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Date: 14 April 2002
Ref: 59/2002
This week, Israeli authorities reopened the Ketziot prison camp in the Negev desert in southern Israel, popularly known as “Ansar 3.” During the 1980s and 1990s, thousands of Palestinian prisoners were held in the facility. PCHR fears that the reopening of Ansar 3 indicates that mass arbitrary detentions in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) will continue and is deeply concerned that detainees transferred to Ansar 3 may be subject to torture or other forms of ill-treatment.
PCHR has received information that Ansar 3 is due to receive approximately 70 Palestinians currently being held in administrative detention in Megiddo prison in Israel. A further 281 Palestinians placed in administrative detention during Israel’s current military offensive in the West Bank will also be transferred to the facility. This latter group is currently being held at the Ofer military base in the West Bank. Administrative detention orders are issued by the military and allow Israeli forces to place Palestinians in detention for indefinitely renewable periods of six months without charge or trial. The transfer of Palestinian prisoners from the OPT into Israel is a grave breach under the Fourth Convention.
Ansar 3 was opened on 16 March 1988 to absorb increasing numbers of Palestinians arrested during the first Intifada. At its peak, it was the largest prison in Israel, holding approximately 7,000 Palestinians, including 3,000 in administrative detention. At one time or another during its six years of operation, approximately 170,000 Palestinians were detained at the facility.
The prison camp is administered by the Israeli army rather than the civil penal system. It consists of tents surrounded by barbed wire and watchtowers. Prisoners are confined with little or no protection from the harsh weather conditions of the Negev desert, including temperatures ranging from 54 degrees during the day to 0 degrees at night. Hygiene and sanitation conditions at the facility fail to meet minimum international standards of conditions of detention, including those specified in Article 85 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
According to PCHR’s documentation, guards at the camp regularly abused detainees when it was in operation. In a number of cases, soldiers in watchtowers fired at prisoners, including Asad Jaber Shawa from Gaza city, shot and killed on 16 August 1988. For years, Israeli authorities denied detainees in Ansar 3 the right to receive family visits. Palestinian lawyers seeking to visit their clients inside were regularly subject to degrading treatment and even beatings.
PCHR believes that the reopening of Ansar 3 indicates that Israeli occupying forces will continue mass arbitrary detentions, especially under Israeli Military Order 1500, which grants army officers wide latitude to detain Palestinians without charge or judicial review. Israeli occupying forces are holding an estimated 4,000 Palestinians detained during the current offensive in the West Bank military bases of Ofer, Etzion (near Hebron), and Hawara (near Nablus).
PCHR is deeply concerned that, given the history of events at the facility, detainees at Ansar 3 may be in danger of torture, ill-treatment, or even summary execution.
PCHR calls upon the international community to demand that Israel:
1. Make public a list of names of those detained in the recent offensive (since 29 March 2002) as well as a list of those still being held
2. Close the Ansar 3 facility
3. Release all Palestinians from the OPT detained without charge
4. Take steps, in accordance with its obligation under Article 146 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, to ensure the accountability of all those responsible for torture of detainees
