One of the most prominent writers and thinkers of the Palestinian Captive Movement, Daqqa was martyred inside Assaf Harofeh Hospital after a nearly four-decade-long struggle in Israeli prisons.
Palestinian detainee Walid Daqqa was martyred inside Assaf Harofeh Hospital on Sunday, following a nearly four-decade-long struggle in Israeli occupation prisons, the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoners Society (PPS) confirmed on Sunday evening.
Throughout his imprisonment, Daqqa endured numerous forms of mistreatment, torture, and notably, medical negligence.
This comes shortly after the human rights group Amnesty International called on “Israel” to release Daqqa on humanitarian grounds on Saturday. The rights group affirmed that the Palestinian detainee had suffered torture, humiliation, lack of family visits, and medical neglect, particularly since the start of the Israeli war on Gaza on October 7, 2023.
On March 13, the Palestinian Prisoners Society (PPS) announced that the cancer-stricken detainee had been transferred to Assaf Harofeh Hospital as his health further deteriorated following deliberate medical negligence.
While "Israel" has been pursuing its policy of deliberate medical negligence against #Palestinian cancer-stricken prisoner Walid Daqqa, a far-right Israeli politician said, according to Israeli media, that he prays that cancer will spread in Daqqa's body.#Palestinepic.twitter.com/4Sq2RacUDt
— Al Mayadeen English (@MayadeenEnglish) May 31, 2023
At the time, Daqqa’s family made an urgent appeal, explaining the urgency of his health situation. The family urged that Daqqa be considered at the top of the list of detainees in the first upcoming exchange deal, given his deteriorating medical conditions.
Daqqa’s case was considered the most critical among the seriously ill Palestine detainees. His wife, Sanaa Salameh, has constantly reiterated to Al Mayadeen that the Israeli occupation is deliberately subjecting her husband to the policy of systematic medical negligence in an attempt to assassinate him.
It is worth noting that the Palestinian Ministry of Detainees and Ex-Detainees had held the Israeli occupation responsible for Daqqa’s well-being on several occasions.
Who is Walid Daqqa?
Daqqa was born in the town of Baqa al-Gharbiya, in northern occupied Palestinian ’48 territories. He joined the ranks of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in 1983 and was assigned to a military cell of the front. Alongside his comrades in the PFLP, Daqqa conducted a series of operations against Israeli occupation forces and took captive Moshi Tamam an Israeli soldier.
He was detained two years later and initially received a death sentence, which was later reduced to 37 years in prison. In 2018, the Israeli occupation added another two years to his sentence, on charges of smuggling phones to prisoners to help them communicate with their families.
A few years ago, his wife, Sanaa Salameh, was able to give birth to their daughter, Milad, after smuggling his sperm from prison. Upon discovering this, “Israel” imposed harsh penalties on Daqqa, admitting him to solitary confinement and restricting his visitation rights.
في يوم ميلادها الثالث، كتب الأسير وليد دقة لطفلته ميلاد:
"حبيبتي ميلاد.. أنت دوائي وشفائي، لا شيء يوازي ما تفعله ضحكتك بي.. فلو تعلمين ما أثر كلماتك علي عندما تقولين لي "حبيبي بابا"، لكررتها ألف مرة صباح مساء.. لك يا أميرتي حبي، وكل عام وأنت بألف خير" pic.twitter.com/E2Ujfqtgbd
Daqqa is considered one of the most prominent writers and thinkers of the Palestinian Captive Movement. “Israel” punished him for his resistance, denying him access to proper medical care and early release despite his declining health.
In December 2022, he was diagnosed with advanced bone marrow cancer and urgently required a transplant, which he has not yet received.
On May 22, 2023, Daqqa was moved to the intensive care unit at Assaf Harofeh Hospital near “Tel Aviv” due to worsening health issues. However, three days later, Israeli authorities transferred him back to “Ramleh” prison’s clinic, known for its harsh conditions, despite calls from human rights organizations to keep him hospitalized for continuous monitoring and treatment if he is not released.
His continued detention contradicted the 1993 Oslo Accords, which included a provision for the release of all Palestinian detainees held before the agreement was signed.
During his detention, Daqqa was denied the opportunity to bid farewell to his father before his passing or to visit his mother, who suffered from Alzheimer’s, a decade ago.
Despite being mentioned in four previous prisoner exchange deals, he was excluded from them. Additionally, he was unable to leave prison to meet his daughter, Milad, who used to accompany her mother to protests advocating for her father’s release.
Daqqa endured acute pneumonia and renal failure, leading to surgery on April 12, 2023, during which a significant portion of his right lung was removed. Subsequently, he faced complications from the surgery, along with severe respiratory issues and infection.
Despite restrictions such as book bans, Daqqa attained bachelor’s and master’s degrees while in prison. Additionally, he authored novels, articles, and poems about the Palestinian Resistance against the Israeli occupation, which gained global recognition.
The number of Palestinian detainees killed since October 7 as a result of torture and medical negligence has risen to 13, according to a joint statement by the Commission and the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club.
Palestinian citizen of Israel, Juma Abu Ghanima, was killed in an Israeli prison, five days after Israeli authorities announced that he had been transferred, in serious health condition, from his cell in Eshel prison to a medical facility, the Prisoners and Ex-Prisoners Affairs Commission said on Saturday.
Abu Ghanima, 26, was detained in December by Israeli occupation forces, “on the precedent of his resistance to the occupation,” the Commission further stated.
The number of Palestinian detainees killed since October 7 as a result of torture and medical negligence has risen to 13, according to a joint statement by the Commission and the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club.
Abu Ghanima, a Palestinian resident of the Naqab, in Palestine 48, was arrested last December while trying to return to Israel.
According to Israeli media, Abu Ghanima, who crossed into Gaza in 2016, began military training with the Palestinian Resistance movement Hamas, including advanced training with the Nukhba forces.
“During his time in Gaza, Abu Ghanima carried out various surveillance operations along the border and met with Hamas officials,” according to The Times of Israel.
Abu Ghanima, however, had been reportedly detained by Hamas in Gaza in 2021 for adhering to security restrictions and tried to return to Israel after the prison was bombed by Israeli forces last December.
Israeli media have revealed the death of several detainees from Gaza. However, Israeli authorities refuse to disclose their identities, according to the Commission and PPS.
In a statement, the two prisoner groups held the Israeli prison administration fully responsible for the death of Abu Ghanima, for continuing “to carry out “torture and systematic medical negligence against Palestinian detainees held in Israeli jails”.
The total number of Palestinian detainees held in Israeli jails surged to 9,100, including 3,558 administrative detainees, according to the statement.
Men detained by Israeli forces since the start of the war are returning to Gaza with harrowing accounts of mock executions, constant beatings and humiliating mistreatment
Palestinian men detained by Israeli forces since the start of the war in Gaza have told Middle East Eye how they were physically tortured with dogs and electricity, subjected to mock executions, and held in humiliating and degrading conditions.
In testimonies to MEE, one man, who was taken by Israeli forces from a school in Gaza where he had sought refuge with his family, described how he had been handcuffed, blindfolded, and detained in a metal cage for 42 days.
During interrogations, he said he had been given electric shocks, as well as scratched and bitten by army dogs.
Other men also described being electrocuted, attacked by dogs, doused with cold water, denied food and water, deprived of sleep, and subjected to constant loud music.
“They did not spare anyone. There were 14-year-old boys and 80-year-old men,” said one of the men, Moaz Muhammad Khamis Miqdad, who was taken prisoner in Gaza City in December and held for more than 30 days.
As well as three men taken prisoner in Gaza, MEE spoke to a man detained in a raid in the West Bank city of Qalqilya who said he had been blindfolded, stripped naked, and hung by his arms during interrogations in which he was repeatedly beaten and burnt with cigarettes.
He also described being held for days in freezing conditions in which he was not allowed to sleep and of a soldier urinating in a bottle and handing it to him after he had requested water.
All four men described being forced to strip naked and being constantly beaten and abused by Israeli soldiers during their weeks-long detentions.
Sexual abuse and beatings: A Palestinian mother’s ordeal in Israeli custody Read More »
Their accounts of torture and abuse follow similar allegations made by human rights monitors.
Israel’s conduct of its war against Hamas in Gaza is already the subject of an International Court of Justice case in which it stands accused of genocide and an ongoing war crimes investigation by the International Criminal Court.
Last week details of an unpublished investigation by Unrwa, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, alleging abuse of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners detained during the war in Gaza were reported by the New York Times.
Many of those details appear consistent with the testimonies of former detainees who spoke to MEE.
On Thursday, Haaretz reported that at least 27 detainees from Gaza had died in Israeli military facilities since the start of the war. It said some of the deaths had occurred at the Sde Teiman military base in southern Israel and the Anatot base in the West Bank.
On Thursday, Haaretz reported that at least 27 detainees from Gaza had died in Israeli military facilities since the start of the war. It said some of the deaths had occurred at the Sde Teiman military base in southern Israel and the Anatot base in the West Bank.
On Friday, Alice Jill Edwards, the UN’s special rapporteur on torture, said she was investigating allegations of torture and mistreatment of Palestinian detainees by Israel and was in talks with Israeli authorities to visit the country on a fact-finding mission.
Ramy Abdu, the chair of Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor which has also compiled reports of torture in custody, said the testimonies of Palestinians released from Israeli detention were “deeply disturbing”.
Abdu told MEE: “These testimonies reveal a systematic pattern of abuse, including forced strip searches, sexual harassment, threats of rape, severe beatings, dog attacks, and denial of necessities such as food, water, and access to restroom facilities. These acts not only inflict physical pain but also leave lasting psychological scars on the victims.
“The use of such brutal tactics, particularly against vulnerable groups such as women, children, and the elderly, is reprehensible and constitutes a gross violation of human dignity and international law.”
Miriam Azem, an advocacy associate at Adalah, a Palestinian human rights organisation, said that reports of “pervasive torture and ill-treatment” inflicted on Palestinian detainees in Israeli custody demanded an immediate international intervention.
“Hundreds of Palestinians from Gaza remain held incommunicado, their whereabouts unknown. The urgency of the current moment demands not just attention but immediate and resolute intervention from the international community. Any failure to intervene poses a grave threat to Palestinian lives,” Azem told MEE.
