The Palestinian Ministry of Detainees reported Sunday that 61 Palestinian political prisoners, held at the Nafha Israeli detention camp in the Negev Desert, were injured after the army attacked them in order to extract DNA samples from them.Minister of Detainees, Issa Qaraqe’, stated that dozens of soldiers and prison guards attacked the detainees with clubs and batons wounding 61 of them.
Qaraqe’ added that the soldiers were trying to extract DNA samples from the detainees by force, and when they refused the illegal Israeli act, the soldiers assaulted them.
Last week, soldiers attacked dozens of detainees in Nafha, Megiddo , Gilboa’ and Ramon prisons and detention camps, and forcibly extracted DNA samples from several detainees.
Palestinian Ministry of Detainees reported that the soldiers stormed into the detainees’ rooms, and took them one by one to small cells where they were tied to chairs, and DNA samples were forcefully extracted from them.
Detainee Jamal Rajoub, representative of the detainees in Ramon Prison, stated that the tests were conducted in a forceful and degrading manner , and that the soldiers extracted follicles form different parts of the detainees’ bodies, sometimes from the belly-button, and other times from their chests, armpits or heads.
Rajoub added that the detainees did not consent to these tests and refused to sign documents that the army tried to force on them.
He further stated that soldiers of the “Dror” Brigade attacked and beat several detainees who objected to the illegal tests.
The attacked detainees were cuffed and dragged on the ground to smaller cells where DNA samples were extracted from them by force; the detainees were kept in the cells after the DNA samples were illegally obtained.
