Palestinians mark Prisoner’s Day as hundreds of detainees suffer in Israeli jails

Protesters rally on Monday in solidarity with prisoners held in Israeli jails, outside the International Committee of the Red Cross office in Gaza City. (AFP)
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Updated 17 April 2023
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Palestinians mark Prisoner’s Day as hundreds of detainees suffer in Israeli jails

  • PA, political parties are failing to liberate prisoners, says head of Prisoners’ Club
  • Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s hard-line measures fuel concern among families

RAMALLAH: Freeing all Palestinian detainees must be a priority of the Palestinian Authority, a top activist reiterated on Monday as the public commemorated Prisoner’s Day.

But the authority and political parties in Palestine are failing to do enough to liberate the thousands of detainees imprisoned by Israel, added Qadura Faris, head of the Prisoners’ Club.

His remarks come amid growing frustration over Israel’s misreatement of hundreds of Palestinian security prisoners including patients, women, children and the elderly, while the occupation authorities’ campaign of arrests continues.

Palestinians commemorate Prisoner’s Day on April 17 every year.

The Palestinian National Council adopted the day as a national day for prisoners in 1974, unifying efforts and activities to campaign for their freedom.

According to Prisoners’ Club data, Israel is detaining 4,900 prisoners, including 31 women, 160 children, more than 1,000 administrative detainees and 19 journalists, as well as hundreds of sick and older prisoners who are being kept in harsh conditions.

Almost 400 of the prisoners have been detained for more than 20 years.

About 2,000 Palestinian prisoners planned an open hunger strike coinciding with the month of Ramadan to protest against their conditions and detention terms, especially after recent activity by Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

However, last-minute negotiations dissuaded them from starting the strike after the prison administration promised to respond to some of their humanitarian demands.

Palestinian political analyst Hani Al-Masr said that Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons need more than an annual event on Prisoner’s Day.

They need answers as to why there are Palestinians who have spent more than 40 years in detention, he said.

More than 1,000 are administrative prisoners, and some have been detained since before the signing of the Oslo Accords, which did not provide for their release.

Al-Masr added: “Every day, the number of prisoners increases, as their number has increased by more than 2,300 since the beginning of this year.

“The occupation’s measures against them are harsh, to the point of passing laws related to prisoners, including nationality, execution and rationing treatment.”

Al-Masri said that Palestinian prisoners “fulfilled their duty when they steadfastly endured despite the harshness of the prisons and cells, and adhered to their cause and the Palestinian rights, including the right of the occupied people to resist the occupation comprehensively.

“At the same time, the official leadership, leaders, forces, elites, civil institutions and individuals did not fulfill their duty,” he added.

The Prisoners’ Club announced the launch of a campaign under the slogan “Our Freedom is a Duty” on the eve of Prisoner’s Day.

In the holy month, Palestinian families with imprisoned relatives miss their presence during iftar events.

Laila Zawahra, 70, from Bethlehem, told Arab News that her son Mohammed Zawahra — sentenced to life imprisonment — as well as the rest of the prisoners, live in difficult conditions.

Since his arrest 21 years ago, Zawahra has missed some of the rituals of Ramadan, including enjoying qatayef sweets.

His mother claimed that prison authorities prevent the families of prisoners from providing them with necessities, forcing them to buy them from the prison cafeteria at very high prices.

Zawahra said that she and her family remember Mohammed whenever they sit together for iftar, and recall his favorite foods.

The prisoner issue is considered vital to the Palestinian people, as there are few families that do not have a relative who has been detained or previously arrested.

The number of Palestinians who have been arrested since the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories exceeds 1 million.

The suffering of Palestinian security prisoners has increased since the arrival of the new Israeli government, with Minister Ben-Gvir pledging unprecedented punitive measures against them.

In practice, the right-wing Israeli government has begun to harass the prisoners, the head of the Prisoners’ Club warned.

The persecution comes in the form of enacting new laws or through statements by Ben-Gvir against detainees.

Faris said that both the Israeli government and opposition agree on the need to target prisoners with sanctions, which is a matter of concern.

The Palestinian Prisoners emergency committee said on April 17: “The real revival of Palestinian Prisoner’s Day and fulfilling it is represented in the practical and real endeavor to liberate the prisoners.

“The path of liberating the prisoners is known to every free member of our people and our nation, and achieving our freedom is a duty for all the sons of this living cause.

“We expect actions from you, not words, as words quickly fall apart under the unjust whips of the jailer.”

The challenging cases of prisoners Walid Daqqa, who is facing a severe health condition, and Asif Al-Rifai, who has cancer, are being highlighted by the campaign. It also sheds light on the issue of sick prisoners who face medical negligence.

The Prisoners’ Club also appealed to all parties within the Palestinian national movement — regardless of their orientation — to re-consider working to liberate the prisoners and reposition the issue at the top of national concerns.