The Israeli army had not responded to MEE’s request for comment at the time of publication. It has said in response to allegations concerning the mistreatment of detainees that such conduct “violates IDF values and contravenes IDF orders and is therefore absolutely prohibited”.
It has said its soldiers act “in accordance with Israeli and international law in order to protect the rights of the detainees”. It has said every death in Israeli military custody is being investigated, and that some of those who had died had pre-existing medical conditions or injuries.
‘They placed me facing the wall on my knees’
Naeem Youssef Salem Abu Al-Hassan, a 19-year-old from Jabalia, northern Gaza, told MEE he had been detained with other young men aged 18 to 25 after remaining residents were ordered by Israeli forces to leave the city on 27 December 2023.
By then, he said, he and his extended family had endured weeks of air strikes, tank attacks, and sniper fire which had destroyed much of the neighbourhood and killed a number of his relatives.
Soon afterward, Hassan said, Israeli soldiers had asked him to identify two bodies in the street who they said were fighters.
Hassan said he did not know the identities of the bodies and had no connections with fighters.
“They didn’t believe me and insisted that I recognised them otherwise they would shoot me and drop me next to the bodies. I didn’t know what to say. Then they placed me facing the wall on my knees.”
Hassan said the soldiers then kicked him and called him a liar. He was handcuffed, blindfolded, and dragged to a nearby house where other detainees were also being held.
“One soldier was smoking a cigarette and trying to burn me on my face. I told him I can’t take it so he started hitting and kicking me,” he said.
Palestinian men were rounded up and stripped by Israeli forces in Gaza seen in a video released on 7 December (Screengrab/X)
That night, the men were rounded up and taken out to the street where, Hassan said, they were surrounded by soldiers and tanks. Deep holes had been dug in the street and a soldier started to push him towards one of the holes.
“I felt, that’s it, he will definitely kill me now. This will probably be my last breath,” he said.
Instead, the men were loaded onto trucks. They were driven around for several hours, all the while being cursed, kicked, and beaten by the soldiers guarding them. Then they were moved to a different vehicle and driven around some more, still being beaten.
‘They unleashed them on us. The dogs would attack us, scratching us while the commander would continue to beat us with utter brutality’
– Naeem Youssef Salem Abu Al-Hassan
Eventually, they were dropped at an unknown location. Five soldiers came into the room where they were being held and continued beating them.
This pattern of being moved around in vehicles between different locations, all the while being subjected to beatings, continued over several days.
Finally, the men arrived at a location where they were forced to kneel on the floor, still restrained with handcuffs and blindfolded.
“We all remained like this for 37 days… almost naked in the blistering cold, our bodies exhausted, our souls drifting away. The food was barely enough to keep you alive,” said Hassan.
When the men tried to complain about the conditions of their detention, their captors brought in soldiers with dogs.
“They unleashed them on us. The dogs would attack us, scratching us while the commander would continue to beat us with utter brutality.”
Every few days the men would be taken for questioning. Hassan said he was shown images of tunnels and his interrogators would ask him what he knew about them.
“Whenever I said that I didn’t [know anything] they would slap, punch, hit, and kick me all over my body,” said Hassan.
“The soldiers with their commander would make a lot of noise… so we were not able to sleep and remained exhausted and completely strained from fatigue, starvation, and torture.”
One night in the early hours as he tried to rest, Hassan was kicked awake by a soldier and dragged to a bus with four other men. The bus took them to Karm Abu Salem, the main crossing between Israel and southern Gaza, where they were released.
“The commander screamed at us that we should walk quickly, but I could barely walk [because of] the beating and kneeling and the lack of food and sleep. The soldiers started running after us to scare us.”
Hassan said the men managed to drag themselves to nearby UN buses that were waiting to collect them.
‘They wanted us to stay between life and death’
Moaz Muhammad Khamis Miqdad, 26, told MEE he had been rounded up at gunpoint by Israeli soldiers on 21 December while sheltering in a school with his family in the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood of Gaza City.
Along with other men, he was forced to strip to his underwear. They were then taken to a nearby mosque where their hands were tied behind their backs and they were made to kneel.
“Then they threw us in a truck, where more soldiers and security forces railed at us with massive beatings and cursing,” recalled Miqdad.
The truck took them to a detention centre where the beatings continued relentlessly.
“They tortured us for hours, spraying us with cold water while we were almost naked. They were determined to torture us and break us.”
Eventually, one by one the men were taken to an interrogation room where, Miqdad said, the torture got worse.
“The soldiers asked where I was on 7 October and what I did. I told them I had nothing to do with the events of 7 October but they didn’t care. They attacked me with even more excessive punches and kicks, and this time with their weapons as well.”
Bruised and bleeding, the men were put in another truck and taken to a dark, cold room.
“I was naked, cold, beaten, starving, exhausted and completely drained. If any prisoner fell asleep the soldiers would viciously beat him on the head or chest to keep him awake. They wanted us to stay between life and death.”
After a couple of days, the men were put on a bus, this time with about 50 other prisoners. As the bus drove them to a detention centre in another area, they were beaten by soldiers, this time armed with iron bars.
Israel-Palestine war: Bruises found on bodies of Palestinians who died in Israeli detention Read More »
“If anybody would scream in pain, they would beat him even harder,” said Miqdad.
After two weeks in detention, Miqdad said he was allowed to take a shower. But even this risked incurring a humiliating beating.
“The shower time was limited to four minutes. I was afraid to take off my underwear and never have it back. If you were a second late in the shower the soldiers would tie you to metal bars and beat you for four hours. Soldiers and commanders would come and hit you with their weapons, metal bars, and boots.”
At night, the detainees were forced to sleep naked without any covers on the floor of what Miqdad said appeared to be an army barracks. Loud music would play at full volume.
During one interrogation, Miqdad said he was asked why he had remained in Gaza City, rather than going to the south, as Israel had told residents to do. He said he told them that he did not have the money to make the journey.
“They didn’t like my answer. They sent me back to the dark prison room, blindfolded. We were forbidden from making any movement or gesture. If we tried to adjust the blindfold to wipe away our tears and blood the soldiers would go crazy, shouting at us and beating us insanely.”
Following the interrogation, Miqdad said he was placed in a chair.
“They placed electric bands all over my body and electrocuted me with powerful shocks all the way to my head.”
After several more days of this treatment, Miqdad was told he was being transferred. He was blindfolded and put on a bus. Many of the other men on the bus were sick and elderly, he said.
The bus drove for a while and then stopped.
“They kicked us all out and threatened to shoot and kill anyone who moved from the line, or looked back, or tried to help one another.”
“A young man was totally paralysed from the harsh conditions so I carried him despite the fact I could barely carry myself. The soldiers saw me and started yelling and shooting but I did not care, I just kept walking and didn’t look back. In those moments he was not heavy.”
‘You think you will die a thousand times’
Omar Mahmoud Abdel Qader Samoud had also been forced to seek refuge in a school with members of his family after their house was destroyed by an air strike on 14 November.
After several weeks, Israeli soldiers came to the school and detained Samoud, his wife, and their children including their two-year-old son.
“They handcuffed us and blindfolded us and took us to a nearby hill,” said Samoud.
“Tanks were roaming around us, creating a deadly scene of horror and fear. In those moments you think you will die a thousand times.”
Samoud said he remained blindfolded and handcuffed for the entire 42 days of his detention, barely being given enough food to survive.
“The soldiers forced us to kneel for 24 hours. They would storm into the barracks where we were kept as hostages, make a lot of noise with their iron bars, kicking and breaking everything.
“The temperature was freezing, as [the cell] was made of iron, very similar to cages used for animals… The soldiers’ aim was to torture us, to break us, to show us who is the boss, and that our lives depended on them.”
Prisoners who raised their heads risked being sent to the “ghost room”, Samoud said.
“You become a ghost, unseen and unheard,” he said. “They tie your hands and legs, forbid you from going to the bathroom. They deny you water and food and leave you like this for a few days.”
Another room was known as the “disko”.
“A soldier dragged me on the floor, naked and handcuffed and placed me on a piece of rug,” Samoud recalled.
“The soldiers sprayed freezing cold water on me and placed a fan in front of me. They would leave me for a few days, without food or water or the possibility to get up and go to the bathroom. I urinated on myself and pleaded for mercy but they didn’t care.
“The soldiers would kick me on all parts of my body. Imagine yourself naked, handcuffed on the floor with five or six soldiers kicking you with their boots, hitting you with weapons and bats.
“Then they asked me to sit up. How could I possibly sit up? When I couldn’t follow their orders they would beat me even harder. They completely smashed me. I thought this nightmare would never end.”
Sometimes soldiers would unleash dogs on the captive men as they were forced to lie face down on the ground, still handcuffed and blindfolded.
“The soldiers would close the door and let the dogs torture us for the next two or three hours,” said Samoud. He said he had also been subjected to electric shocks.
During interrogations, detainees were restrained in their chairs by clamps on their arms and their legs. Sometimes these sessions would last from 9am until midnight, and in one of these Samoud said that his toes had been broken.
“Part of the torture technique was breaking the clamps while they are still on your legs. [The interrogator] came to remove them but started banging on them so fiercely that I cried out in pain. My toes were breaking but he kept on banging them. The pain was unbearable.
“They left me like that, my toes broken and bloodied for 20 days, lying around like a rug. I lost over 25 kilos while being held hostage and I cannot walk because of the torture.”
‘All were brutalised, tortured and humiliated’
Ali Nayef Muhammad Al-Masry, 34, was among a group of men rounded up during a night raid by Israeli forces in the northern West Bank city of Qalqilya in January.
Masry, who is from Gaza, and the other men had previously been working in Israel but had been displaced to Qalqilya when their work permits were withdrawn at the start of the war.
Following an army raid on the building where they were staying, the men were blindfolded, handcuffed, and dragged to a space alongside the fence separating the West Bank from Israel.
“They kept us there for about a month. We were workers but there were also sick people there, people with cancer, some of them were elderly. All were brutalised, tortured, and humiliated. There was no regard for human life,” said Masry.
