April 17 is Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, which for years has been marked with sit-in tents, protests and solidarity actions both here and around the world in support of Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails.
This year will be no different, especially for mothers who have waited year after year for their sons to come home. At present, there are close to 10,000 Palestinians in Israeli jails. Many have been sentenced, some serving consecutive life sentences, some years and some months. Others are in administrative detention, which allows Palestinians to be held without charge in accordance to a ‘secret file’ for any length of time, usually for renewable six month stretches. According to the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, as of February, 2009 there were 560 Palestinians in Israeli administrative detention facilities, two people who have served over four years without ever being charged. As for children, classified as those under the age of 18, also according to B’Tselem, there were 346 as of February, 54 of them under the age of 16.
The statistics can go on, of course. There are over 100 incarcerated women, men in solitary confinement, those still undergoing grueling interrogations by Israel’s intelligence agency, the Shin Bet. There are those who are in dire need of medical attention and are instead given an aspirin for their ailments. And there are those unfortunate souls who have perished behind Israeli bars after years of isolation from their loved ones. Close to 200 Palestinian prisoners have died inside Israeli jails since the latter’s occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem in 1967.
There is ample information on Palestinian prisoners but unfortunately not enough emphasis is put on their plight or efforts for their release. Recently, the prisoner issue was back in the headlines because of a single Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit. Shalit, in the hands of Hamas and Hamas affiliated groups in Gaza since his capture in 2006, has been the center of a prisoner exchange debate for several months now. Hamas, who is negotiating with Israel, albeit indirectly through Egypt, has demanded the release of 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the Israeli soldier, including hundreds of prisoners Israel refuses to release because of their alleged involvement in Israeli deaths. As a result, the exchange has not yet taken place and seems to have been relegated once again to the back burner now that Israel’s new government is being led by none other than Benjamin Netanyahu.
Lees verder: http://www.miftah.org/Display.cfm?DocId=19360&CategoryID=3
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