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Press release
Palestinian Prisoners’ Day Announcement: International Community Must Ensure Israel’s Respect for Rights of Detainees
Palestinian Prisoners’ Day (17 April) this year comes during a time of unprecedented waves of mass arbitrary detentions by Israeli occupying forces as part of their all-out military offensive in the West Bank. According to preliminary estimates, approximately 8,000 Palestinians are now in Israeli custody, of whom some 5,000 were arrested after 29 March. Israeli officials have yet to release firm data on numbers of those being held.
According to information received by PCHR, many of those recently detained without charge have been subject to torture and ill-treatment, in violation of international humanitarian law. Detainees have been forced to strip to their underclothes without shelter, food, or water, for days on end. The locations of dozens of detainees remain unknown.
In an alarming move, Israeli authorities earlier this week reopened the notorious Ketziot detention camp (popularly known as “Ansar 3”) in the Negev desert in southern Israel. Approximately 351 Palestinians being held in administrative detention are being transferred there, most of whom have been arrested in the past week. Administrative detention orders are issued by the military and allow Israeli forces to confine Palestinians for indefinitely renewable periods of six months without charge or trial.
Ansar 3 is the only detention facility in Israel administered by the army; approximately 170,000 Palestinians were held there during the first Intifada, indicating that Israel is planning to once again intern large numbers of Palestinians. The camp 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. The transfer of prisoners from the Occupied Palestinian Territories into Israel is a grave breach under the Fourth Geneva Convention.
The Israeli army commander for the West bank issued a military order on 5 April granting army officers wide latitude to detain Palestinians without charge, access to lawyers, or judicial review. PCHR is deeply concerned that the order is intended to expedite mass arbitrary detentions and the extraction of confessions through physical or mental coercion.
Palestinian detainees in Israeli custody are routinely subjected to various forms of torture and ill-treatment, including: violent shaking, painful shackling, shabeh (being forced to sit on a small chair in an excruciating position for long periods of time), long-term sleep deprivation, and psychological abuse. These practices are ongoing despite a 1999 Israeli Supreme Court ruling that outlawed certain interrogation methods but left open the possibility for the Israeli Knesset to legalise torture, despite the efforts of a local and international campaign against torture in Israel.
In addition, Israeli authorities have imposed a number of restrictions making attorney or family visits for Palestinian prisoners virtually impossible, especially during the al-Aqsa Intifada. Conditions of prisoners have also deteriorated during the al-Aqsa Intifada, especially in terms of access to adequate health care. Moreover, solitary confinement and other forms of ill-treatment continue to be employed.
PCHR, the PNA Ministry of Prisoners’ and Ex-Prisoners’ Affairs, and the Society of Prisoners and ex-Prisoners are deeply concerned at the ongoing failure of Israel to respect the rights of detainees under international human rights and humanitarian law. They condemn the collusion between the Israeli judiciary, military, and intelligence services to deny prisoners their rights and affirm that Israel must respect its international obligations regarding detainees, especially those enshrined in the Fourth Geneva Convention and the UN Convention Against Torture.
PCHR, the PNA Ministry of Prisoners’ and Ex-Prisoners’ Affairs, and the Society of Prisoners and ex-Prisoners also call upon the ICRC to exert greater efforts to ensure the proper treatment of detainees (including adequate access to food and water) and call upon the international community to pressure Israel to:
Comprehensively ban torture and ill-treatment of Palestinian detainees, in accordance with international human rights and humanitarian law
Release information about those recently detained, including names and locations of detention
Release Palestinians detained without charge
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