‘When I asked for water, the soldier would laugh, go to the corner, urinate in a plastic bottle, and bring it to me to drink’
– Ali Nayef Muhammad Al-Masry
One day, Masry was among 10 men separated by soldiers from the rest of the detainees. The men were made to strip naked and kneel by the fence.
“An army commander came and waged a psychological war against us. He shouted at his unit, ‘Kill them all, every single one of them.’ Then the soldiers started shooting and we heard live ammunition all around us. I had no idea if I was dead or alive.”
The men were then taken to a room for questioning.
“The first question was: ‘Who do you know?’. And he showed me photos from my neighbourhood. If he didn’t like my answers, he would hang me by my arms, still handcuffed. My interrogation lasted for 10 days. All this time, I didn’t know when it was day and when it was night. I was freezing all the time. Naked, freezing, and cuffed.”
Other times, Masry said, his interrogator would burn cigarettes on his skin and kick him. He was made to sit on a chair that delivered electric shocks and was prevented from sleeping.
“The soldiers and their commander were monsters. When I asked for water, the soldier would laugh, go to the corner, urinate in a plastic bottle, and bring it to me to drink. When I refused, he would drop the whole thing on me.”
After several weeks, Masry and the other men were handcuffed and blindfolded, put on an army truck, and driven for six hours to Karm Abu Salem.
“Before they released us, they undressed us again and took our clothes. When they dropped us off there were 55 male detainees and six female detainees. They made us walk north and after walking a long distance the soldiers started shooting at us.
“Later we learned that the six women had been kidnapped from inside Gaza and were held hostage for three months. We didn’t know anything about them.”
Photo: Israeli soldiers stand by a truck packed with shirtless Palestinian detainees in the Gaza Strip, 8 December 2023 (Reuters/Yossi Zeliger)
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The Zionist circles continued following up the military setbacks of the occupation forces in Gaza and the repercussions of the failure to liberate the detainees through the military means.
In this regard, the Israeli circles considered that the dilemma lies in the fact that even the negotiation track, viewed as the sole war to liberate the detainees, will be considered a s a victory for the Palestinian resistance in Gaza.
The strategic influence of the expected Zionist defeat on the future of the occupation entity, as viewed by the Israeli circles, is very serious and detrimental.
Eilan Abitar, Arab Affairs Expert, said that the ground offensive in Khan Younis will not enhance liberating the detainees from Gaza, adding that any deal with Hamas will be a major Israeli defeat.
MK Metan Kahana voiced support to concluding a deal to liberate the detainees, considering that ending the war is impossible.
The military analyst Roi Sharon reported a new clash between the army and the political command as investigations into October 7 events will interrogate only military officers, away from the politicians.
100 Days of Ongoing Genocide in Gaza Amid the International Community’s Failure to Protect Palestinians
Today, 14 January 2024, Israel’s genocidal military campaign against Gaza enters its hundredth day. Over this period, Al Mezan, Al-Haq, and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) have monitored and exposed the plethora of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and acts constituting genocide committed by the Israeli authorities and military across the occupied Palestinian territory, with its epicenter in Gaza. A hundred days later, the international community still falls short of fulfilling its duty to protect the Palestinian people.
The Israeli military is killing an average of 250 Palestinians per day in Gaza, a higher daily death rate than any other twenty-first-century armed conflict. In 100 days, Israeli attacks have killed one out of every 100 Palestinians in Gaza and injured—often with life-altering wounds—at least two Palestinians in every 100. As we write, thousands of Palestinians remain buried under rubble, whether dead or alive, some enduring this situation for days or even weeks. Hundreds of bodies are in a state of decay, deprived of the right to a dignified burial, as Israel continues to deny medical and rescue teams access to areas where its troops and soldiers are deployed.
According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, between 7 October 2023 and 12 January 2024, Israel’s genocidal military campaign in Gaza killed 23,843 Palestinians and wounded 60,317 more. According to the Government Media Office in Gaza, among those killed are approximately 10,400 children, 7,100 women, 337 medical personnel, 45 civil defense personnel, and 117 journalists. Our teams on the ground emphasize that the actual number of fatalities is considerably higher than the figure announced by the Ministry of Health, as a substantial number of individuals remain trapped under the rubble.
This chilling death and injury toll occurs amidst a deliberately imposed humanitarian crisis by the Israeli authorities upon the 2.3 million Palestinian residents of Gaza. Ninety percent of Palestinians have been displaced from their homes, with many experiencing displacement on multiple occasions, notwithstanding that there is not a single place in Gaza that can be called safe. Israel employs starvation as a method of warfare: 2.3 million residents of Gaza, including our staff, face significant daily challenges in accessing food and water. Reports of deaths from hunger, particularly among children, newborns and infants, are beginning to surface. The situation is particularly catastrophic in northern Gaza, where the presence of Israeli soldiers and troops on the ground has made the delivery of humanitarian aid to hundreds of thousands of civilians who are still located there virtually impossible.
Due to the ongoing genocide in Gaza, every facet of life there has faced utter destruction. The local healthcare system has crumbled as Israel has declared an “unrelenting war” on the health system in Gaza, rendering it incapable of delivering essential care to the injured, sick individuals, and everyday patients. Educational pursuits have been severely disrupted, with Israeli attacks causing complete destruction to 95 schools and universities, and partial damage to 295 others, as reported by the Government Media Office in Gaza. Israeli airstrikes destroyed 145 mosques, while another 243 were partially damaged. Three churches have been destroyed by Israeli attacks, along with numerous archaeological and historical sites, as well as significant cultural landmarks, contributing to the erasure of Palestinian history and life throughout Gaza.
Simultaneously with the genocide in Gaza, Israel escalated attacks against Palestinians all across historic Palestine. In the occupied West Bank, between 7 October 2023 and 12 January 2024, the Israeli military and settlers killed 336 Palestinians, including 84 children. Over the same period of time, Israel started a campaign of mass arrest: since 7 October, at least 5875 Palestinians have been detained, as further punitive measures have been imposed on them and the existing 5,200 Palestinian prisoners and detainees, including administrative detainees. Palestinians in Israeli custody and detention are subjected to torture, ill-treatment, inhumane or degrading treatment, and enforced disappearances. The Israel Prison Service announced the ‘death’ of at least seven Palestinian detainees and prisoners. Palestinians holding Israeli citizenship have also experienced various forms of persecution, including arbitrary arrests, threats of citizenship revocation, and a severe crackdown on freedom of speech.
Al Mezan, Al-Haq, and PCHR reiterate that the Palestinian people in Gaza are facing an ongoing genocide. Israel’s actions in Gaza—encompassing killings, causing severe bodily or mental harm, deliberately imposing conditions of life aimed at physical destruction, and imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group—constitute genocidal acts under the 1948 Genocide Convention. These acts are committed with the intent to destroy, either wholly or in part, the Palestinian population in Gaza. This intent is substantiated by statements from official Israeli sources and individuals expressing the clear intention to carry out such destruction.
The recent address from the Israeli Prime Minister, delivered last night, underscores the lack of any inclination on Israel’s part to cease its genocidal military campaign in Gaza. The remarks made during this speech also underline Israel’s refusal to implement a ceasefire in Gaza, in violation of the United Nations General Assembly Resolution A/ES-10/L.27 adopted on 10 December 2023, highlighting the urgency for the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to promptly issue provisional measures.
To this end, we urge the ICJ to swiftly issue provisional measures instructing Israel to cease military operations, refrain from genocidal acts in Gaza, and facilitate the entry of aid and fact-finding teams for accountability purposes, as requested by South Africa. We additionally call on all State Parties to the Genocide Convention to express their endorsements and formally support the legal proceedings initiated by South Africa at the ICJ.
We reiterate our plea to the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, Ms. Alice Wairimu Nderitu, to officially acknowledge and publicly affirm that Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip amount to genocide. Additionally, we urge her to condemn the genocidal rhetoric emanating from Israeli officials and emphasize the inherent dangers that such rhetoric poses to the international community.
Under international law, States must not recognize illegal situations as legitimate and must refrain from assisting in maintaining the illegal situation. States must also impose a two-way arms embargo on Israel and stop the provision and transit of military equipment that may foreseeably be used in the commission of international crimes.
Responsibility at the State level should be accompanied by individual criminal accountability. We strongly reiterate our calls on the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to promptly issue arrest warrants for Israeli political, security and military officials—especially governmental officials and high-ranking military personel—believed to be responsible for perpetrating, ordering, planning, and instigating international crimes, including genocide, committed over the past 100 days as well as since 13 June 2014.
Israel’s international crimes against the Palestinian people must cease immediately and permanently. To this end, the international community must not only hold Israel and the Israeli authorities accountable, but address the root causes by dismantling Israel’s settler-colonial and apartheid regime, and ensuring that all discriminatory and inhumane laws, policies and practices against the Palestinian people are abolished once and for all. The international community must also urge Israel, the Occupying Power, to immediately and unconditionally withdraw from the occupied Palestinian territory, lift the closure and blockade of Gaza, and enable the Palestinian people to fully exercise their inalienable right to self-determination, including their right to return.
When Zionist militias, using advanced Western arms, conquered historic Palestine in 1947-48, they expressed their victory through the deliberate humiliation of Palestinians.
Much of that humiliation targeted women, in particular, knowing how the dishonor of Palestinian females represents, according to Arab culture, a sense of dishonor to the whole community.
This strategy remains in use to this day.
When scores of Palestinian women were released following prisoner exchanges between the Palestinian Resistance and Israel, starting on November 24, there was very little room to hide the facts.
Unlike the 75-year-ago Palestinian community, this current generation no longer internalizes Israel’s intentional humiliation of women and men alike, as if an act of collective dishonor.
This has allowed many newly released female prisoners to speak openly, often on live TV, about the kind of humiliation that they were exposed to while in Israeli military detention.
The Israeli army, however, continues to act with the same old mindset, perceiving the humiliation of Palestinians as an expression of dominance, power and supremacy.
Over the years, Israel has perfected the politics of humiliation – a notion that is predicated on the psychological power of shaming whole collectives to emphasize the asymmetrical relationship between two groups of people: in this case, the occupier and the occupied.
