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Genocide and racism in the holy land
Palestinians Face Torture, Starvation and
Sexual Violence in Israeli Prisons
Prisoners' families are kept in the dark
about their loved ones as prison authorities
engage in unbridled abuse.
Israel’s genocidal war on Palestinians since last October
has extended beyond the daily mass death, displacement, and starvation of the
civilian population in the Gaza Strip. Behind the bars of Israeli prisons, Israel
has been waging war against Palestinian prisoners, creating conditions that
make the continuation of human life impossible. The effects of this brutal campaign
have reverberated among prisoners’ families outside of jail, who are watching
their loved ones being systematically starved, beaten, tortured, and degraded.
Shortly after October 7, Israel imposed a new set of rules in
its cell blocks. In some detention centers like Ofer near Ramallah, the Israeli
army was reportedly handed over control of the prison, while the Israel Prison
Services guards were given a free hand in dealing with Palestinian inmates inside
the jail sections. This shift was accompanied by a dramatic increase in the
number of Palestinian detainees who were arrested after October 7, doubling
the prisoner population as early on as mid-October. This included prisoners
from Gaza, for whom the hardest part of the treatment was reserved.
In mid-May, CNN released an exposé based on the testimonies
of Israeli whistleblowers about the horrific treatment of Palestinians from
Gaza at the Israeli military base of Sde Teiman, now containing a detention
center. The whistleblower testimonies detail a number of medieval practices
to which Palestinian prisoners have been subjected, including being strapped
down to beds while blindfolded and made to wear diapers, having unqualified
medical trainees conduct procedures on them without anesthesia, having dogs
set on them by prison guards, being regularly beaten or put into stress positions
for offenses as minor as peeking beneath their blindfolds, having zip-tie wounds
fester to the point of requiring amputation, and a host of other horrific measures.
On June 6, the New York Times published another story about Sde
Teiman based on interviews with former detainees and Israeli military officers,
doctors, and soldiers who worked at the prison, bringing new horrors to light
about the treatment of Gazan prisoners. Detainee testimonies repeated many of
these same accounts but also included additional disturbing accounts of sexual
violence, including testimonies of rape and forcing detainees to sit on metal
sticks that caused anal bleeding and “unbearable pain.”
Other depravities have been documented in several other prisons,
often gloatingly by Israeli news channels who broadcast scenes of the abuse,
including degrading treatment, in what can only be described as snuff films.
Israeli prison doctors have assisted in the torture of Palestinian detainees,
both before and after October 7. Alongside these acts of torture and humiliation,
prison authorities have severely restricted prisoners’ food intake to
the point of near-starvation, giving 20 prisoners enough food for two people.
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Op-Ed | War & Peace
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By Khury Petersen-Smith , TruthoutJune 8, 2024
The picture that emerges is one in which Israeli authorities are putting Palestinians
in animal-like conditions calculated to torture, humiliate, and in many cases,
to bring about their death. In March, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported that
some 27 Palestinian detainees had died in detention in two facilities, including
Sde Teiman.
Meanwhile, the families of Palestinian detainees, both from Gaza
and the West Bank, have been left to wonder about the fate of their loved ones
for months on end as horror stories continue to trickle out of Israeli prisons
from those who are released, further feeding the anxieties of the families.
Death by Beating
According to Palestinian prisoners’ rights groups, Israel has arrested
no less than 8,800 Palestinians since October from Gaza, the West Bank, and
Jerusalem. Many have been released, including as part of a prisoners’
exchange between Israel and Hamas in November. Currently, some 9,300 Palestinians
continue to be held behind bars, including 78 women, 250 children, and more
than 3,400 detainees without charge or trial under the military legal system
of administrative detention.
Thaer Taha, a Palestinian in his forties, was one of them until
last April when he was released after two years of administrative detention.
Taha was arrested in May 2022 and was given a detention order of six months.
By October 7, he had spent almost a year and a half in Israeli jails.
“The day his detention order expired, we prepared ourselves
to welcome my father at home,” Guevara Taha, his 22-year-old daughter,
told Mondoweiss. “My mother made his favorite meal, my siblings and I
dressed up, and friends and family members prepared to receive him at the checkpoint,”
says Guevara. “That day, the lawyer called us and said that the occupation
had renewed my father’s detention order for another six months,”
she recalls.
