Israeli occupation forces (IOF) continue to commit systematic violations of the rights of more than 5,000 Palestinian detainees that are being held in Israeli prisons. The Israeli Prison Administration continues aggressive policies and procedures that violate detainee rights, including medical negligence, solitary confinement, and arbitrary strip search campaigns. The Palestinian detainees struggle with inadequate shelter facilities, particularly in the winter, which increase the number of detainee patients.
Three Palestinian detainees in Ofar prison continue their hunger strike for the 63rd consecutive day. Prisoner Akram Yousif Fsesi, 30, who has been detained since 16 November 2012; Hamdi Zamil Abu Mariya, 46, who has been detained since 30 October 2012; and M’uammar Isaq Banat, 28, who has been detained since 20 August 2013, started their hunger strike in protest of their ongoing administrative detention, and the extension of their terms of detention without presentation of any evidence legally justifying their imprisonment. They were supposed to be released after serving their terms in accordance with the sentence by the Israeli judicial authority.
This widespread maltreatment amounts to violations of the 1955 United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, the Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons under Any Form of Detention or Imprisonment adopted in 1988, the Fourth Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilians in Times of War, and the 1948 International Convention Against Torture, which was ratified by the state of Israel in 1991.
The Al Mezan Center for Human Rightsexpresses its deep concern for the life and wellbeing of the hunger striking detainees’ and for the general wellbeing of all Palestinian and Arab detainees in Israeli prisons of whom Israeli authorities are responsible. Al Mezan strongly condemns Israel’s abuses of Palestinian detainees, from illegal detention without trial, as unlawful combatants or administrative detainees, to numerous procedures that violate basic rights and dignities, including solitary confinement, medical negligence, and barring of family visitations.
Al Mezan calls on the international community to promptly intervene to exert pressure on Israel to end its violations against Palestinian prisoners and to ensure respect of international humanitarian law and international human rights law in its dealing with Palestinian prisoners.