This is precisely why, in the early days of the Israeli war on Gaza, Israel detained all Palestinian workers from the Strip who happened to be working inside Israel as cheap laborers at the time of the October 7 operation.
The dehumanization they experienced at the hands of Israeli soldiers demonstrated a growing trend among Israelis to degrade Palestinians for no reason whatsoever.
One of the worst documented episodes took place on October 12, when a group of Israeli soldiers and settlers assaulted three Palestinian activists in the West Bank. Israeli newspapers Haaretz and The Times of Israel described how the three were assaulted, stripped naked, bound, photographed, tortured and urinated upon.
Those images were still fresh in the minds of Palestinians when new images emerged from northern Gaza.
Photos and videos published in Israeli media showed men stripped down to their underwear, being placed in large numbers on the streets of Gaza, while surrounded by well-equipped and supposedly menacing Israeli soldiers.
The men were handcuffed, tied together, forced to hunch down and then, eventually, thrown into military trucks to be taken to an unknown location.
Some of the men were eventually released to tell horror stories, which often had bloody endings.
But why is Israel doing this?
Throughout its history – violent birth and equally violent existence – Israel has purposely humiliated Palestinians as an expression of its disproportionately greater military power over a hapless, confined and mostly refugee population.
This tactic was infused more during certain periods of history when Palestinians felt empowered as a way to break their collective spirit.
The First Intifada, 1987-93, was rife with this kind of humiliation. Children and men between the ages of 15 to 55 would be habitually dragged into schoolyards, stripped naked, forced to kneel down for endless hours, beaten, and insulted by Israeli soldiers using loudspeakers.
Those insults would cover everything that Palestinians hold dear – their religions, their God, their mothers, their holy places and more.
Then, boys and men would be forced to perform certain acts, for example spitting in each other’s faces, shouting certain profanities, slapping themselves or each other. Those who refused would be immediately overpowered, beaten and arrested.
These methods continue to be applied in Israeli prisons, especially during times of hunger strikes, but also during periods of interrogations. In the latter cases, men would be threatened with the rape of their wives or sisters; women would be threatened with sexual violence.
These episodes are often met with collective Palestinian defiance, which directly feeds into Palestinian popular resistance.
The image of the Palestinian fighter, dressed in military fatigue, brandishing an automatic rifle while proudly walking the streets of Nablus, Jenin, or Gaza, in itself does not serve an actual military purpose. It is, however, a direct response to the psychological impact of the kind of humiliation inflicted upon Palestinian society by the Israeli occupation army.
But what is the function of a Palestinian military parade? To answer this question, we must examine the sequence of the event.
When Israel arrests Palestinian activists, they attempt to create the perfect scenario of a humiliated and defeated community: the terror felt by the people when nightly raids begin, the beating of the family of the detained, the shouts of insults, and other well-choreographed horror scenes.
Hours later, Palestinian youth emerge on the streets of their neighborhoods, proudly parading with their guns amid the ululation of women and the excited looks of children. This is precisely how Palestinians respond to humiliation.
Palestinian armed Resistance has grown much stronger in recent years, with Gaza currently serving as a case in point.
As the Israeli military is failing to reoccupy Gaza and subdue its population, utilizing the politics of humiliation on a mass scale is simply impossible.
To the contrary, it is the Israelis who do feel humiliated, not only because of what has taken place on October 7, but everything else that has taken place since then.
Unable to operate freely in the heart of Gaza, Khan Yunis, Rafah or any other major population centers in the Strip, the Israeli army is forced to humiliate Palestinians in whatever little margins they can control, Beit Lahia, for example.
Frustrated by their military failure to deliver on their promises of subduing Gazans, ordinary Israelis have taken to social media to taunt Palestinians in their own way.
Israeli women, often along with their own children, would dress up in ways that would convey a racist representation of Arab women crying over the bodies of their dead children.
As bombs rain on Palestinians in Gaza, Israelis like Eve Cohen have taken to TikTok in Arab face to claim Palestinian mothers are faking their deaths. pic.twitter.com/DIYICk9Y3o
This type of social media mockery seems to have appealed to the imagination of Israeli society, which still insists on its sense of superiority even at a time when they are still paying the price of their own violence and political arrogance.
This time around, however, Israel’s politics of humiliation is proving ineffective because the relationship between Palestinians and Israelis is on its way to being fundamentally altered.
One is only humiliated if he or she internalizes that humiliation as a sense of shame and disempowerment. But Palestinians, this time around, are experiencing no such feelings. On the contrary, their ongoing sumud (resilience) and unity have generated a sense of collective pride unequaled in history.
A Palestinian prisoners’ rights group has highlighted the “extremely difficult” conditions under which female prisoners are being held in Israel’s Damon prison, especially those detained from the Gaza Strip.
In a statement released on Sunday, the Prisoners and Ex-Prisoners Affairs Commission said “The prisoners are facing extremely difficult detention conditions and are subjected to intensified punishments that are increasing daily,” since October 7.
It said the occupation forces launched a far-reaching arrest campaign “in the West Bank, Al-Quds, the occupied interior, and Gaza, against our female prisoners.”
“All of whom were subjected to torture and abuse from the moment of arrest until entering prison, whether through beating and insults, or naked searches, along with solitary confinement and deprivation of basic rights.”
The group said detainees from the Gaza Strip were deliberately subjected to the worst treatment.
One of the detainees relayed that an 80-year-old woman from Gaza arrived at the prison “walking with a cane and without a head cover (scarf).”
“Her body and clothes were covered in blood, and she seemed to know nothing, apparently suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.”
Forced to Abandon Their Children on the Street
Another detainee from Gaza recounted how she was arrested while she had her four young children in her care.
“Not knowing what to do with them, she handed them to a man from Gaza near her, not knowing who he was, and left them without knowing their fate. Others also left their children on the street when they were arrested,” the statement said.
All female prisoners from Gaza had their clothes confiscated and replaced with summer clothes.
They recounted difficult days before arriving at Damon prison, saying they “faced a lot of beating and assault in addition to continuous insults and curses.”
Some of them were left for seven days outdoors, in the rain and cold.
Hundreds of Palestinians who were detained in Gaza during the ongoing Israel’s invasion of the besieged Strip have been held for weeks at a detention facility in southern Israel, where several of them have died under unclear circumstances, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on… pic.twitter.com/Dv1d4y691g
“All female prisoners from the Strip arrived at the prison in a pitiable state, from all health, physical, and psychological” points of view, the statement stressed.
The rights group said “the testimonies represent only a very small part of what we could access, and what is hidden is greater.”
It said the prison administration deliberately isolates the female prisoners of Gaza from other prisoners and from the outside world entirely, in order “to continue committing its crimes without accountability or oversight.”
In November, the head of the group, Qadura Fares, told CNN that around 8,300 Palestinian prisoners are currently held in Israeli jails.
He reportedly said more than 3,000 of them are being held in what Israel calls “administrative detention.” This, he explained, means they are being held without knowing the charges against them, and without an ongoing legal process.
There is a reason why Palestinians are keen on releasing their prisoners, despite the heavy price they continue to pay for their freedom.
It may seem rational to ask the question: what is the point of releasing a few Palestinian detainees from Israeli prisons if the price of doing so is the death of over 15,000 Palestinians in Gaza?
Even if all Palestinian prisoners – numbering about 7,000 – are released, they would not even amount to 30 percent of the total number of Palestinian dead and missing so far in the ongoing Israeli genocide in the Strip.
The logic may sound even more puzzling when we consider that, between October 7 and November 28, Israel detained over 3,290 Palestinians in the West Bank and Occupied East Jerusalem.
Namely, the number of Palestinian women and children detainees released – following several prisoner swaps between Palestinian Resistance and the Israeli army in the period between November 24 and November 30 – is insignificant compared to those who were detained during the same period.
But mathematical equations are irrelevant in liberation wars. If we resort to this kind of logic, then perhaps it is more rational for colonized nations and oppressed groups not to resist in the first place because doing so could multiply the harm inflicted upon them by their colonizers and oppressors.
While Israelis see their captives, whether civilians or military, held in Gaza in terms of numbers, Palestinians approach the issue from an entirely different perspective.
All Palestinians are captives, according to the reality on the ground, because all Palestinians are victims of Israeli colonialism, military occupation and apartheid. The difference between being a prisoner in Megiddo, Ofer, or Ramleh prison, for example, and being a prisoner in an isolated, walled-off Palestinian town under Israeli military Occupation in Area C in the West Bank is rather technical.
True, those in Megiddo are subjected to more violence and torture. They are denied proper food, medicine, and the freedom to move about. But how is that fundamentally different from the incarceration of 2.3 million people living in Gaza now?
Some would even argue that living in Gaza during a time of genocide is more confining and far less safe than being a political prisoner in Israel under ‘normal’ circumstances.
So clearly, the issue is not related to numbers but to power relations.
Under international law, Israel is the Occupying Power. This entitles Israel to certain rights per, for example, the Fourth Geneva Convention and numerous responsibilities. For decades, Israel has abused those ‘rights’ and completely ignored all its obligations. Over the same period, Palestinians have appealed to – even implored – the international community to enforce international law on Israel, unsuccessfully.
This was illustrated in the pitiful display by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas during a speech at the United Nations General Assembly on May 15. “Protect us,” he said repeatedly before making an analogy between Palestinians and animals. “Aren’t we human beings? Even animals should be protected. If you have an animal, won’t you protect it? Protect us!”
Most Palestinians know well that the US, West-dominated international institutions will not protect Palestinians based on any moral rationale or even their love for animals.
This realization dawned on Palestinians generations ago when the international community failed to enforce a single UN resolution on Israel. Regarding the ongoing Gaza genocide, it proved particularly irrelevant to the extent that UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres pronounced it outright when he said on November 8 that the UN has neither “money nor power” to prevent genocide in Gaza.
Guterres and other top UN officials must be aware of the marginal role that the international community can play in the Israeli war on Gaza because of the strong US stance in support of Israel. As long as Washington continues to serve the role of the vanguard of Israeli war crimes in Palestine, Tel Aviv has no reason to stop.
