The Palestinian Prisoners Society (PPS) published a report on the living conditions of the Palestinian detainees in the Israeli Be’er Shiva and Nafha prisons. According to the report, the detainees are subjected to repeated attacks and facing bad living and health conditions.
Lawyer of the PPS, Fawwaz Al Shalloudi, met with several detainees imprisoned in the two detention facilities.
Detainees imprisoned in Eshil section at the Be’er Shiva prison complained of sharp lack of clothes as the prison administration limits the number of clothes each detainee is allowed to have.
Recently, soldiers broke into the facility and confiscated the “extra” clothes found with the detainees and placed them in storage rooms in preparation to return them to the parent of the detainees when they come for visitation.
Yet, the detainees complained that they lack clothes and are facing problems with the Prison Administration regarding the limitation on the amount of clothes each detainee is allowed to have.
The detainees are lacking underwear clothing and pullovers which forces them to wash their clothes on daily basis to have enough clean clothes to wear when they shower.
Moreover, the detainees added that their families have to suffer from long travel hours and extended periods of waiting until they are able to visit them, and in many cases, they are returned back home without visiting them.
Some of the detainees asked their parents not to visit them in order to avoid the suffering they have to endure each time they want to visit them.
In many cases, after the families go through the long traveling hours, and the waiting at the prisons, yet soldiers at the detention facilities reduced the visitation period to 25 minutes after it originally was 45 minutes.
The detainees also complained that they are not receiving mails from their families especially since there is no coordination between the Palestinian and Israeli postal services.
Mail became the only means of communication for dozens of detainees who are barred from their visitation rights.
Also, the detainees complained that soldiers repeatedly broke into their rooms at night and searched them without any apparent reason.
Regarding the health conditions of the detainees, Al Shalloudi stated that some of the detainees need surgeries, others need hospitalization for treatment and medical checkup, but prison administration is ignoring their cases.
The detainees complained of bad food, and if they want to buy their own food from the prison Canteen, they have to pay expensive prices.
Lawyer Al Shalloudi also met with detainee Jamil Fares Zyoud, 51, from Jenin, who complained that was confined to the solitary section in prison since he was taken prisoner 10 years ago.
Zyoud was sentenced to 15 years, and is suffering from high blood pressure and diabetes; he has been barred from his visitation rights since 2001.
Detainee Ibrahim Al Abbasy, representative of the detainees in Nafha prison, said that the main problem that the detainees face is the bad treatment they are subjected to by the guards.
He added that the detainees are subjected to continuous provocative acts, abuse and attacks, and that some detainees were punched and kicked by the soldiers.
Also, Al Abbasy reported that when the detainees object to the harsh treatment and the bad living conditions, the Israeli Prison Authority punishes them by imposing high fines that could exceed 3000 NIS, and bars them from their visitation rights for one month.
Abbasy stated that the families of the detainees are also subjected to provocative searches by the soldiers before they are allowed in the detention facility to visit their detained family members.
