions carried out by the army as it raids towns and villages”.
Israeli forces, the organisation said, have focused on the families of prisoners, especially fathers, and those who had previously been arrested, in addition to the families of those killed – subjecting them to harassment and threats.
“Israeli authorities have been carrying out crimes against detainees for decades. The difference since the war began, however, is the intensity of these assaults and the fact that the occupation has institutionalised these violations at unprecedented levels,” it said.
Detainees in Ofer prison facing difficult living conditions: Organisation
The Commission for Detainees’ Affairs has said conditions in detention in the military prison located near Ramallah has been deteriorating since October 7 as part of Israel’s “systematic escalation policy against all detainees”.
The organisation said lawyers who managed to visit detainees there say that since the war on Gaza began, Israeli authorities have reduced food quantities, while at times providing spoiled meals that have made prisoners sick.
It said that detainees are being forbidden from getting clothes for the hotter weather, and that some have not been able to change their outfits for three months.
The organisation also said that Israeli prison authorities are collectively punishing prisoners by reducing the time they’re allowed out into the yard to 40 minutes instead of one hour.
