DNA
RAMALLAH: The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates confirmed
The report issued today by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights on cases of detention from October 7, 2023 to June 30, 2024 confirms the escalation in cases of systematic arbitrary detention, including administrative, carried out by the Israeli occupation forces since October 7, 2023. , whether in the West Bank, including Jerusalem, or in the Gaza Strip, so that the number of Palestinian prisoners detained by the Israeli occupation authorities reached 9,440 male and female prisoners as of June 30, 2024, including 3,377 cases of administrative detention, including women, children, and medical personnel. Journalists, patients, UNRWA staff and human rights defenders.
The Ministry stressed that the inhumane and degrading treatment to which Palestinian prisoners are subjected in the occupation prisons, and systematic torture, including severe beatings leading to death and other crimes, require urgent international action to compel Israel, the occupying power, to stop its flagrant violation of the provisions of international humanitarian law and international human rights law. It is a collective punishment that amounts to a war crime. The Ministry also appreciated the report’s conclusions that arresting Palestinians and depriving them of their freedom without knowing their fate or whereabouts amounts to the crime of enforced disappearance.
The Ministry indicated that the policy of arbitrary detention is part of the broader crimes and violations of the rights of the Palestinian people in light of genocide, collective punishment, and ethnic cleansing, and called on the Office of the High Commissioner to continue documenting violations of international law and human rights, including against prisoners. It also called on all countries and international institutions to immediately implement the recommendations concluded in the report. This includes obligating Israel, the illegal occupying power, to immediately release the prisoners who were arbitrarily detained, stop serious violations of the provisions of international humanitarian law and international human rights law, hold the perpetrators of these crimes and violations accountable, find out the fate of the prisoners who were forcibly disappeared, and allow the International Committee For the Red Cross to visit the prisoners and for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to enter the occupied Palestinian territory, including Jerusalem, and provide reparation for the victims of violations of international law.