On October 7, Thaer Taha was a month away from ending his second
detention period. Since his arrest, he had been receiving family visits once
a month.
Then, everything changed. Israel suspended all family visits
for Palestinian inmates and began a series of unprecedented repressive measures
against them. “Even those who had experienced the occupation jails in
the 1970s and the 1980s said that they had seen nothing like the past eight
months in the occupation’s prisons,” Thaer Taha says, referring
to past periods that had hitherto been regarded as the highest point in Israel’s
repression of Palestinian prisoners.
“The organized daily life inside cells, which so many [prisoners]
had struggled for over the years, suddenly disappeared. Books and other personal
belongings were confiscated and we were no longer allowed to have any kind of
activity or representation,” explains Taha. “Guards began to violently
raid our cells on a daily basis, food quality immediately decreased, and covers
were taken away. We were intentionally put into insecurity, hunger, and cold.
At the same time, the cells became crowded. We were 12 people in a 9 by 4 meter
cell.”
The worsening of detention conditions for Palestinian inmates
had already begun before October 7. In February 2023, Israel’s security
minister Itamar Ben-Gvir began to reduce water access for Palestinian prisoners,
beginning by limiting shower time to four minutes per day. The step caused outrage
among human rights groups at the time. After October 7, it went to a whole new
level.
“In mid-December, our water supply inside each cell was
reduced to one hour per day. We used this hour to store as much water as we
could, and since we only had one bottle in the cell, we filled empty cans,”
Thaer says. “This situation continued for three months, until the beginning
of the month of Ramadan, in mid-March.”
In November, Hamas and Israel struck a prisoner exchange deal.
Around 150 Palestinian women and children were released from Israeli jails in
exchange for 50 Israeli captives. The released Palestinians gave testimonies
of severe beating and sexual abuse by Israeli prison guards. In April, the Palestinian
prisoners’ rights groups said that 16 identified Palestinians had died
in Israeli jails as a result of mistreatment since October 7. More had died
but weren’t identified.
In November, 38-year-old Palestinian Thaer Abu Asab was announced
dead in the Negev prison, after being beaten by Israeli guards. A month later,
Israel admitted that Abu Asab’s death was a result of being beaten by
19 prison guards at the same time.
“I was in the Negev prison when Thaer Abu Asab was killed,
but in a different section,” remembered Thaer Taha. “It was November
18, just after the morning head count, when we began to hear a lot of screaming.
Then some prisoners were moved to the section I was in and they told us what
had happened.”
“The guards were very aggressive during the morning count
and every day they beat someone. That morning, Thaer Abu Asab dared to ask one
of the guards about the news, if the truce in Gaza had begun or not,”
Taha continued. “The guard told his commander, who told Abu Asab that
he would show him the truce in Gaza, and he ordered him beaten. They beat him
so brutally that one of the guards struck him with a thick wooden hoe handle
on the head, and he immediately lost consciousness and bled to death.”
The suspected guards were reportedly put under “strict
restrictions” following a probe into the incident but were set free all
the same. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said that the guards were
dealing with “the scum of humanity,” and should not be smeared before
an investigation.
Cut Off From the World
While this news was being made public, prisoners’ families had no contact
with their loved ones in Israeli jails and had no idea about their conditions.
Guevara Taha described it as “a constant anguish, thinking all the time
about what could be happening to my father, what conditions he is in, preventing
us from sleeping.”
“We the families of prisoners have Whatsapp groups where
we exchange information, so whenever a lawyer manages to know anything about
one prisoner in a given jail, or if a prisoner manages to access a phone and
make contact, they would give information about those who are held with them,
and we share that news on WhatsApp,” said Guevara. “We spent all
the time on WhatsApp expecting any news, and the news was never encouraging.
It was either that they had no access to water, food or electricity, and the
anguish continued.”
“My father spent 13 years in jail, eight of them as an
administrative detainee, so I grew up knowing his news from prison more than
having him at home, to the point that I didn’t get used to calling him
‘dad,’ I just called him by his name,” she continued. “But
this time it was different, I was seriously fearing for his life, thinking of
whether he has eaten or if he can even sleep at night.”
In February, a report by UN experts concluded that some Palestinian
prisoners had been subject to sexual abuse and that at least two female prisoners
had been raped in Israeli jails. The next day, Palestinian prisoners’
families and rights groups held a public press conference in Ramallah, where
they announced that they had halted all coordination with the International
Committee of the Red Cross, accusing it of inaction.
