Arab League: The Israeli occupation continues to practice organized terrorism and enforced disappearance against Palestinian detainees

The General Secretariat of the league of Arab states (Palestine and the occupied Arab territories) has confirmed that the Israeli occupation authorities have bren practicing organized terrorism and committing crimes and vicious violations against Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and detention centers since the seventh of last October.

In a statement issued on the occasion of the International Day of Solidarity with prisoners and detainees in the occupation prisons and secret detention facilities, the General Secretariat explained that the Israeli authorities are imprisoning thousands of Palestinian civilians, including the elderly, women and children from Gaza and nearly ten thousand people from the West Bank in the occupation detention facilities in the most vicious and unprecedented detention campaigns.

According to the statement, the occupation authorities use various means of torture, abuse and physical liquidation under complete blackout on their horrific crimes against Palestinian prisoners, including brutal sexual assault, the policy of thirst and starvation, not to mention depriving patients of medical care and treatment and isolating them from the outside world, and preventing the International Committee of the Red Cross from visiting the prisons, in conjunction with the complete suspension of family visits.

“This is in addition to documenting dozens of cases of the occupation army using Palestinian detainees from the Gaza Strip as human shields and forcing them to explore dangerous combat zones, which expresses its brutal and inhumane behavior,” the statement added.

The league stressed the need for Human Rights Institutions, the Red Cross and the international community to shoulder their responsibilities towards prisoners and detainees and work to oblige Israel, the “occupying power” to implement the Geneva Conventions on prisoners. It calls on the international justice institutions to take practical and serious steps against this brutal torture based on collective revenge, which amounted to murder.

It stressed the need to pressure the occupation government to stop committing the crime of enforced disappearance against Palestinian detainees from Gaza Strip and the immediate disclosure of all secret detention camps. It also called on the Special Rapporteur on torture and arbitrary detention to conduct an immediate and impartial investigation into the occupation’s practices in its Israeli prisons and detention centers and to take firm measures to hold accountable those responsible for these crimes.

It emphasized the need to end the Israeli occupation and enable the Palestinian people to exercise their right to self-determination and to embody their independent state on their national land.

Amal Farhat