So, Palestinians do what every other occupied, colonized people did in this situation. They resist. Through their resistance, they hope to introduce a new factor to a long-skewed equation primarily controlled by Israel and its Western allies.
By releasing their prisoners as a direct result of their resistance, Palestinians are, therefore, able to influence outcomes. It means that they are political agents, in fact, political actors who can redefine the game’s rules altogether.
Indeed, Palestinians approach the issue of prisoners as part of a more extensive campaign of liberation struggle. Those who can free 100 or 7,000 detainees would, then, set a historical precedent that would, eventually, allow them to release the whole Palestinian people.
Israel is fully aware of the power and representation of the prisoners’ issue because Israel imprisons Palestinians as an expression of power and control over every aspect of Palestinian lives. Though some of the Palestinian detainees are considered, in the eyes of Israel, ‘security prisoners’, many were detained for social media posts, for WhatsApp status, or for no reason at all.
Many Palestinian women were detained for visiting the families of other prisoners or for mourning the deaths of Palestinian youths killed by Israel. Israel detained these women for the same reason that far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir had outlawed the rights of Palestinians to celebrate their children’s freedom.
Specifically, Israel wants to control every aspect of Palestinian lives – their actions, real or symbolic, but even their anger, their joy and all other emotions.
When Palestinians are released through prisoner exchanges, they emerge, proudly and with heads held high, from Israeli dungeons despite the numerous obstacles, restrictions, and Israel’s insistence on keeping all Palestinian captives. For Palestinians, this is an unparalleled victory.
So, no, this is not a numbers game. Though every Palestinian individual matters, whether those being killed in Gaza or those held captive in Israeli prisons, for Palestinians, all issues are linked to one single project called liberation.
It is for this coveted collective freedom that Palestinians have fought, generation after generation, despite the high cost of death, imprisonment, and perpetual captivity.
Beirut – The areas of the occupied West Bank and al-Quds [Jerusalem] has been witnessing a noticeable escalation in special operations. The Palestinian Information Center [PIC] documented 859 resistance operations in the West Bank and al-Quds during August, resulting in the killing of five Zionists.
An example is the shooting operation carried out by the 20-year-old martyr Mohannad al-Mazraa near the “Ma’ale Adumim” settlement in occupied al-Quds, which resulted in the serious and moderate injuries of six “Israeli” settlers. On the other hand, the 27-year-old martyr Kamel Abu Bakr carried out a shooting operation in “Tel Aviv” on August 5, killing one “Israeli” police officer and injuring two others. Another resistant fighter carried out a shooting operation in the town of Hawara in Nablus, at point-blank range, killing two Zionist settlers.
In this context, the leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad [PIJ] movement in Ramallah, Saeed Nakhla, emphasized that “the escalation in the pace of operations has put the occupation in a state of constant anticipation and confusion,” adding, “It carries several fiery messages, the most prominent of which is the reaffirmation of the resistance option and the refusal to raise white flags or surrender; and the [‘Israeli’] occupation’s attempts to eliminate the state of resistance are futile”.
In an interview with al-Ahd News website, Nakhla said, “The Palestinian people, regardless of their factional affiliations, standing behind the resistance for which there is no alternative, is one of the fundamental reasons for the development of the resistance work”.
“Peace agreements or security coordination cannot be reached with a party that invades, kills, and arrests the Palestinian people, and we cannot remain idle in the face of such actions,” he the Palestinian leader went on to say.
In this context, Nakhla reiterated that “the resistance in all its forms continues to defend the Palestinian people despite being persecuted by the ‘Israelis’ and their followers”. He also pointed out that “those who defend all parts of Palestine won’t cause a rift in the social and societal fabric that rejects the Zionist occupation”.
Regarding the enemy’s use of “security coordination” in the West Bank to target resistance fighters, Nakhla reassured the Palestinians that “what some parties are doing in terms of pursuing and arresting resistance fighters at the behest of the ‘Israeli’ occupation and the United States will not be of any benefit, as the resistance’s rifle will remain to be aimed only at the Zionists, and there will be no Palestinian-Palestinian retaliation”.
Nakhla concluded by emphasizing that “the resistance operations, especially individual ones, against the Zionist regime, embody the meaning of national unity. They serve as a motivation to mobilize all Palestinian factions, fostering solidarity and cooperation towards liberation, which we see as imminent given the enemy’s evident failures at various levels and the power struggles within the ‘Israeli’ entity”.
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Al-Quds Brigades – Tubas Brigade confirmed on Friday morning that its fighters are engaged in violent confrontations with the IOF in the city on multiple fronts.
The Tubas Brigade said in a brief statement, “Our freedom fighters are engaged in confrontations on multiple fronts using heavy gunfire and explosive devices with Israeli occupation forces attempting to infiltrate the town.”
“Our freedom fighters targeted an IOF infantry force in the vicinity of the besieged house, using heavy gunfire, and direct hits were achieved,” the statement read.
Al Mayadeen‘s correspondent reported that four Palestinians were injured as they confronted Israeli occupation forces trying to storm the city of Tubas.
Medical sources reported that one Palestinian received a gunshot wound to the head, with his condition described as moderate to serious, while the other was injured by a rubber-coated metal bullet in the abdomen after the occupation forces opened fire using live ammunition and rubber bullets.
Later, our correspondent confirmed that Palestinian youth Abdul Rahim Fayez Awad Ghannam (36) succumbed to his head injuries after being shot by IOF.
🇵🇸 The citizen Abdulrahim Fayez Ghannam (36 years old) has been martyred after being shot in the head by live ammunition fired by the occupation forces, in the town of Aqaba, Tubas.
In the meantime, Israeli occupation forces prevented medical crews from transporting the injured to the hospital for treatment for more than an hour.
Israeli occupation forces obstruct the work of medical staff and ambulances during the ongoing raid into the town of Aqaba, north of Tubas. pic.twitter.com/uyBYDP4Qzk
Israeli occupation forces opened fire on an ambulance carrying an urgent medical condition to a hospital in Aqaba town in Tubas city. pic.twitter.com/YiFOrZkxjw
Our correspondent reported that the IOF bombed a house in Tubas in the northern West Bank after its occupants refused to surrender themselves, resulting in confrontations in the area.
Violent confrontations broke out on Friday morning between Resistance fighters and Israeli occupation forces, which stormed the town of ‘Aqqaba, Tubas, in the northern occupied West Bank, our correspondent reported.
Local sources reported that the IOF besieged a house and demanded that Palestinian youth Ahmad Abu Arra turn himself in.
The sources added that the occupation forces targeted the besieged house with man-portable shells, as more Israeli military reinforcements were brought in.
BREAKING|| Israeli occupation troops strike a Palestinian home with missiles during an aggression attack on Aqaba town, north of the Palestinian city of Tubas. pic.twitter.com/hBH3voAaTw
Eyewitnesses said, “The occupation army stormed the Turkish Hospital and deployed its snipers on top of one of its buildings during its storming of Tubas.”
Al Mayadeen’s correspondent later reported that the IOF withdrew from the town of ‘Aqqaba, north of Tubas, having failed to arrest the Palestinian youth Ahmad Abu Arra, and took instead both of his parents and his sister.
Following the news of the IOF’s failure to arrest Ahmad, the people of Tubas took to the streets to celebrate.
At dawn on Wednesday, the IOF launched a massive campaign of incursions and raids across the West Bank, including various governorates, during which they arrested 16 Palestinians. Their campaign included unauthorized searches and vandalism of people’s houses and properties, resulting in armed confrontations.
Also on Wednesday, one Palestinian youth was seriously injured after Israeli occupation forces opened fire on him under the pretext that he had carried out a ramming operation near the city of Al-Khalil, in the southern West Bank. Israeli media reported that the operation also resulted in the injury of one Israeli soldier.
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Hundreds of Palestinians being held inside detention facilities across the occupied territories have launched an indefinite hunger strike to protest mistreatment by prison service forces and violent raids on their cells.
The director of the Palestinian Prisoners Press Office, Ahmed al-Kudra, said in a statement on Thursday that nearly 1,000 detainees staged a hunger strike, starting at 7 p.m. local time (1600 GMT), “to protest the aggression of the prison administration.”
Kudra urged Palestinians to mobilize and “take to the streets” to support the detainees.
He asked Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank to hold a demonstration on Friday to protest the “brutal” attack on prisoners.
Tensions broke out after the Negev prison administration in the southern part of the Israeli-occupied territories raided the third and fourth sections of the prison, and transferred detainees to another area.
Recently, the Israel Prison Service (IPS) started to carry out violent raids on cells in Negev jail at the behest of hawkish Israeli minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
In this regard, the Palestinian Commission of Detainees’ and Ex-Detainees’ Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoner Society held the IPS fully responsible for the safety of the prisoners in Negev jail.
The Gaza-based Hamas resistance movement, for its part, said the brutal Israeli aggression against the Negev prisoners is a “crime that will not be tolerated.”
Senior Hamas official Zaher Jabarin stated that the aggression against the Negev prisoners happened in harmony with Ben-Gvir’s recent visit to Ofer jail. What happened in Negev jail reflected the malicious intent of Ben-Gvir towards the prisoners on the ground, he added.
He warned against the occupying Israeli regime’s insistence on its aggression against Palestinian prisoners, stressing that the battle against such oppression would go beyond the walls of Israeli jails.
The Islamic Jihad resistance movement also condemned the attack, noting that it will not go unanswered.
There are reportedly more than 7,000 Palestinians held at Israeli jails. Human rights organizations say Israel violates all the rights and freedoms granted to prisoners by the Fourth Geneva Convention.
Palestinian prisoners are held for lengthy periods without being charged, tried, or convicted, which is in sheer violation of human rights. Advocacy groups describe Israel’s use of detention as a “bankrupt tactic” and have long called on Israel to end its use.
The IPS keeps Palestinian prisoners under deplorable conditions lacking proper hygienic standards. The prisoners have also been subjected to systematic torture, harassment, and repression all through the years of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories.
According to the Palestine Detainees Studies Center, about 60% of the Palestinian prisoners detained in Israeli jails suffer from chronic diseases, a number of whom died in detention or after being released due to the severity of their cases.
