Politics Amnesty accuses Israel of torturing Palestinians from Gaza
The human rights organization Amnesty International accuses Israel of mistreating and torturing Palestinian prisoners from the Gaza Strip. The detainees are also denied any contact with their relatives or access to lawyers for long periods of time, according to a recent report by the organization.
The detainees also include unarmed civilians who were arrested by the military during its operations in the sealed-off coastal area for reasons that were not apparent to them and taken to Israeli prisons or camps. The report is based on interviews with 27 former Palestinian prisoners, including five women and a 14-year-old boy. All reported torture and other cruel treatment at the hands of Israeli interrogators and guards.
The report quotes a 57-year-old pediatrician who was arrested by the military in December last year at Al-Ahli Hospital in the city of Gaza. According to his account, he spent 45 days in the notorious Israeli military camp Sde Teiman near Beersheba. He was starved there, repeatedly beaten and forced to remain on his knees for hours on end.
Israel did not comment on the allegations in the report. In previous cases in which the authorities were accused of torture and ill-treatment of Palestinian prisoners, the country denied any wrongdoing.
At the same time, Israel's laws cover long periods of detention without judicial review or charge, the isolation of prisoners and the denial of contact with relatives and lawyers, insofar as members of the Islamist Hamas are concerned. The law treats them as "illegal combatants" to whom international conventions do not apply.
After the outbreak of the Gaza war, Israel tightened the law in this regard, so that even longer detentions are possible without judicial review. The report calls on Israel to put an end to these practices. The war was triggered by the unprecedented massacre carried out by terrorists from Hamas and other extremist Palestinian organizations in southern Israel on 7 October.
SDA