“The Red Cross had stopped giving us updates on the prisoners’
conditions since October 7, and even though they told us that it was because
the occupation authorities had banned them from visiting the prisoners, they
didn’t do anything else about it, and they didn’t speak up,”
exclaimed Guevara.
Her father adds, “Our lawyers have been and continue to
be banned from visiting prisoners, intimidated, and prevented from doing their
work, but they speak out, they denounce it, and the prisoners were very offended
by this silence.”
In November, the ICRC said publicly that it “hasn’t
been able to visit Palestinian detainees since October 7.” In January,
ICRC’s Middle East director told media outlets that Israel and Hamas were
banning it from visiting captives on both sides. The ICRC never called publicly
to end the suspension of visits, and has maintained that it is “actively
engaging with the relevant authorities on this critical matter in our usual
bilateral and confidential dialogue.”
Although Israel began to allow some family visits in recent months,
most Palestinian prisoners remain banned from any contact with their families.
“Between October 7 and my release in late April, I was
not allowed a single family visit, and my lawyer was allowed to visit me only
twice,” indicates Thaer Taha. “During my time in prison, shortly
after October 7, my son who is 17 was wounded by an Israeli bullet in the leg
while taking part in a protest. I didn’t learn about it until my release
in April. That is how cut off prisoners have been from the rest of the world.”
By Qassam Muaddi , Mondoweiss June 8, 2024
Ukraine
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UN and Amnesty International representatives are calling on the international
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By Amy Goodman & Nermeen Shaikh , DemocracyNow! June 9, 2022
Gaza
Line from song "War
Crimes"
WAR CRIMES JUST LIKE IN GAZA
IN HOSPITALS AND SCHOOLS, OUT ON THE PLAZA
A GENOCIDAL CAMPAIGN
WITH SURVELIENCE AND DRONES
RACIST SETTLERS ALLOWED TO ROAM
MURDERING CIVILIANS AND DESTROYING THIER HOMES
WITH THE NERVE TO THINK THAT GOD CONDONES
WAR CRIMES
Rachel Corrie
American nonviolence activist and diarist
Rachel Aliene Corrie (April 10, 1979 – March 16, 2003) was an American
nonviolence activist and diarist. She was a member of the pro-Palestinian International
Solidarity Movement (ISM), and was active throughout the Israeli-occupied Palestinian
territories. In 2003, she was in Rafah, a city in the Gaza Strip, where the
Israeli military was demolishing Palestinian houses at the height of the Second
Intifada. While protesting the demolitions as they were being carried out, she
was killed by an Israeli armored bulldozer that crushed her.
Corrie was born in Olympia, Washington, in 1979. After graduating from Capital
High School, she went on to attend Evergreen State College. She took a year
off from her studies to work as a volunteer in the Washington State Conservation
Corps, where she spent three years making weekly visits to mental patients.
While at Evergreen State College, she became a "committed peace activist",
arranging peace events through a local group called "Olympians for Peace
and Solidarity". She later joined the International Solidarity Movement
(ISM) organization in order to protest the policies of the Israeli army in the
West Bank and Gaza Strip. Corrie went to Gaza as part of her college's senior-year
independent-study proposal to connect Olympia and Rafah with each other as sister
cities While in Rafah on March 16, 2003, she joined other ISM activists in efforts
to nonviolently prevent Israel's demolition of Palestinian property] where she
was killed by an Israeli bulldozer that crushed her. Corrie's death sparked
controversy and led to international media coverage.
Physicians present and fellow ISM activists stated that Corrie had been wearing
a high-visibility vest and was deliberately driven over, while the Israeli army
said that it was an accident because the bulldozer operator did not see her.Following
the incident, an Israeli military investigation concluded that Corrie's death
was the result of an accident and that the bulldozer operator had limited visibility.
The ruling attracted criticism from organizations such as Amnesty International,
Human Rights Watch (HRW), B'Tselem, and Yesh Din.HRW stated that the ruling
represented a pattern of impunity for Israeli forces. U.S. Ambassador to Israel
Dan Shapiro stated that the Israeli investigation was unsatisfactory, lacking
thoroughness, credibility and transparency, and that therefore the U.S. government
is unsatisfied with the investigation's closure