The Zionist occupation forces stormed Askar refugee camp, east of Nablus, demolishing the house of the martyr Abdul Fattah Kharousha, who carried out a shooting attack in Hawarra town and killed two Israeli settlers.
On February 26, 2023, Kharousha carried out the attack and embraced martyrdom after clashing with the occupation forces on March 7.
The enemy authorities have been detaining his 3 children under the pretext that they helped him to carry out the attack.
After the demolition of the family residence, the martyr’s wife stood steadfastly and thanked Holy God, confirming the determination to confront the enemy and calling on her detained children to remain powerful.
The two Resistance Movements of Hamas and Islamic Jihad issued separate statements which considered the Israeli demolition of the martyr’s house as a reflection of incapability and failure and confirmed supporting and defending the Palestinian people in face of the Zionist aggression.
Locals sources reported clashes between the enemy troops and the Palestinian resistance fighters in Askar camp.
The Red Crescent noted that 58 Palestinians were suffocated by the Zionist gas bombs and two others were injured in the dead by the enemy’s shots during the clashes.
The Israeli enemy troops also arrested a large number of Palestinians in the various towns and cities of the occupied West Bank, reporting the arrest of 13 Palestinian youths from Kober town in northeastern Ramallah.
5 Palestinians, including a child, were wounded, while dozens of others suffocated and sustained bruises in Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) attacks in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt). Details are as follows:
On 14 July 2023, a child was wounded with a live bullet in the thigh after IOF opened fire during the suppression of Palestinians who were trying to prevent settlers from establishing a settlement outpost, southwest of Kobar village in Ramallah.
On 16 July 2023, 2 Palestinians were wounded with rubber bullets, and others suffocated during clashes with IOF in Bethlehem. Before their withdrawal, IOF arrested 3 Palestinians.
On the same day, a Palestinian was wounded with a live bullet in the shoulder after IOF opened fire during their incursion into Tal village in Nablus. Before their withdrawal, IOF arrested 2 Palestinians.
On 17 July 2023, a Palestinian was wounded with a live bullet that penetrated his back and abdomen, causing gastrointestinal perforation and his condition was deemed serious. IOF opened fire when he was in front of his house during IOF’s incursion into Al-Fawar camp, south of Hebron. Before their withdrawal, IOF arrested another Palestinian.
In the Gaza Strip, 3 IOF shootings were reported on agricultural lands in eastern Gaza Strip, while 7 shootings were reported on fishing boats off the western Gaza shores.
So far in 2023, IOF attacks have killed 194 Palestinians, including 96 civilians; amongst them 33 children, 6 women and a Palestinian with disability, and the rest were members of the Palestinian armed groups, including 6 children, 7 killed by settlers, and two died in Israeli prisons. Meanwhile, 985 Palestinians, including 147 children, 30 women and 16 journalists, were injured in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Land razing, demolitions, notices, and settlement
IOF displaced 50 Palestinians, including 23 children and 11 women, after demolishing 11 houses and razing agricultural lands in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, while Israeli settlers established a settlement outpost in Ramallah.
On 14 July 2023, settlers set up a tent and placed a water tank in Al-Batin area, southwest of Kobar village in Ramallah, in an attempt to establish a new settlement outpost. As a result, Kobar villagers gathered and tried to confront the settlers by throwing stones at them, but IOF instantly intervened and suppressed the villagers, wounding a child.
On 16 July 2023, IOF demolished ten 70-sqm houses of bricks and tinplate in Al-Sawahra Al-Sharqiya village in East Jerusalem, rendering 45 Palestinians, including 20 children, homeless.
On the same day, IOF forced Ahmad Qareen to self-demolish his house in Silwan in East Jerusalem under the pretext of unlicensed construction, displacing him, his wife and three children.
On 17 July 2023, IOF leveled a 3-dunum plot of land and uprooted 100 olive and almond trees in the village of Husan, west of Bethlehem. They arrested the son of the land’s owner after assaulting him and his mother.
IOF also stopped the expansion works on the main road leading to al-Rashaida village, east of Bethlehem, and seized a bulldozer after arresting its driver, under the pretext of not obtaining a license.
On 18 July 2023, IOF leveled an 8-dunum plot of land planted with 210 olive, almond and forest trees in the village of Bern, east of Hebron, under the pretext of being state lands.
Since the beginning of 2023, IOF have made 120 families homeless, a total of 721 persons, including 154 women and 329 children. This was the outcome of IOF demolition of 128 houses; 28 were forcibly self-demolished by their owners and 13 were demolished on grounds of collective punishment. IOF also demolished 91 other civilian objects, razed other property, and delivered dozens of notices of demolition and cease-construction in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
Settler-attacks and retaliatory acts
Israeli settlers carried out 13 attacks on Palestinians and their property, threw stones at them, cut trees, and set many vehicles ablaze in the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem. Details are as follows:
On 15 July 2023, Israeli settlers, from “Havat Maon’ settlement outpost, which is established on Palestinian lands confiscated from Hebron, attacked Palestinians shepherds while grazing their sheep in the lands near Kherbet Saroura and Kherbet al-Mofqara. Afterwards, IOF arrived in the area, arrested a volunteer working for the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories “B’Tselem” and released him later.
On the same day, settlers pumped wastewater at agricultural lands in Nahalin village, west of Bethlehem. The agricultural lands have a water spring and are planted with different types of crops.
On the same day, Israeli settlers attacked a house in Sebastia village in Nablus. Afterwards, IOF intervened and arrested two Palestinians, including the owner of the attacked house.
On 16 July 2023, settlers set 4 vehicles ablaze and wrote racist slogans in Abu Ghosh village in occupied East Jerusalem.
On the same day, Israeli settlers set agricultural lands planted with olive trees ablaze in Burin village in southern Nablus, burning many olive trees. They also prevented the fire truck from reaching the area and threw stones at Palestinians’ houses in the village. When the Palestinians tried to confront the settlers, IOF fired teargas canisters at them, causing many of them to suffocate. Additionally, Israeli settlers set up a tent in the outskirts of Burin village, amid fears that it would be in a prelude to establish another settlement outpost in the area.
Israeli settlers gathered near the intersection of Jit village, east of Qalqilya, and held banners with racist slogans against the Palestinians, blocking traffic.
Also, settlers attacked Palestinians’ vehicles at the western entrance to Beitin village, north of al-Bireh City, breaking the windows of some of them.
On 17 July 2023, settlers, under IOF’s protection, deployed along Huwara main street in Nablus and threw stones at Palestinian vehicles. Also, the settlers threw stones at a Palestinian house near Huwara military checkpoint, south of Nablus. The settlers deployed on the road connecting Qusra village with Jalud village in Nablus and indiscriminately opened fire in the area.
On the same day, Israeli settlers cut about 250 grape vines and wrote the phrase “price tag” in Hebrew on stone chains in al-Bouira area, east of Hebron.
Since the beginning of the year, settlers have conducted at least 281 attacks against Palestinian civilians and their property. As a result, 7 Palestinians were killed, and dozens of others were injured; most of them due to being beaten and thrown with stones. Also, dozens of houses, vehicles and civilian facilities were set ablaze.
IOF incursions and arrests:
IOF carried out 166 incursions into the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem. Those incursions included raids and searches of civilian houses and facilities and establishment of checkpoints. During those incursions, 89 Palestinians were arrested, including 2 women.
So far in 2023, IOF have conducted 5,362 incursions into the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem, during which 2,981 Palestinians were arrested, including 28 women and 326 children. Also, IOF arrested 39 Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, including 17 fishermen, 20 infiltrators into Israel, and 3 travelers at Erez Crossing. IOF also conducted 19 incursions.
Israeli closure, restrictions on freedom of movement, and collective punishment:
Israeli occupation maintains its illegal and inhuman 16-year closure on the Gaza Strip. Details available in PCHR’s monthly-update at the Gaza crossings.
In the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem, IOF continue to impose restrictions on the freedom of movement. On top of its 110 permanent checkpoints, IOF established 105 temporary military checkpoints in the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem, and arrested 2 Palestinians at those checkpoints.
On 16 July 2023, as part of IOF collective punishment measures following the shooting attack near Tekoa village that injured 3 settlers, IOF closed all Bethlehem’s entrances, the entrance to ‘Aqbet Hasnah leading to the western rural villages, the southern entrance to Al-Khader village “al-Nashash” with a metal detector gate, the entrances to Beit Fajjar and Tekoa villages, al-Container military checkpoint, the western entrance to Beit Jala village, and the entrances to Tekoa village, southeast of Bethlehem.
So far in 2023, IOF have established 3,298 temporary military checkpoints and arrested 142 Palestinians at those checkpoints.
The Ministry of Prisoners and Ex-Prisoners announce that the occupation “released” the prisoner from Gaza City after his detention back in July 2002.
Palestinian prisoner Khaled Juhini Al-Sawarka
45-year-old Palestinian prisoner Khaled Juhini al-Sawarka took back his freedom from the Israeli occupation after they took away 21 years of his life in prison.
The Ministry of Prisoners and Ex-Prisoners announced on Thursday that the occupation “released” the prisoner from Gaza City.
Al-Sawarka was detained from Deir Al-Balah in Gaza on July 14, 2002, and was sentenced to 21 years at the time.
Just last week, Palestinian prisoners in Israeli occupation prisons sent, through Al Mayadeen, a message to the Jenin refugee camp and its heroic fighters, as well as the Jenin Brigade, in which they affirmed that day by day, they become more certain that victory is getting closer than ever.
“From the dungeons of oppression, injustice, and terrorism, we salute the Jenin camp, our [Jenin] Brigade, and the Resistance,” the letter read.
According to reports of institutions concerned with the affairs of Palestinian prisoners, including the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club and the Commission for Detainees and Former Detainees, Israeli prisons hold around 4,900 Palestinian prisoners (including 31 women and 160 minors), and another 1,000 administrative detainees: including 2 women (namely Raghad Al-Fani and Rawda Abu Ajamia) and 6 minors.
Prisoners arrested prior to the Oslo agreement are estimated to be 23, the oldest of whom is Muhammad Al-Tus, imprisoned since 1985.