The club added: “It is not permissible for the leaders and speakers to be proud of the number of years of detention for this or that fighter among the prisoners, but rather they should be proud of their liberation, and create real hopes for them of freedom and relief.

“This is the responsibility of the factions and forces. They are responsible for it before the people and the prisoners.”


Syrian state news agency reports Israeli strike in Aleppo region

Updated 8 sec ago
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Syrian state news agency reports Israeli strike in Aleppo region

  • The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, reported that the strikes had targeted military installations

 

DAMASCUS: Syrian state media reported an Israeli strike Saturday on the countryside of Aleppo and Idlib that injured soldiers and caused damage.
“At around 00:45 after midnight, the Israeli army launched an air aggression from the direction of southeast Aleppo, targeting a number of sites in the countryside of Aleppo and Idlib,” the official SANA news agency said.
The report added that the attack had “resulted in the injury of a number of soldiers and some material losses,” without providing further details.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, reported the strikes had targeted military installations.
The war monitor also said members of the Iranian revolutionary guards and pro-Tehran factions were based in the area.
Since the beginning of the Syrian civil war in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria, mainly targeting army positions and Iran-backed fighters including from Hezbollah.
The Israeli military has intensified its strikes on Syria since it launched its war on Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon.
Israeli authorities rarely comment on the strikes but have repeatedly said they will not allow arch-enemy Iran to expand its presence in Syria.
 

 


 


UN probe says women, children comprise the majority of Gaza war dead

Updated 09 November 2024
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UN probe says women, children comprise the majority of Gaza war dead

  • The report detailed a raft of violations of international law since Oct. 7

GENEVA: The UN on Friday condemned the staggering number of civilians killed in Israel’s war in Gaza, with women and children comprising nearly 70 percent of the thousands of fatalities it had managed to verify.
In a fresh report, slammed by Israel, the United Nations human rights office (OHCHR) detailed a raft of violations of international law since Hamas’s deadly Oct. 7 attack in Israel sparked the war in the Gaza Strip.
Many could amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity and possibly even “genocide,” it warned, demanding international efforts to prevent “atrocity crimes” and ensure accountability.
“Civilians in Gaza have borne the brunt of the attacks, including through the initial ‘complete siege’ of Gaza by Israeli forces,” the UN said.
“Conduct by Israeli forces has caused unprecedented levels of killings, death, injury, starvation, illness and disease.”
It pointed to “the Israeli government’s continuing unlawful failures to allow, facilitate and ensure the entry of humanitarian aid, the destruction of civilian infrastructure, and repeated mass displacement.”
Israel’s mission to the UN in Geneva “categorically” rejected the report, decrying “the inherent obsession of OHCHR with the demonization of Israel.”
“Gaza is now a rubble-strewn landscape,” Ajith Sunghay, head of the UN rights office’s activities in the Palestinian territories, said via video-link from Amman.
“Within this dystopia of destruction and devastation, those alive are left injured, displaced and starving.”
Friday’s report also found that Hamas and other armed groups had committed widespread violations that could amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, including seizing hostages, killings, torture and sexual violence.
Those violations, it said, were especially committed in connection with the October 7, 2023 attack, which resulted in 1,206 deaths, mostly of civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
The report also tackled the contentious issue of the proportion of civilians among the nearly 43,500 people killed in Gaza so far, according to the health ministry in the Palestinian territory.
UN agencies have been relying on death tolls provided by the authorities in Hamas-run Gaza due to lack of access. This has sparked harsh criticism from Israel but the UN has repeatedly said the figures are reliable.
The rights office said it had now managed to verify around 10,000 of the more than 34,500 people reportedly killed during the first six months of the war.
“We have so far found close to 70 percent to be children and women,” Sunghay said, highlighting the stringent verification methodology that requires at least three separate sources.
He said the findings indicated “a systematic violation of the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law.”
He said 4,700 of the verified fatalities were children and 2,461 were women.
The rights office found that about 80 percent of all the verified deaths in Gaza had occurred in Israeli attacks on residential buildings or similar housing.
Children between the ages of five and nine made up the largest group of victims, with the youngest victim a one-day-old boy and the oldest a 97-year-old woman, it said.
Israel says its operations in Gaza target militants and are in line with international law.
But Friday’s report stressed that the verified deaths largely Gaza’s demographic makeup rather than that of combatants.
This, it said, clearly “raises concerns regarding compliance with the principle of distinction and reflect an apparent failure to take all feasible precautions to avoid, and in any event to minimize, incidental loss of civilian life.”
UN rights chief Volker Turk called on all countries to work to halt the violations and to ensure accountability, including through universal jurisdiction.
“It is essential that there is due reckoning with respect to the allegations of serious violations of international law through credible and impartial judicial bodies,” he said.
“The violence must stop immediately, the hostages and those arbitrarily detained must be released, and we must focus on flooding Gaza with humanitarian aid.”


