Wednesday, Dec 19, 2012
Ramallah: Israel has significantly stepped up detentions of West Bank Palestinians since the Palestinian National Authority’s (PNA) successful bid to obtain recognition of Palestine as an observer state at the United Nations earlier this month, a senior Palestinian official has said.
According to Eisa Qaraqei, the Palestinian Minister of Detainees’ Affairs, Israel has started a campaign of arrests and detentions in the West Bank as collective punishment for the move. “At least 200 Palestinians are detained weekly and sent to prisons and detention centres, which is resulting in the overcrowding of their prisons,” he told Gulf News.
“The total number of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails has recently passed 5,000,” he added.
Qaraqei said that Israel has also adopted a strategy in prisons which involves “attacks”, searching of prisoners, punishing them and frequent transfers between prisons.
“During the past week, three prisons have been stormed by Israeli special forces and all the belongings of the Palestinian prisoners destroyed,” he said. The special forces stormed Nafha Prison, Askalan prison and Jalboue prison where the prisoners were punished and transferred by force to other prison without providing a reason or informing their families, he said.
Families only learn about the transfers after making the commute to the prison, he added. “The Israelis do not tell the families about the exact location of their imprisoned children but force them to trace their children via the Red Cross and other humanitarian organizations which takes months”. The occupation authorities, he said, are also making it increasingly difficult for families of prisoners to visit them in prison.
Qaraqei said that Palestinian prisoners in the Israeli jails have been denied medical services altogether and that dental services have become totally out of reach. The families of the Palestinian prisoners announced they were ready to pay for the fees of the dental services as the prisoners sent several messages to their families and the Palestinian authorities about their unbearable dental pain, but the Israeli authorities do not allow them any access to this service.
By Nasouh Nazzal ?Correspondent
Gulf News 2012. All rights reserved.
