On the eve of the day of the injured Palestinian,
Number :/2023
Date: April 16, 2023
Press release
On the eve of the day of the injured Palestinian,
International Commission (Hashd): Calls for the internationalization of the issue of Palestinian prisoners and detainees in occupation prisons.
Tuesday, April 17, 2023, every year, marks Palestinian Prisoner’s Day. The day was adopted by the Palestinian National Council in 1974 as a national day for prisoners’ freedom and the advancement of their just cause. Since then, the Palestinian people have celebrated this occasion in many ways and forms. Let us remind the world how large the issue of Palestinian prisoners and detainees is and of the horrors and grave violations to which they are subjected in the prisons of occupation, contrary to the lowest provisions of international and humanitarian norms and instruments, in particular international humanitarian law, in particular the provisions of the Third and Fourth Geneva Conventions, the principles of human rights, and the provisions of the Rome Charter, which founded the International Criminal Court.
This year’s event comes at a time when occupation crimes have escalated against prisoners and detainees in Israeli military prisons. in more than one level, including ill-treatment and detention under inhumane conditions, psychological and physical torture, denial of their right to visit and to communicate with the outside world, administrative detention without trial and forced unilateral isolation, sometimes spanning years, deliberate medical neglect and failure to provide adequate medical attention, intrusion into their rooms by special repression units, gas spraying, and naked inspection; In addition, the occupying power has legalized its practices against them by promulgating a series of racist laws, notably the “Exection of Prisoners” Act and the Prohibition of the Provision of Health Services to Them Act.
According to the data available to the Commission, since the beginning of this year, the Government of the Right and the Israeli Prison Administration have, on the instructions of the Minister of National Security, escalated the destruction of prisoners in Israeli prisons and deprived them of the life gains they had achieved through the struggle of the captive movement.
The Israeli occupation authorities also escalated arbitrary arrests by raiding Palestinian towns and villages, particularly in the occupied city of Jerusalem. This policy led to the arrest of 2,300 people. Arrests in occupied Jerusalem were the highest compared with the rest of the West Bank governorates. 4900 prisoners, including 31 women and 160 children, including a girl under the age of 18, in addition to more than 1000 administrative detainees, including 6 children, and also two female prisoners (Raghad Arafi and Rawda Abu Ajamiyah). The number of old prisoners arrested prior to the signing of the Oslo Agreement is 23. Since 1967, there have been some 236 martyrs of the captive movement, as well as hundreds of prisoners who have been martyred after being released from prison. The number of martyred prisoners held in custody is about 12. The number of prisoners sick in occupation prisons has reached more than 700 prisoners suffering from diseases to varying degrees. They need constant follow-up and health care, including at least 24 prisoners and detainees with cancer and tumors of varying degrees, The most difficult case today is that of a prisoner, Walid Dakha, who has been detained for 37 years.
With regard to the situation of prisoners in the occupation prisons, the occupation organs, notably the administration of the occupation prisons, have continued to implement their arbitrary policies in accordance with the rights of prisoners and child prisoners. February This year, a series of protest steps, marked by daily disobedience that lasted for a whole month for all aspects of detention life, rejected the measures announced by the Minister of Radical National Security, “Ben Ghafir,” which targeted many details, including the amount of water that prisoners are allowed to use, bath hours, bread, etc., until the prisoners, in agreement with the prison administration, were able to push them back on their recently announced actions. Individual and open hunger strikes remain, as is the case with the “Khader Adnan” prisoner strike, which is on hunger strike for the day (72) in protest against his arbitrary and unlawful administrative detention.
At the national level, prisoners, detainees, and their families continue to suffer from a lack of adequate enjoyment of their social, health, educational, and developmental rights. As a result of many reasons at the forefront, these rights have been incorporated into the polarities and come to divide the families, where a large number of liberated families were deprived of their allowances other than the absence of a national strategy to protect their families and internationalize their case. What has come to require the incorporation of their issues into the government’s agenda is recognition of their role in the national struggle and in order to achieve inherent dignity without any discrimination.
The International Commission to Support the Palestinian Rights (Hashd), which salutes prisoners and detainees and their relatives on their glorious day, renews its support for them and their legitimate demands, and renews its high respect for their role in the national struggle of the Palestinian people, registers and demands the following:
- The International Commission (Hashd) calls on the international community to intervene to compel the occupying power to abide by the norms of international humanitarian law, in particular the provisions of the Third and Fourth Geneva Conventions and other international human rights standards, in particular the Conventions and Charters on the Rights of Prisoners and People Deprived of Their Liberty, the 1955 Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, and the 1988 Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons under Any Form of Detention or Imprisonment, in the context of their dealings with Palestinian prisoners and detainees
- The International Commission (Hashd) calls on the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to initiate an immediate investigation into Israel’s grave violations of Palestinian prisoners and detainees in occupation prisons, including hunger strikers, which would contribute to ending impunity for Israeli occupation leaders and ensure the issue of Israeli occupation crimes against prisoners and detainees in Israeli occupation prisons.
- The International Commission (Hashd) calls on the Palestinian leadership to adopt an integrated national strategy based on internationalizing the issue of Palestinian prisoners and detainees in occupation prisons. By activating Palestinian diplomacy, both official and popular, and by mandating Palestine’s embassies and missions to international organizations to activate solidarity with prisoners and detainees; by using all international and regional mechanisms to rehabilitate justice for Palestinian prisoners and detainees and to mobilize global support on their issues; and by pressuring the occupying power to stop its crimes against them until their release. This includes intensifying the struggle and taking national and popular action to support the struggle and family rights in Israeli occupation prisons, thereby contributing to their protection and release.
Finished
The International Commission to Support the Palestinian Rights (Hashd)
