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Tensions boil as Palestinian prisoners face collective punishment
Rights groups decry information blackout as family of hunger-striking inmate urges international intervention.
International
Ramallah, occupied West Bank – Tensions have reached boiling point in several Israeli prisons holding Palestinian prisoners, with rights groups saying authorities are keeping a number of inmates, including several injured by Israeli forces, in unknown conditions.
“The situation in the prisons is critical and very dangerous,” Milena Ansari, international advocacy officer for Addameer, a Ramallah-based prisoners rights group, told Al Jazeera, citing the continuing closure of Hamas prisoners’ sections amid recent collective punishment measures.
Tensions escalated on December 14 in the northern Damon prison, where three female prisoners and representatives of the other inmates refused to leave their cell during an evening raid due to the cold weather outside, according to the Ramallah-based Addameer prisoners’ rights group. The Israeli officers then cut off electricity in their section, beat them and transferred one of the prisoners, Shurooq Dwayyat, into isolation, Addameer said.
The other two, Marah Bakir and Muna Qaadan, were placed in solitary confinement the next day after they protested by beating on the cell doors. Their rooms were also raided, and the three female prisoners refused their meals until they were all returned to their cells. During the raids, a number of other women were beaten by Israeli special forces, one to the point of unconsciousness, according to a statement by the Palestinian Prisoners Society (PPS) monitoring group. Some also had their headscarves forcibly removed.
When the news reached Nafha Prison in southern Israel, a Palestinian inmate affiliated with Hamas, Yousef Mabhouh, from the Gaza Strip, stabbed an Israeli prison officer in the face with an improvised weapon, lightly wounding him, according to the Israeli Prison Service (IPS). Hamas in a statement said the incident was “a natural response to the escalation” faced by the female prisoners.
The section where the attack took place was then raided by special forces who took 80 prisoners out of their rooms, “handcuffed them for hours in the freezing cold, and beat some of them severely. Mabhouh was subjected to severe assault, after which he was transferred to the hospital by helicopter”, Addameer said.
The PPS said severe injuries were caused to several prisoners in Nafha during the raids and none of the seriously wounded had received medical treatment. Among the injured was Khaled Abu Joudeh, who had a right-eye injury; Ziad Awad, who sustained injuries to the face after being attacked by police dogs; and Ihab Saad, whose nose was broken, among others.
Meanwhile, all female detainees in Damon prison have been forbidden family visits and access to the canteen over the past two weeks, with some also facing financial fines.