Palestinian Prisoners’ Day: THOUSANDS OF PALESTINIANS BLINDFOLDED, HANDCUFFED AND TORTURED

- Bassem Shadid, from Dura near the city of Hebron was arrested on Monday, 8 April along with two children also from Dura, aged 13 years and 16 years. They were first taken to Addoriym Detention Centre and then to Gush Etzion Detention Centre in the Israeli settlement of the same name near Bethlehem. During the two days that they spent in the detention centre, Bassem witnessed three waves of detainees being brought to the settlement, totaling around 140 detainees. He estimated that at least 10 of the detainees were children under 18. The two children arrested along with Bassem were forced to remove their clothes down to their underwear at the time of their arrest. They were kept in their underwear without clothes for the two days of detention and were released in this state very late on Wednesday night. They spent most of the time handcuffed and blindfolded and were given very poor food and no access to medical services. One of the detainees held with them was epileptic and not provided with his required medication.

 

- According to an adult Palestinian male from Ramallah, recently released from Ofer detention camp, both the physical conditions of detention and the treatment by Israeli army soldiers are very bad. The individual was detained there for 15 days, during which they were repeatedly fed uncooked schnitzel. He reports that there are numerous Palestinian children detained in the facility, some appearing as young as 13 and 14 years old. He informed DCI/PS that, as he was being transferred out of the facility, he saw two children being brought to the camp. He witnessed soldiers mocking the children with phrases from Palestinian political speeches and then beating them. After 15 days detention, he and other prisoners from the Ramallah area were taken to Kfar Saba in the northern West Bank and left at 1am. The prisoners were then forced to find their own transportation back to Ramallah, a dangerous and almost impossible task given the ongoing Israeli military siege on communities throughout the West Bank at present.

 

- O. was arrested last week from his house at 1pm by heavily armed Israeli soldiers. O. is very sick and needs urgent medical treatment outside the country. This fact was known to the soldiers before they arrested him. They took him in a bus blindfolded and handcuffed to several military bases. At each stop he was ordered out of the bus by soldiers who called him by name. The other detainees remained inside the bus as he was singled out. He was badly beaten each time he was removed from the bus. When they arrived in the bus to Beitunia at around 3pm they released him because of his sickness and told him “Your arrest is a message to say we can arrest whenever we want and wherever you are.”

 

- Basel T. was arrested from the Presidential compound (the Muqaat’a) on March 29. He had been detained there on civil matters by Palestinian police following a serious road accident in which he was badly injured. On the first day of the invasion when Israeli troops stormed the Muqaat’a he was taken from the prison. Throughout the period of his arrest he was severely beaten despite his health condition.

 

Basel stated that the Israeli soldiers focused their beatings on the parts of his body where he was suffering from injuries due to the road accident. He was taken in a bus to Ofra settlement where they interrogated them. While at Ofra settlement he and other prisoners were beaten continuously and forced to stand in the rain for 5 hours without shelter. Soldiers forced them to swear at the Palestinian Authority and curse god. Afterwards they were taken to Ofer prison remaining handcuffed and blindfolded the whole time. At the prison they were forced to sleep outside in tents. There was a shortage of blankets and mattresses (one blanket and mattress for three people). They were given wooden crates to sleep on, one for every three people. For food they were given a piece of unleavened bread and one uncooked schnitzel for each four people. Sometimes they were given apples. Most of them time they were not provided with breakfast. For dinner they were given a tin of yogurt to divide between four persons. Despite Basel’s request for medicine to treat his wounds he was refused. During the night they would be called out of the tents in the rain and told they were to be counted. After standing outside for 2-3 hours the soldiers would then say that they didn’t want to count them and would do it later. Basel was released on Tuesday, 4 April, at midnight. He was taken in a bus with other detainees and dumped at Qalandia checkpoint, left to find their own way back into Ramallah while the city was under strict curfew. When they were released the soldiers told them that had only one minute to escape or they would be shot. Some of the detainees were thrown from the bus still handcuffed and blindfolded.

 

- Shereen Jameel Abdullah Rabah, a 14 year old girl from Bethlehem was arrested on 7 April at 3:50pm during the invasion of Bethlehem. Soldiers entered the house and demanded the identity cards of everyone there. Shereen did not have an ID card because of her young age, the soldiers however refused to believe her. She was arrested along with her elderly father, six brothers, two of her nephews and her brother-in-law. They were taken to the Presidential residence in Bethlehem which had been occupied by Israeli soldiers. Everyone was taken inside the residence except for Shereen and her father who is in his 70s. Shereen and her father were forced to stand outside in the very cold weather for half an hour. Afterwards they were taken to Kfar Etzion detention centre (located in the Gush Etzion bloc) where they were also forced to stand outside for half an hour. They were then taken to interrogation where Shereen was threatened that her house would be demolished and all her relatives would be imprisoned. They were about to beat her when Shereen showed them her birth certificate proving her young age. At around 11:30pm they were released and they were forced to attempt to walk in the cold weather to Efrat settlement. This was very dangerous because of the presence of heavily armed Israeli settlers on the roads who have often beaten or killed Palestinians.

 

Moreover, they could hear continuous tank shelling and shooting by Israeli soldiers. An Israeli military jeep stopped them and told them they would take the girl to a nearby highway but her father would have to remain behind. Shereen and her father refused and the soldiers took her father’s ID card which they later returned. They were forced to return back to Kfar Etzion and stayed there until 5am. After that they walked for three hours to Efrat settlement where they found a Palestinian from inside the Green Line who drove them to Al Khader checkpoint. At the checkpoint the soldiers refused to let them enter and they waited there for another hour. After that they walked through some nearby fields until they reached the Beit Jala District Coordination Office. By this time Shereen’s father was very tired and they rested there until 8:30am. They then walked another three hours until they reached their house at 11:30am.