15 Palestinians, including 6 children, were killed, while 144 others, including 19 children, 3 women and a journalist, were wounded, while dozens of others suffocated and sustained bruises in Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF)’s attacks in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt). Details are as follows:
On 04 July 2023, IOF withdrew from Jenin refugee camp after conducting a widescale military operation backed by more than one thousand soldiers, dozens of military vehicles, and warplanes of different types. The operation, which lasted for 40 hours, killed 12 Palestinians, including 6 civilians, amongst them 5 children; 2 of them were members of the Palestinian armed groups, and wounded 120 others, including 14 children, at least 2 women and 20 in serious condition. In addition, 109 houses were partially destroyed and became uninhabitable, while the infrastructure was extensively destroyed, including levelling of streets, and outage of power, water and internet as well as disruption of communication services. Also, about 4000 Palestinians were forcibly displaced from their homes during the operation[1][2].PCHR’s staff continues to collect information and document IOF violations and crimes during the aggression on Jenin.
On 24 June 2023, Al-Arabi Specialized Arab Hospital announced the death of Tariq Mousa Idris (39), a member of the Palestinian armed groups from ‘Askar refugee camp in Nablus, after succumbing to wounds he sustained by several bullets fired by IOF in clashes that accompanied IOF’s incursion into the camp the day before. In the same incursion, 5 Palestinians were arrested.
On the same day, Isaac Hamdi Al-‘Ajlouni (17), from Kafr ‘Aqab village in Jerusalem, was killed after IOF fired several bullets at him when he carried out a shooting attack at the Israeli soldiers stationed at Qalandia checkpoint, north of East Jerusalem.
Mohammad ‘Imad Abu Hassanein (21) was also killed by IOF fire during clashes at the northern entrance to Al-Bireh. (Details available in PCHR’s press release).
Meanwhile, those injured were victims of excessive use of force that accompanied IOF incursions into cities and villages, or suppression of peaceful protests organized by Palestinian civilians.
On 22 June 2023, an elderly woman sustained a superficial bullet wound in her shoulder after IOF opened fire to protect a group of settlers who raided and attacked ‘Urif village in Nablus.
On 23 June 2023, 4 Palestinians, including a child, were wounded with rubber-coated bullets during IOF’s suppression of Kafr Qaddum weekly peaceful protest in northern Qalqilya.
On the same day, Khaled Akram Malalha (5) was shot with a live bullet in his left eye that required its enucleation. The child was injured after IOF stationed at a temporary checkpoint at the entrance to Bazariya village in Nablus opened fire at a civilian vehicle he was travelling amid clashes that broke out in the area.
On 27 June 2023, 2 Palestinians were wounded by IOF fire during confrontations in Nablus. Before their withdrawal, IOF arrested 6 Palestinians, including journalist Mohammad Anwar Mona (44) from Zawata village.
On 30 June 2023, 7 Palestinians, including a child, were wounded with rubber-coated bullets during IOF’s suppression of Kafr Qaddum peaceful weekly in northern Qalqilya.
On 03 July 2023, 3 children were wounded with live bullets during clashes with IOF at the entrance to Beit Ummar in Hebron. Another Palestinian was also wounded with a live bullet in the foot during similar clashes near Beit Einoun intersection in Hebron.
In the Gaza Strip, on 04 July 2023, 4 Palestinians, including a child, were wounded with live bullets and teargas canisters directly fired by IOF during a demonstration in solidarity with Jenin, east of Gaza. Journalist Fadi Shana’a was wounded with a gas canister in his foot, and another fired eat his camera while covering a similar demonstration in eastern Khan Yunis.
Also, 5 IOF shootings were reported on agricultural lands in eastern Gaza Strip, while 2 shootings were reported on fishing boats off the western Gaza shores.
So far in 2023, IOF attacks have killed 189 Palestinians, including 95 civilians; amongst them 33 children, 6 women and a Palestinian with disability, and the rest were members of the Palestinian armed groups, including 6 children, 7 killed by settlers, and two died in Israeli prisons. Meanwhile, 962 Palestinians, including 146 children, 29 women and 16 journalists, were injured in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Land razing, demolitions, seizures and settlement
On 22 June 2023, settlers began to establish a settlement outpost on the lands of Derastia village, west of Salfit, opposite to the Emmanuel settlement. The settlers, protected by IOF, leveled the land, set up tents and pens for livestock and prevented Palestinians from reaching their lands.
On the same day, IOF demolished two under-construction houses in the northern Jordan Valley, east of Tubas, under the pretext of unlicensed construction in Area (C).
IOF also delivered a notice to the residents of Qarawet Bani Hassan village in Salfit, to evacuate Beer Abu ‘Ammar, which is an agricultural recreational area for the municipality, west of the village.
On 23 June 2023, IOF confiscated an excavator while working on a dirt road, east of Al-Dhahiriya village in Hebron.
On 26 June 2023, IOF handed 6 notices to vacate lands of more than 7 dunums, west of Beit Ula in Hebron, under the pretext of being state lands.
On 29 June 2023, settlers, protected by IOF, set up tents on the Palestinian lands in Umm Lakhous area in Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron, in order to establish a settlement outpost, as IOF arrested 4 Palestinians who tried to confront the settlers.
On 03 July 2023, IOF forced ‘AbdulKareem Abu Tair to self-demolish part of his house in Jabal Al-Mukaber in East Jerusalem upon an Israeli municipal decision under the pretext of unlicensed construction.
Since the beginning of 2023, IOF have made 105 families homeless, a total of 656 persons, including 139 women and 299 children. This was the outcome of IOF demolition of 113 houses; 27 were forcibly self-demolished by their owners and 13 were demolished on grounds of collective punishment. IOF also demolished 89 other civilian objects, razed other property, and delivered dozens of notices of demolition and cease-construction in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
Demolitions on grounds of collective punishment
On 22 June 2023, IOF destroyed the family house of detainee Kamal Hani Jouri in Nablus as part of IOF’s collective punishment policy against Palestinian families of those accused of carrying out attacks against IOF and/or settlers. PCHR’s fieldworker reported that the destroyed house was an apartment on the second floor of a 7-storey building. IOF forced the residents of the building and 10 other families in nearby houses to evacuate, implanted explosives on the second floor, and remotely detonated it. As a result, the 180-sqm apartment, which housed a family of 5, including a child, was destroyed. It is noteworthy that IOF arrested Kamal Jouri on 13 February 2023 after he was accused of participating in an attack that killed an Israeli soldier on 11 October 2022.
Since the beginning of the year, IOF have destroyed 13 houses on grounds of collective punishment.
Money and Property Confiscation on grounds of Collective Punishment
On 26 June 2023, IOF raided and searched 16 houses belonging to former detainees in the Israeli prisons in several neighborhoods and villages in occupied East Jerusalem and seized money, vehicles, belongings, and jewelry belonging to those detainees and their families. IOF also handed some of them seizure orders and imposed on them high fines under the pretext that they receive money from the Palestinian Authority (PA).
The Israeli police said in a statement that during their campaign, they seized 270,000 shekels, gold jewelry, 7 vehicles and a motorcycle, in addition to freezing 16 bank accounts.
Family members of the former detainees said to PCHR’s fieldworker that IOF seized their vehicles and gold jewelry, which are personal assets and have nothing to do with the PA.
Settler-attacks and retaliatory acts
On 22 June 2023, Israeli settlers, under IOF’s protection, moved into ‘Urif village in Nablus, where they threw stones at Palestinians’ houses and ‘Obadat al-Rahman Mosque, breaking its windows and ripping and setting copies of the holy Quran ablaze. Also, they burned a classroom on the first floor of ‘Urif Secondary School for Boys.
On 24 June 2023, under IOF’s protection, at least 250 settlers, from “Ateret” settlement established on Ramallah’s lands, moved into Umm Safa village, northwest of Ramallah, and conducted widescale attacks. As a result, 3 residential houses, 3 cars and about 4 cypress trees were burned, and windows and doors of 5 other houses as well as windows of 5 vehicles were broken. Also, many persons suffocated after IOF fired teargas canisters to disperse the Palestinians who tried to confront the settlers.
On 30 June 2023, Israeli settlers, protected by IOF, expelled Palestinians from their lands in Nuweitif area in Qarawat Bani Hassan village, west of Salfit, under the pretext that the area is classified as Area (C).
On the same day, Israeli settlers, from “Kiryat Arba” settlement, east of Hebron, threw stones at Palestinians’ houses near the settlement and when the residents tried to confront them, an Israeli settler opened fire from his pistol at Matariyia family members. Afterwards, large forces of Israeli soldiers arrived and arrested 4 Palestinians.
On 01 July 2023, Israeli settlers, under IOF’s protection, attacked Palestinian farmers in Kafr ad-Dik village, west of Salfit. Also, IOF arrested a Palestinian and beat another.
On 02 July 2023, two Palestinians were injured after Israeli settlers threw stones at a Palestinian vehicle near the entrance to Yasuf village, east of Salfit.
On the same day, Israeli settlers uprooted 35 forest and citrus trees and damaged Palestinians’ property in Bir Abu ‘Ammar area in Qarawat Bani Hassan village, west of Salfit, noting that on 22 June 2023, IOF gave notice to evacuate the area.
Since the beginning of the year, settlers have conducted at least 260 attacks against Palestinian civilians and their property. As a result, 7 Palestinians were killed, and dozens of others were injured; most of them after being beaten and thrown with stones. Also, dozens of houses, vehicles and civilian facilities were set ablaze.
Violations of freedom of worship:
On 28 June 2023, Israeli police moved into the vicinity of Bab al-Rahma prayer hall before the start of Eid al-Adha prayer, closed its doors, attacked, and pushed tens of Palestinian worshipers, arrested 15 of them from al-Aqsa Mosque and at its gates. This happened after the Israeli police filed a request to the Israeli Magistrate Court in Jerusalem last Tuesday demanding the re-closure of Bab al-Rahma prayer hall under the pretext of being a strategic area for the Palestinian factions.
