Zionist crimes against detainees escalate

The Zionist occupation authorities have escalated  their oppressive measures against the Palestinian people capitalizing on the international silence towards their atrocious crimes.

Israeli forces have arrested some 2,500 Palestinians, half of them children, since the beginning of October. This large group of civilians had been detained for varying terms. The United Nations should provide protection for Palestinian people, particularly those who are languishing behind bars in Israel.

A total of 7,000 Palestinian prisoners, including 430 children and 40 women, remained in the Zionist regime’s jails. Since the start of the popular uprising, the pace of administrative arrests had accelerated as the number (of those held without trial) reached about 500, including detainees from Jerusalem (East al-Quds).

 The UN should send investigation missions to probe serious war crimes and crimes against humanity currently committed against the detainees.  Tel Aviv’s actions within the detention centers were against UN resolutions, the UN Charter and the international humanitarian law.

Israel adopted a policy of carrying out wide arrest campaigns in the Palestinian territories, targeting mostly people below 18 years old. More than 100 Palestinians have been killed and hundreds of others injured since the Israeli regime began a harsh crackdown on the Palestinians in early October.

A rights group says nearly 400 Palestinian children ranging from 13 to 17 years old are currently being held in Israeli jails.

The Palestinian Prisoners’ Society (PPS) said that most of the children had been arrested by Israeli forces across the occupied Palestinian lands since the beginning of October.

Israeli forces arrested roughly 700 Palestinian children across the occupied West Bank and East al-Quds (Jerusalem) in the course of the current uprising that surged early last month.

According to the group, the arrested Palestinian children are held at interrogation and detention centers with no food or water. All children captured by Israeli troops were subjected to different types of torture and forced to make confession through physical and verbal coercion.

More than 7,000 Palestinian prisoners are currently held in some 17 Israeli jails, dozens of whom are serving multiple life sentences. About 540 Palestinians are being held without trial under the so-called administrative detention.

Administrative detention is a sort of imprisonment without trial or charge that allows Israel to incarcerate Palestinians for up to six months. The detention order can be renewed for indefinite periods.

The United Nations has expressed concerns over Israel’s illegal settlement activities, settler violence, and continued destruction of Palestinian homes.

The UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People said that we continue to witness illegal settlement activities and settler-related violence. Demolitions of Palestinian-owned structures have continued, including punitive demolitions. Israeli authorities use of excessive force only further angers and frustrates the Palestinians. It is abundantly clear that Palestinians feel deep frustration over an occupation and its oppressive policies.

The Israeli regime routinely orders the demolition of the houses of those Palestinians whom it accuses of being involved in attacks against Israelis. The destruction of Palestinian homes and buildings comes as the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits an occupying entity from destroying private property or forcibly transferring the region’s population.

The demolition of Palestinian homes come hand in hand with Tel Aviv’s policy of construction of illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis currently reside in more than 120 illegal settlements constructed since the regime’s occupation of the Palestinian territories in 1967. The settlements are considered illegal by  the international community. Israeli settlers have in recent years carried out various attacks, including arson attacks, and daubed graffiti on Palestinian property in the West Bank and al-Quds.

K.Q.