A year into the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip, a special statement was issued on Sunday by institutions concerned with Palestinian prisoners’ affairs, regarding the prisoners of Gaza, the killed prisoners, and the prisoners in the Israeli occupation’s prisons and camps since the beginning of the Israeli genocide, and the circumstances of the martyrdom of dozens of prisoners and detainees.
The statement by the institutions stated that there were 40 prisoners and detainees who had been martyred in the occupation’s camps after October 7, adding that “the occupation has never stopped targeting prisoners and detainees in its prisons and camps.”
The statement considered that “the war of genocide was an extension of long decades in which the occupation practiced systematic crimes, most notably torture and medical crimes, leading to the martyrdom of hundreds of prisoners over the years of the occupation.”
Since the onset of the war, dozens of prisoners and detainees have been martyred in the occupation’s prisons and camps from various Palestinian areas, and the issue of the martyred detainees from Gaza has posed the most prominent challenge to human rights institutions, particularly in light of their enforced disappearance.
In addition, the occupation refused to disclose the data or the circumstances surrounding their martyrdom; the statement indicated that in recent times, various human rights institutions have followed up on this issue, which was “accompanied by horrific crimes of torture, medical crimes, rape, and sexual assaults reflected in the testimonies of released prisoners and detainees, and prisoners in occupation prisons and camps.”
However, some institutions were able to shed light on the fate of hundreds of Gazan prisoners and conduct limited visits to some prisons and camps, noting that there were still hundreds of detainees subjected to enforced disappearance.
Based on the follow-up of several Palestinian human rights institutions and human rights institutions inside the country, according to what was stated in the statement, the prisoners’ institutions confirmed a number of important facts, the most important of which is that “there is no clear data on the number of detainees from Gaza among the total number of prisoners and detainees in the occupation’s prisons other than what was announced by the occupation’s prison administration at the beginning of October.”
According to the statement, the number of detainees classified as “illegal combatants” reached about 1,618, noting that, according to the prisoners’ affairs institutions, “the number of detainees in Gaza is estimated to be in the thousands.”
Rights groups call for urgent action to protect Palestinian detainees
In mid-September, a group of human rights organizations underlined that UN member states must take immediate action to protect detainees across the occupied Palestinian territories.
In a joint statement, 31 organizations, including Save the Children, Human Rights Watch, and Oxfam, urged the international community to implement measures that would establish a critical protective presence and ensure that both children and adults in detention are treated with dignity and in accordance with international humanitarian and human rights law.
“This includes demanding that the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is granted immediate and unfettered access to all detainees and hostages, to the full extent required by international humanitarian law,” the statement stressed.
The organizations also demanded the immediate and unconditional release of Palestinian children arbitrarily detained by the Israeli occupation military.
The statement underscored that Palestinian children held in Israeli military custody are subjected to systematic abuse and mistreatment, including degrading practices such as strip searches and forced imitation of animals.
“No child should ever come into contact with a military court, or any court that lacks comprehensive fair trial rights and basic safeguards. No child should ever be abducted,” the organizations asserted.
Save the Children highlighted that Palestinian children in Israeli occupation prisons are subject to increasing hunger, physical abuse, and outbreaks of infectious diseases. Some detainees have even disclosed experiences of sexual assault and severe beatings, according to the report.
Elsewhere, the joint statement indicated that Israeli prisons have severely restricted access for human rights monitors, legal representatives, and the families of detainees from the occupied West Bank, while access for detainees from the Gaza Strip remains almost entirely denied.