After Hamas rejection of hostage deal, US asked Qatar to expel the group

Updated 09 November 2024
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After Hamas rejection of hostage deal, US asked Qatar to expel the group

  • Negotiators from Israel’s Mossad spy agency have repeatedly met mediators in Doha over the last year and Qatari government officials have shuttled back-and-forth to Hamas leaders in the political office

WASHINGTON/DOHA: The US has told Qatar that the presence of Hamas in Doha is no longer acceptable in the weeks since the Palestinian militant group rejected the latest proposal to achieve a ceasefire and a hostage deal, a senior administration official told Reuters on Friday.
“After rejecting repeated proposals to release hostages, its leaders should no longer be welcome in the capitals of any American partner. We made that clear to Qatar following Hamas’s rejection weeks ago of another hostage release proposal,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
Qatar then made the demand to Hamas leaders about 10 days ago, the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said. Washington has been in touch with Qatar over when to close the political office of Hamas, and it told Doha that now was the time following the group’s rejection of the recent proposal.
Three Hamas officials denied Qatar had told Hamas leaders they were no longer welcome in the country.
Qatar, alongside the US and Egypt, has played a major role in rounds of so-far fruitless talks to broker a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of hostages the militant group is holding in the enclave.
The latest round of Doha talks in mid-October failed to reach a ceasefire, with Hamas rejecting a short-term ceasefire proposal.
The spokesperson for Qatar’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for confirmation or comment.
Last year, a senior US official said Qatar had told Washington it was open to
reconsidering the presence of Hamas
in the country once the Gaza war was over.
This came after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken
told leaders
in Qatar and elsewhere in the region that there could be “no more business as usual” with Hamas after the group led the Oct. 7 attacks on Southern Israel.
Qatar, an influential Gulf state designated as major non-NATO ally by Washington, has hosted Hamas’ political leaders since 2012 as part of an agreement with the US Doha has come under criticism from within the US and Israel over its ties to Hamas since Oct. 7.
Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani has said repeatedly over the last year that the Hamas office exists in Doha to allow negotiations with the group and that as long as the channel remained useful Qatar would allow the Hamas office to remain open.
Negotiators from Israel’s Mossad spy agency have repeatedly met mediators in Doha over the last year and Qatari government officials have shuttled back-and-forth to Hamas leaders in the political office.

 

 


US defense chief holds first call with new Israeli counterpart

Updated 09 November 2024
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US defense chief holds first call with new Israeli counterpart

  • Katz was sworn in before parliament the previous day
  • The US defense chief also discussed “the need to improve the dire humanitarian conditions in Gaza“

WASHINGTON: US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin discussed Lebanon and Gaza on Friday in his first call with his new Israeli counterpart Israel Katz, the Pentagon said.
Katz was sworn in before parliament the previous day, after his predecessor’s shock dismissal by the prime minister over a breakdown in trust during the war in Gaza — a conflict that began with a devastating Hamas attack against Israel on October 7, 2023.
Austin “held an introductory call today with the new Israeli minister of defense, Israel Katz, and congratulated him on his recent appointment,” Pentagon spokesman Major General Pat Ryder said in a statement.
He told Katz that Washington is committed to a deal that allows Lebanese and Israeli citizens displaced by more than a year of cross-border violence to return to their homes, as well as to the return of hostages seized by Palestinian militant group Hamas, Ryder said.
The US defense chief also discussed “the need to improve the dire humanitarian conditions in Gaza,” after he and Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Israel in a letter earlier this month that it needed to allow more aid into the small war-wracked coastal territory.


Palestinian leader tells Trump ready to work for Gaza peace

Mahmud Abbas told Donald Trump he was ready to work toward a “just and comprehensive peace” in Gaza. (Reuters)
Updated 09 November 2024
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Palestinian leader tells Trump ready to work for Gaza peace

RAMALLAH: Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas expressed readiness to work toward a “just and comprehensive peace” in Gaza during a phone call with US President-elect Donald Trump on Friday, his office said.
Trump’s victory came with the Middle East in turmoil after the outbreak of the Gaza war in October 2023, triggered by the unprecedented attack on Israel by Palestinian militant group Hamas.
Congratulating Trump on his victory, Abbas expressed “readiness to work with President Trump to achieve a just and comprehensive peace based on international legitimacy,” his office said in a statement.
It said that Trump also assured Abbas that he will work to end the war.
“President Trump stressed that he will work to stop the war, and his readiness to work with president Abbas and the concerned parties in the region and the world to make peace in the region.”
While Trump struck a note of peace during his campaign, he also touted his status as Israel’s strongest ally, even going so far as to promise Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu he would “finish the job” against Hamas in Gaza.