Rights advocates denounce ‘systemic abuse’ in Israeli prisons

Israeli police arrests a Palestinian during a protest demanding a release of Heba al-Labadi, a Jordanian citizen of Palestinian descent, in east Jerusalem, Saturday, Oct. 26, 2019. (AP)
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Israeli police arrests a Palestinian during a protest demanding a release of Heba al-Labadi, a Jordanian citizen of Palestinian descent, in east Jerusalem, Saturday, Oct. 26, 2019. (AP)
Rights advocates denounce ‘systemic abuse’ in Israeli prisons
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This picture shows the Ofer military prison located between Ramallah and Baytunia in the occupied West Bank city. (AFP file photo)
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Updated 16 March 2024
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Rights advocates denounce ‘systemic abuse’ in Israeli prisons

Rights advocates denounce ‘systemic abuse’ in Israeli prisons
  • Israeli NGOs raise concerns before UN in Geneva about major ‘crisis’ inside jails
  • There are almost 10,000 Palestinians in Israeli custody right now ... a 200 percent increase from any normal year

GENEVA: In the shadow of the war raging in Gaza, record numbers of Palestinian detainees are filling Israeli prisons, where they face “systemic abuse” and torture, rights advocates warn, calling for international action.

Members of several Israeli NGOs traveled to Geneva this week to raise concerns before the UN about a major “crisis” inside the country’s prisons.
“We are extremely, extremely concerned,” said Tal Steiner, the executive director of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel. “What we’re looking at is a crisis,” she said.




Prisoners reportedly have to sleep on the floor of the cages in the cold, are beaten, and deprived of medical care. AFP

She said nine people had allegedly died behind bars since Oct. 7, according to Israeli sources.

And “there are almost 10,000 Palestinians in Israeli custody right now ... a 200 percent increase from any normal year.”

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All those detained in Gaza, including children and reportedly even an 82-year-old woman, are being held under Israel’s unlawful combatants law.

While the UN and others have long raised concerns about conditions for Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons, Steiner said the situation had worsened dramatically since war erupted in Gaza.
“During the military onslaught on Gaza, there’s been a crisis within Israeli detention facilities and prisons that has been really left ignored,” said Miriam Azem of the Adalah legal center. The center is dedicated to protecting the rights of Israel’s Palestinian citizens.
Her organization had managed to document “19 clear cases” of torture within the Israeli prison system just since Oct. 7, including sexual violence.
“We’re seeing really widespread and systemic use of many, many tools in order to inflict torture and ill-treatment on Palestinians.”
This crisis, she said, “requires the immediate intervention of the international community.”
Steiner agreed, warning that this was “an ongoing crisis.
“People are (suffering) in detention right now ... An urgent intervention is very much needed.”
The Israeli Prison Service said: “All prisoners are detained according to the law.”
The service was “not aware of the claims,” against it, a spokesperson said, but stressed that any complaints filed by detainees “will be fully examined and addressed by official authorities.”
The NGOs also voiced alarm at reported conditions inside the military camps holding those detained inside Gaza.
At least 27 Palestinians have reportedly died in such camps since October, Steiner said, adding that this was “unprecedented and extremely severe.” There was no access to the camps, nor had her organization, or foreign journalists, been permitted to enter Gaza to speak with those released, she said.
But reports relying on testimony from former camp inmates suggest that detainees are often held “in open-air cages,” where “they are handcuffed and blindfolded 24 hours a day.”
Prisoners reportedly had to sleep on the floor of the cages in the cold, were beaten, and deprived of medical care, she added.
The Israeli army said detainees are questioned in the facilities operating since the Oct. 7 attack and those “found to be unrelated to terrorist activity are released back to the Gaza Strip.”
Some of the detainees who died had injuries or complex medical conditions, it added, saying each death was investigated by the Military Advocate General’s Corps.
“At the end of the investigations, their findings will be forwarded to the Military Prosecution’s Office,” the army said. While there are no official numbers, NGOs estimate that around 1,000 people are currently detained in the camps.
Another 600 people from Gaza arrested on Israeli soil on Oct. 7 are being held in the Israeli prison system.
Steiner pointed out that all those detained in Gaza, including children and reportedly even an 82-year-old woman, were being held under Israel’s unlawful combatants law. That law denies protections typically granted to detainees and prisoners of war.
“The law in its current form is unconstitutional,” she said.
Steiner and Azem, both Israeli nationals, said defending Palestinians’ rights in Israel had become increasingly difficult since Oct. 7, and that they had faced threats and verbal abuse. “It’s not an easy place to be,” Steiner said.
The trauma caused by Hamas’s attack and the frantic concern over the fate of the hostages is understandable, she said, but “that does not give you an excuse to torture.”
“This is not just the question of us versus them. This is us versus us,” Steiner said. “If Israel can prove that it holds even the worst of its enemies in humane conditions, that will be a triumph.”

