TPC Staff
The Palestine Chronicle / September 5, 2024
A meal meant for ten prisoners was barely enough for one person, causing many prisoners to lose weight.
Israeli authorities in the notorious Negev Prison have been imposing regular “retaliation” punishments of a psychological and physical nature against Palestinian detainees since October 7, the Palestinian Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs has said.
The punishments include “severe beatings” the Commission said, according to a Middle East Monitor (MEMO) report, citing its lawyers who visited the prison twice this week.
“Medical negligence,” the report said, has led to an outbreak of respiratory, skin, digestive, bacterial and fungal diseases, amidst a lack of the minimum requirements for hygiene and the deprivation of adequate food and treatment.
Detainees have attested to the poor quality and quantity of food provided.
A meal meant for ten prisoners was barely enough for one person, causing many prisoners to lose weight.
“Visits from lawyers have been limited and are carried out according to certain conditions with difficulty, since (October) 7,” explained the Commission. “The prisoners have not changed their clothes since then, and family visits and communications by phone are forbidden.”
Detainees accused the prison authorities of adopting a policy of “slow death” against them represented by gross and deliberate medical negligence where there is no treatment or examinations, as well as deprivation of breaks and a canteen.
The Commission held Israel and its prison administration fully responsible for the lives of detainees and called on human rights groups and the international community to take immediate action to put pressure on Israel and oblige it to abide by international law.
Visits canceled
Earlier this week, the Israeli prison authorities in Raman and Nafha Prisons told lawyers that scheduled visits to prisoners had been canceled on the pretext that a quarantine has been imposed due to the spread of scabies among inmates.
“This is as a result of the retaliatory measures imposed by the prison authorities on the prisoners and detainees since 7 October, which fall within the systematic torture and abuse of prisoners which are one aspect of the ongoing genocide against our people in Gaza,” the Prisoners and Ex-Prisoners Affairs Commission and Palestinian Prisoners Society said in a statement.
The organizations stressed that the prison administration “has effectively turned the disease into a tool of torture by deliberately committing medical crimes against the prisoners, depriving them of treatment, and failing to take necessary steps to prevent the disease from spreading.”
Several detainees, on rare occasions, were allowed visits long after contracting the disease, with their bodies showing severe deformities due to the disease, and sores from intense itching, they said.
The lack of sufficient hygiene products, reduced water supply, limited shower time for prisoners, and the confiscation of prisoners’ clothing, added to the situation.
“Most prisoners today rely on a single set of clothes, and some have been wearing the same clothes for extended periods, being forced to wash and wear them while still wet,” they said.
No sunlight, overcrowding
In addition, the severe overcrowding, with the daily escalation of arrests, compounded the situation.
“Poor ventilation and the isolation of prisoners in cells without sunlight further contributed to the spread of diseases,” the organizations said.
The deliberate transfer of prisoners with contagious diseases from one section to another exacerbates the number of infections, they pointed out.
Among the infected were child prisoners, especially in the children’s section of Megiddo prison.
Released detainees over the past few months have shared harrowing testimonies of abuse and torture at the hands of Israeli forces.
