The Palestinian Prisoners’ Society (PPS) confirmed, Sunday, that the Israeli army exiled a Palestinian female journalist from the occupied West Bank to the devastated and destroyed Gaza Strip, after abducting her earlier this month.
The PPS said the army abducted the journalist, Seeqal Yousef Qaddoum, 51, after stopping her at a military roadblock near Ramallah, in the central West Bank, on February 1st.
While the detained journalist was born in the Gaza Strip, she has been living for many years in the Shiokh Palestinian town, east of the southern West Bank city of Hebron.
The PPS added that the army transferred the detained journalist from one of its prisons to the Kerem Shalom Crossing, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, before exiling her to the devastated and destroyed coastal enclave.
Seeqal works for the official, government-run Palestine TV, and was abducted by the soldiers on February 1st after they stopped her at a military roadblock near Ramallah.
She was first taken to HaSharon Israeli prison and then to the Damoun prison, and was interrogated but was never facing charges.
The PPS said the number of female Palestinian detainees in Damoun Israeli prison is more than 45, and added that it doesn’t have any available data on the number of detainees, who were abducted in the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023, due to Israel’s restrictions on such information, even to international human rights groups, and added that many detainees are subject to “forced disappearances.”
On Sunday morning, the PPS said the number of Palestinian political prisoners has exceeded 6,950 Palestinians, including many elders, women, and children, mostly from their homes, and the dozens who were taken prisoner at military roadblocks, across the occupied West Bank.
Since October 7, the Israeli army began a massive abduction campaign in the West Bank, targeting women, men, and children, and dozens of Palestinians, including laborers from the Gaza Strip who have been living and working in the West Bank, including occupied Jerusalem.
The Palestinian Detainees’ Committee said the abductions have seriously escalated, and include massive searches and destruction of homes and property across the West Bank, including in and around occupied Jerusalem.
It added that while not all of the abductees remain imprisoned, most are either in interrogation facilities, and various prisons and detention camps and dozens were slapped with arbitrary Administrative Detention orders, held without charges or trial for renewable periods that generally vary between three and six months each time.
On February 5, 2024, the Ad-Dameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association said the number of political prisoners held by Israel reached 9,000, including 70 women and 200 children, in addition to 3,484 Palestinians held under Administrative Detention orders.