 


Iran says killed eight militants since attack on police in province bordering Pakistan

Iran says killed eight militants since attack on police in province bordering Pakistan
Updated 23 sec ago
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Iran says killed eight militants since attack on police in province bordering Pakistan

Iran says killed eight militants since attack on police in province bordering Pakistan
  • Militants from the Jaish Al-Adl group killed 10 police officers during a raid in Sistan-Baluchistan province on October 26
  • Sistan-Baluchistan, which straddles border with Afghanistan and Pakistan, is one of Iran’s most impoverished provinces

TEHRAN: Iran’s military has killed eight militants in an operation in the restive southeast since a deadly attack last month on a police station, state media reported Tuesday.
Militants from the Pakistan-based Jaish Al-Adl group killed 10 police officers during a raid on October 26 in Sistan-Baluchistan province — one of the deadliest attacks in the region in recent months.
Sistan-Baluchistan, which straddles the border with Afghanistan and Pakistan, is one of Iran’s most impoverished provinces.
It has long been a flashpoint for cross-border attacks by separatists and extremists, opposed to the authorities in Iran.
Revolutionary Guards commander Ahmad Shafahi said “a total of eight terrorists have been killed” since the beginning of operations in the province, according to the official IRNA news agency on Tuesday.
“Fourteen other terrorists have been arrested,” including key figures involved in the attack, he said, adding security forces seized weapons and ammunition.
Shortly after the attack in Taftan county, some 1,200 kilometers (745 miles) southeast of the capital Tehran, a report on the Tasnim news agency said four militants had been killed and four others arrested.
Late on Monday, IRNA quoted Guards ground forces commander Mohammad Pakpour as saying the attackers “were not Iranian,” though he did not specify their nationalities.
In early October, at least six people including police officers were killed in two separate attacks in the province.
Jaish Al-Adl said on Telegram they had carried out the attacks.
Formed in 2012 by Baluch separatists, the group is proscribed as a “terrorist organization” by both Iran and the United States.
 
 


Over 100 patients to be evacuated from Gaza, WHO says

Over 100 patients to be evacuated from Gaza, WHO says
Updated 43 min 58 sec ago
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Over 100 patients to be evacuated from Gaza, WHO says

Over 100 patients to be evacuated from Gaza, WHO says
  • The patients will travel in a large convoy on Wednesday via the Kerem Shalom crossing

GENEVA: More than 100 patients including children suffering from trauma injuries and chronic diseases will be evacuated from Gaza on Wednesday in a rare transfer out of the war-ravaged enclave, a World Health Organization official said.
“These are ad hoc measures. What we have requested repeatedly is a sustained medevac (medical evacuation) outside of Gaza,” said Rik Peeperkorn, WHO representative for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, adding that 12,000 people were awaiting transfer.
The patients will travel in a large convoy on Wednesday via the Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel before flying to the United Arab Emirates, he added, and then a portion will travel to Romania.


