Beating Palestinian Prisoners to Death

Khaled HammadKhaled Hammad • Aan het volgen • Aan het volgenProfessor at Central Connecticut State University - (Background photo showing Palestinian children flee Israeli bombardment in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on Nov 6, 2023) - Stop the Genocide!Professor at Central Connecticut State University - (Background photo showing Palestinian children flee Israeli bombardment in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on Nov 6, 2023) - Stop the Genocide!19 u • 19 uur geleden

One hashtag#Palestinian inmate died with a ruptured spleen and broken ribs after being beaten by Israeli prison guards. Another met an excruciating end because a chronic condition went untreated. A third screamed for help for hours before dying. July 29, 2024. https://lnkd.in/egarDmHY

The details of the prisoners’ deaths were recounted by eyewitnesses and corroborated by doctors from Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (hashtag#PHRI), who sat in on autopsies.

The three men are among at least 13 hashtag#Palestinians from the hashtag#WestBank and Israel to die in Israeli jails since Oct. 7, according to hashtag#PHRI.

An unknown number of prisoners from the hashtag#Gaza Strip have also died.

The prison system, built for 14,500 inmates, was housing 21,000, the letter said, not including an estimated 2,500 detainees from hashtag#Gaza, most held in military facilities.

A record 9,700 Palestinian security prisoners were being held in Israeli prisons in May, according to hashtag#Addameer, a Palestinian prisoner rights organization. Some 3,380 were administrative detainees, the group said, held without charge or trial.

The numbers do not include prisoners from hashtag#Gaza; Israeli authorities will not reveal exactly how many have been detained or where they are held.

One Palestinian prisoner was beaten in front of a hashtag#judge as he joined a hearing via video link in November, according to his lawyer and court records reviewed by The Post.

“We can hear now in the background cries of people being beaten,” the court minutes read. The shouts stopped when the judge intervened.

“My nose is broken,” said the defendant, whose name was redacted in court records. “I ask that the hearing not end before they promise not to hit me.”


* Overcrowding and Neglect
Reports of medical assistance being denied are pervasive in the testimonies of former prisoners. The death of Muhammed al-Sabbar, 21, on Feb. 28 could have been avoided if his chronic condition had been treated properly, according to Rosin from hashtag#PHRI, who sat in on his autopsy.

Journalist Moath Amarneh, 37, imprisoned for six months in Megiddo after filming demonstrations in the West Bank, said his six-person cell held up to 15 people during his stay.


* ‘Policy of hashtag#Starvation’
Violence and medical negligence were accompanied by the withholding of food, former prisoners recounted. Each said they had lost significant weight in jail, shedding between 30 and 50 pounds.

The inmates would share a plate of vegetables and yogurt for breakfast.

For lunch, each prisoner received half a cup of rice, and the cell — however many men were in it — would divvy up a plate of sliced tomatoes or cabbage. On good days, there might be sausage or beans. Dinner was an egg and some vegetables, he said.

“It’s barely enough to survive,” said lawyer Aya al-Haj Odeh, who said some clients reported being given as little as three slices of bread a day or a few spoonfuls of rice and having limited access to drinking water.