UN says unknown number of prisoners from Gaza held in Israeli jails
The UN humanitarian agency, OCHA, has said that the number of “Palestinians from Gaza who have been detained by the Israeli military” since October 7, 2023 “remains unknown”.
OCHA said that data released by the Israel Prison Service (IPS) to Hamoked, an Israeli human rights organisation, did not include Palestinian prisoners from Gaza.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said in December that it had been unable to visit any Palestinians held in Israeli prisons since October 7, a violation of Israel’s obligations under the Geneva Conventions to provide access to the ICRC.
Israeli authorities have reportedly failed to even notify family members when their loved ones have been killed – with the death of Dr Iyad al-Rantisi, 53, the head of a women’s hospital in Beit Lahiya in an Israeli interrogation facility last November, only reported last week.
Unconfirmed reports suggest that over-crowding and the need to free up space in packed Israeli prisons were behind the release of 55 Palestinians, including the director of al-Shifa Hospital Mohammed Abu Salmiya, on Monday.
Many of the Palestinians released from Israeli prisons recount torture, psychological abuse and being kept in inhumane and degrading conditions.
Overcrowding Israeli prisons with Palestinian detainees ‘is a good thing’: Ben-Gvir
Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has called for the Sde Teiman prison to keep its doors open to Palestinian detainees, despite overcrowding.
“We are overcrowded in prisons, and it is a good thing,” Ben-Gvir was quoted as saying by Israeli media outlets. “This is not a reason to release [Palestinian detainees], that is how they are supposed to be. These are terrorists, I give them what is required by law – the minimum,” he said.
Ben-Gvir said on X that the problem was not overcrowding in the prison but the fact that the Shin Bet – Israel’s internal security service – wants “to improve the conditions of the terrorists we reduced, and if not – to release them”. “And I say: It will not arise and will not be,” he said.
The dispute comes after reports that more than 50 Palestinian detainees, including the director of Gaza’s al-Shifa Hospital Muhammad Abu Salmiya, were released by Israel yesterday due to overcrowding in the country’s prisons.
Israel’s Prison Service said that the Sde Teiman prison took in 500 Palestinian detainees last month at the request of the army.
‘Nothing but utter torture’: Testimonies of Palestinian prisoners
Faraj al-Samouni, among the 55 Palestinians to be released on Monday from months-long Israeli detention, has described what detainees inside Israeli prisons endure.
“I wish none of the detainees had to go through interrogation,” he said, struggling to describe his experience.
“It is nothing but utter torture; total torment. May God help those detainees being interrogated by Israel’s internal security service. Tortured, battered and our genitals beaten. Verbally and physically abused; only God knows. For God’s sake, set them free and release them from that hell.”
Al-Samouni said conditions inside the prison cells were “unimaginable”.
“Diseases broke out among the detainees. About 30 are kept in one cell. Our bodies are plagued with abscesses, mange, gangrene. We were given only one cup of rice per day, a piece of tomato and a piece of cucumber, with a small loaf of bread.”
Israel says it abides by international law in its treatment of detainees but other recently released Palestinians gave similar accounts to that of al-Samouni.
“Even those who have been detained for more than 10 years have been deprived of their rights and many were killed under interrogation,” al-Shifa Hospital Director Muhammad Abu Salmiya said at a news conference after his release.
“Many of the medical staff arrested have been denied food, water and medicine. The Israelis have no red lines. They deal with detainees like they’re objects, not human beings. Even the Israeli medics are involved in the beatings.”
This broke through to CNN, at least some Western reporting
Senior Gaza doctor alleges ‘severe torture’ following release from Israeli detention as politicians clash over decision
The head of Gaza’s largest hospital has claimed he was repeatedly tortured during his seven months in Israeli detention, following his sudden release Monday, in a move that highlighted growing rifts in the Israeli establishment.
Dr. Mohammed Abu Salmiya, the director of the Al-Shifa medical complex, who was arrested in late November during the first of two Israeli raids on the facility in Gaza City, was released along with 50 other Palestinian detainees.
Their release has sparked outcry in Israel and was criticized across the political spectrum, as well as by families of the Israeli hostages kidnapped by Hamas during its deadly October 7 attack.
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