PALESTINE : The number of Palestinian prisoners being held across Israeli prisons has reached over 9,500, according to a statement released by prisoner rights institutions on 16 April.
The Palestinian Authority-linked (PA) Commission for Prisoners’ and Ex-Prisoners’ Affairs, the Palestinian Prisoners Society (PPS), and the Addameer prisoner rights group released the data in a joint statement on Tuesday, one day before Palestinian Prisoners’ Day on 17 April.
The prisoners include 80 women and over 200 children being held in Israel’s Megiddo, Ofer, and Damon prisons. These numbers do not include the thousands detained or subjected to forced disappearance by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip.
According to the joint statement, more than 3,660 of these prisoners are being held without charge, including 22 women and 40 children, adding that hundreds of sick and wounded Palestinians are detained and that their numbers are rising due to “the crimes, policies, and systematic retaliatory measures imposed by the Occupation on the prisoners, most notably torture and medical crimes.”
This comes as the body of Palestinian prisoner and resistance icon Walid Daqqa, who succumbed to cancer in early April due to Israel’s medical negligence, has yet to be handed over to his family.
Since the start of the Gaza war in October, scores of Palestinians in the strip have been kidnapped by Israeli troops, or have disappeared without a trace.
On 15 April, Israel released around 150 prisoners back into Gaza after having detained them during operations in the strip.
Many were admitted to hospitals and gave testimonies of severe ill-treatment, abuse, and torture by Israeli forces.
“I went into jail with two legs and I returned with one leg. I had inflammations in my leg, and they [the Israelis] refused to take me to the hospital. A week later, the inflammations spread and became gangrene.
They took me to hospital where I had the surgery,” one released prisoner said. Others reported that they had no idea where they were being held.
Since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came to power in 2022 and his National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir assumed control of the Israeli prison system, detainees have faced increasing repression, violence, and abuses of basic human rights.
BY News Desk
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