Since the Israeli occupation in 1967, Israeli forces have arrested
700,000 Palestinian residents of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East
Jerusalem according to a report issued Tuesday by the Palestinian
Ministry of Health’s Statistics Department. Fifty thousand
Palestinians have been arrested since the start of the second intifada
in September 2000. Five thousand of these are children, while 390
remain in prison. Eight children are being held without charge or
trial.
The report also found that 183 political prisoners were killed by torture in interrogation cells, willful killing after arrest, and medical neglect. Four hundred twenty-four political prisoners have been in Israeli jails for more than 10 years, and 64 more than 20 years.
According to Israeli law, torture and internationally banned forms of physical and psychological abuse are legal. Among the techniques used are physical and psychological abuse, including beatings, refrigeration, fear, violent shaking, standing for long periods of time, sleep deprivation, food deprivation, relatives tortured, spitting in the face, being shackled while bent, beatings in the stomach, back and head, etcetera, to destroy a person’s will and obtain false or coerced ‘confessions.’
As a result, all prisoners suffer from illness and disease. One thousand prisoners have serious diseases, 200 of these are chronic.
Currently around 10,300 Palestinian prisoners are being held in Israeli prisons.
Sourced from PNN