Iran says two French detainees held in good conditions

Iran says two French detainees held in good conditions
Updated 05 November 2024
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Iran says two French detainees held in good conditions

Iran says two French detainees held in good conditions
  • In recent years, Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards have arrested dozens of dual nationals and foreigners, mostly on charges related to espionage and security

DUBAI: Two French citizens detained in Iran since May 2022 are in good health and being held in good detention conditions, Iran’s judiciary spokesperson Asghar Jahangir said on Tuesday, according to state media.
Last month, France’s foreign ministry said the conditions that three of its nationals were being held in by Iran were unacceptable.
“According to the relevant authorities, these two people have good conditions in the detention center and are in good health, so any claim regarding their conditions being abnormal is rejected,” Jahangir said.
The spokesperson was referring to Cecile Koehler and Jacques Paris, who he said were arrested on charges of espionage and will have their next court hearing on Nov. 24.
Jahangir did not mention the third French national detained in Iran. French media have disclosed only his first name, Olivier.
In recent years, Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards have arrested dozens of dual nationals and foreigners, mostly on charges related to espionage and security.
Rights groups have accused Iran of trying to extract concessions from other countries through such arrests.


Israeli strikes in Gaza, West Bank leave dozens dead

Israeli strikes in Gaza, West Bank leave dozens dead
Updated 36 min 18 sec ago
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Israeli strikes in Gaza, West Bank leave dozens dead

Israeli strikes in Gaza, West Bank leave dozens dead
  • Airstrikes in Gaza kill at least 30, Palestinian medics and media say
  • Israeli military says it ‘eliminated terrorists’ in latest operations

CAIRO/QABATIYAH: Israeli airstrikes across the Gaza Strip and West Bank have resulted in significant casualties, as conflict in the region intensifies.

Since Monday night, at least 30 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, with strikes leveling buildings and tightening sieges on northern areas of the enclave, according to Palestinian media and medical sources.

In Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza, two houses were heavily damaged in an airstrike, killing at least 20 people late on Monday, as reported by WAFA and Hamas-linked media. The Gaza health ministry has not immediately verified this toll. Additionally, four people were reported dead in the central town of Al-Zawayda around midnight.

Meanwhile, six more Palestinians died in separate airstrikes on Gaza City and Deir Al-Balah. The Israeli military claimed that its forces had "eliminated terrorists" in central Gaza and Jabalia and uncovered weapons and explosives in the southern area of Rafah, where it had also dismantled "terrorist infrastructure."

Reports from the ground suggest that Israel's tactics aim to clear northern Gaza towns and refugee camps to establish buffer zones, a strategy Israel says has successfully neutralized hundreds of Palestinian fighters in Jabalia over the past month.

More than 43,300 Palestinians have died in Gaza over a year of fighting, and much of the region has been devastated. The conflict initially erupted following Hamas-led attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, which killed around 1,200 Israelis and resulted in 251 hostages being taken to Gaza.

Violence has also erupted in the occupied West Bank. On Tuesday, Israeli airstrikes killed four Palestinians in separate incidents during two military operations.

In Tammun, near Tubas, two Palestinians died, one of whom was severely mutilated, according to the city’s governor, Ahmad Assad.

The health ministry in Ramallah confirmed the deaths, noting that the identity of one victim remains unverified and that the army is withholding the body.

In a separate airstrike in Qabatiyah near Jenin, two more Palestinian men, aged 40 and 38 and reportedly related, were killed, confirmed Kamal Abu Rubb, governor of Jenin.

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to inquiries about these operations. The West Bank has seen escalating violence since the onset of the Gaza conflict, with at least 754 Palestinians killed in the territory by Israeli forces or settlers, according to the health ministry in Ramallah.

In contrast, Palestinian attacks have claimed 24 Israeli lives during the same period, according to official Israeli sources.


Sudan paramilitaries kill 10 civilians: activists

Sudan paramilitaries kill 10 civilians: activists
Updated 05 November 2024
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Sudan paramilitaries kill 10 civilians: activists

Sudan paramilitaries kill 10 civilians: activists

PORT SUDAN: Ten civilians were killed in the central Sudanese state of Al-Jazira, pro-democracy activists said on Tuesday, in an attack they blamed on the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
The Madani Resistance Committee, one of hundreds of volunteer groups coordinating aid across the country, said the RSF carried out the killings on Monday night in the village of Barborab, about 85 kilometers (50 miles) northeast of the state capital Wad Madani.