‘We will not leave Gaza until all the kidnapped return’: Netanyahu
Addressing family members of the remaining captives held in Gaza, Netanyahu says Israeli forces “will not leave the Gaza Strip until all the kidnapped return”, Israeli Army Radio reports.
Netanyahu reiterated that Israel “will eliminate Hamas’s military and governmental capabilities”.
נתניהו למשפחות חטופים שאינם בחיים: "לא נצא מהרצועה עד שכל החטופים יחזרו ונחסל את היכולות הצבאיות והשלטוניות של חמאס"@yanircozin pic.twitter.com/VJw3mZO2rB
— גלצ (@GLZRadio) June 20, 2024
Hamas calls on UN to follow up on conditions of Palestinian detainees
Hamas has called on “human rights organisations and the UN to work on following up on the conditions of Palestinian detainees” in Israeli prisons.
“We emphasise the need to document these crimes as war crimes, a violation of all international treaties and conventions, and an escalation in the campaign of genocide and ethnic cleansing,” it said in a statement.
As of mid-April, about 9,500 Palestinians from Gaza and the occupied West Bank had been jailed by Israel, according to estimates from the Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, a rights group based in the West Bank city of Ramallah that supports Palestinian prisoners.
US Muslim rights group denounces ‘complicity’ in torture of detainees
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) urged the US government to probe “growing reports of the systematic torture of Palestinian detainees by Israeli forces”.
It cited allegations by Mohammed Saber Arab, a correspondent for Al Araby TV. He was detained at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City in March by Israeli troops. Detainees are blindfolded and handcuffed 24 hours a day and subjected to continuous torture, physical and sexual abuse and humiliation, said Arab.
“Because the Biden administration is complicit in the far-right Israeli government’s genocide, forced starvation and ethnic cleansing, it is also complicit in the torture of Palestinian detainees,” said Nihad Awad, CAIR’s national executive director, in a statement.
“A nation that receives billions of American taxpayer dollars cannot engage in torture or any other of the war crimes Israeli forces commit on a daily basis.”