On 01 July 2023, IOF closed some of al-Aqsa Mosque’s gates in occupied East Jerusalem in front of Palestinian worshipers for the second time in one week under the pretext of presence of few Palestinian worshipers and few Israeli police officers to guard the mosque, in an unprecedented step as part of the Israeli occupation’s policy to change the status quo of al-Aqsa Mosque and attempts to impose a temporal and spatial division. According to the Deputy Director General of the Islamic Endowments (Awqaf) Department in Jerusalem, Najeh Bakirat, on the second day of Eid al-Adha, 29 June 2023, the Israeli police intentionally closed Bab al-Asbat (Lions Gate), one of the most important gates in the northeastern side of al-Aqsa Mosque, under the pretext of the insufficient number of police officers to guard it as well as the few numbers of Palestinian worshipers entering through it. They also closed Bab al-Hadeed, Bab al-Qawanmah, and Bab al-Malik Faisal, and other gates of al-Aqsa Mosque, while Bab_Hutta, Bab al-Majles and Bab al-Selselah remained open. Bakirat added that on Saturday, the fourth day of Eid al-Adha, the Israeli police unjustifiably re-closed Bab al-Asbat.
On 02 July 2023, IOF handed Eng. Bassam ak-Hallaq, Director of al-Aqsa Mosque’s Reconstruction Committee of the Jordanian Ministry of Endowments and Islamic Affairs in Jerusalem, an order completely banning the employees of the Reconstruction Committee from working at the Al-Aqsa Mosque and threatening to arrest any employee who returns to work inside the mosque.
IOF incursions and arrests of Palestinian civilians:
IOF carried out 293 incursions into the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem. Those incursions included raids and searches of civilian houses and facilities and establishment of checkpoints. During those incursions, 196 Palestinians were arrested, including 8 children and a journalist. Jenin refugee camp has witnessed a mass arrest campaign targeting at least 120 Palestinians. In the Gaza Strip, IOF conducted 2 limited incursions into eastern Bureij refugee camp on 26 and 27 June 2023.
So far in 2023, IOF have conducted 5,096 incursions into the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem, during which 2,892 Palestinians were arrested, including 26 women and 326 children. Also, IOF arrested 39 Palestinians from the Gaza Strip including 17 fishermen, 20 infiltrators into Israel, and 3 travelers at Erez Crossing. IOF also conducted 19 incursions.
Israeli closure, restrictions on freedom of movement, and collective punishment:
Israeli occupation maintains its illegal and inhuman 16-year closure on the Gaza Strip. Details available in PCHR’s monthly-update in the Gaza crossings.
In the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem, IOF continue to impose restrictions on the freedom of movement. On top of its 110 permanent checkpoints, IOF established 203 temporary checkpoints in the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem, and arrested 2 Palestinians at those checkpoints.
On 22 June 2023, IOF closed the metal detector gate established on the road connecting Nahalin village with Jab’a village in Bethlehem to vehicles’ movement.
So far in 2023, IOF have established 3,065 temporary military checkpoints and arrested 135 Palestinians at those checkpoints.
Minister of Detainees and Ex-Detainees for the Palestinian Authority Qadri Abu Bakr attends a scheduled visit of the freed prisoner Fouad Shubaki to the tomb of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in Ramallah, the occupied West Bank, Palestine. (AFP)
Qadri Abu Bakr dies in a horrific car accident in South Nablus after returning from an event to celebrate Al-Adha Eid with the children of detained Palestinians.
The Palestinian Detainees and Ex-Deatinees Affairs Commission confirmed the death of its chairman and member of the Revolutionary Council of Fatah Movement, Minister Qadri Abu Bakr in a car accident south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank on Saturday.
Abu Bakr, along with liberated prisoner Bassem Sawwan and his wife died as a result of the horrific car accident that occurred in Nablus while a companion of the Minister was injured.
The group was returning from an event to celebrate Al-Adha Eid with the children of detained Palestinians.
The Minister had previously been arrested by the Israeli occupation forces due to his involvement in a weapons transfer operation that aimed to arm Resistance fighters in the West Bank.
The Israeli military court sentenced Abu Bakr to 20 years in prison, serving 17 years before he was exiled to Iraq.
The President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas mourned Abu Bakr’s death, affirming that he “spent his life as a steadfast fighter defending Palestine, its cause, its people, and its independent national decision.”
Abbas praised the Minister’s diligent work within the institutions of the Palestinian Authority.
The Hamas movement also expressed its condolences in a statement, recalling Abu Bakr and Sawwan’s journeys in their struggle against the occupation and the contributions they made to detainees and their cause.
The Ministry of Detainees and Ex-Detainees in Gaza also mourned his death, as its statement pointed to the pro-Palestinian positions the Minister took throughout his career as he dedicated his life to serving the humanitarian cause of detainees in Israeli prisons.
The Palestinian detainees in the “Negev” prison declared three days of mourning upon news of Abu Bakr’s demise.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians take part in the Eid Al-Adha prayer at Al-Aqsa Mosque in defiance of all Israeli measures.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians performed, this morning, Eid Al-Adha prayer at Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the Islamic Endowments Department in Al-Quds estimated the number of worshippers at about 100,000.
On Wednesday morning, tens of thousands of Palestinians defied all Israeli restrictions and arbitrary measures to take part in the prayer.
Following the #Eid al-Adha prayer, Israeli occupation forces detain several Palestinian youths at al-Aqsa Mosque courtyards in Jerusalem. pic.twitter.com/g0h44e238z
The Islamic Endowments Department in Al-Quds estimated the number of worshippers at about 100,000, who flocked to Al-Aqsa Mosque since dawn only to fill its courtyards at the start of the prayer.
Families from occupied Al-Quds, including men, women, and children, who joined since the early morning hours from all the neighborhoods, towns, and villages surrounding Al-Quds, in addition to the cities of the West Bank, took part in the prayer
Palestinians chant for Palestine after performing Eid Al-Adha prayer at Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied Jerusalem. pic.twitter.com/NE5RUkrOvx
Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (Weekly Update 15-21 June 2023)
Violation of right to life and bodily integrity:
15 Palestinians, including 7 civilians, amongst them a girl, were killed, and 116 others, including 18 children and a journalist, were injured, while dozens of others suffocated and sustained bruises in Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF)’s attacks in the West Bank, where IOF warplanes launched airstrikes for the first time in 20 years. Details are as follows:
On 15 June 2023, Khalil Yehia (20), a member of the Palestinian armed groups, was killed and another Palestinian was injured in clashes with IOF that accompanied their incursion into Nablus and demolition of a house belonging to Palestinian prisoner Osama ‘Alaa al-Taweel.
On 19 June 2023, 5 Palestinians, including 3 civilians, amongst them a child, were killed, and 91 others were injured, mostly civilians, amongst them 15 children, a journalist, and 23 in serious condition. On 20 June 2023, one of the wounded succumbed to his injury. (Details available in PCHR’s press release.) Also, Sadeel Ghasan Naghnighyia Turkman (15) died 2 days after sustaining a bullet injury in the head. Sadeel’s father said to PCHR’s fieldworker that IOF opened fire at his daughter from 120 meters while she was in the house yard photographing military vehicles’ incursion into the area, wounding her with a live bullet in her head. Sadeeel was evacuated in serious condition to Jenin Governmental Hospital, where she stayed until her death was announced in the morning of 21 June 2023.
On the same day, Zakariyia Zaghloul (20) was shot dead by IOF during clashes that broke out in Bethlehem. (Details available in PCHR’s press release.)
On 20 June 2023, in a crime of extrajudicial execution, IOF shot dead Khaled Mostafa Sabbah (24), from Nablus, at point-blank after intercepting a taxi carrying him on Tubas-Jenin main street. Also, the taxi driver sustained injuries. Later, IOF announced that Sabbah was the second perpetrator of the shooting attack in “Eli” settlement, southeast of Nablus, that took place few hours earlier, killing 4 Israeli settlers and injuring others. It is worth noting that the first perpetrator was identified as Mohannad Faleh Shehadeh (25), from Nablus, and killed in the attack.
On 21 June 2023, Omar Hashem Jabara (25) was killed, and 11 other Palestinians were injured when IOF opened fire while protecting dozens of Israeli settlers who conducted widescale attacks and retaliatory acts in Turmus ‘Ayya village in Ramallah. (Details available in PCHR’s press release).
On 21 June 2023, in a new crime of extrajudicial execution, IOF killed 3 members of Palestinian armed groups, including a child, after IOF warplanes targeted a white Tucson SUV carrying them near al-Jalamah Crossing, north of Jenin. PCHR’s fieldworker said that IOF prevented Palestinian ambulance crews from approaching the targeted vehicle and allowed the civil defense crew to put out the fire that broke out in the vehicle. They then pulled out three charred bodies from the vehicle and took them to an unknown destination. Later, the IOF pulled the vehicle to al-Jalamah Crossing. Those killed were identified as: Suhaib ‘Adnan al-Ghoul (28), Mohammed Bashar ‘Owais (27), and Ashraf Murad al-Sa’di (17). This was the first time IOF used their warplanes to carry out assassinations in the West Bank in 18 years. IOF Spokesperson claimed, “there is a precise surgery happening now to eradicate a terrorist threat.”
Meanwhile, those injured were victims of excessive use of force that accompanied IOF incursions into cities and villages, or suppression of peaceful protests organized by Palestinian civilians.
On 16 June 2023, 3 Palestinians, including a child, were shot with rubber-coated bullets during IOF’s suppression of Kafr Qaddum weekly peaceful protest in Qalqilya.
On the same day, 2 Palestinians, including a journalist, were injured with live bullets fired by IOF in clashes in Beit Ummar village in Hebron.
On 17 June 2023, a Palestinian was shot with a live bullet in his hand by IOF during their incursion into Silat al-Harithiya village, west of Jenin. Also, several bullets fired by IOF hit an electricity transformer and cut the electricity in the camp.
On the same day, a child sustained live bullet shrapnel injuries in his thigh by IOF in clashes near a military checkpoint established by IOF at the entrance to al-‘Arroub refugee camp in Hebron.
On 19 June 2023, a child was injured with 2 rubber-coated bullets in his neck and chest during clashes with IOF that accompanied their incursion into eastern Beit Furik village in Nablus.
On 20 June 2023, a Palestinian was shot with a live bullet in his right foot in clashes with IOF that followed their incursion into Far’a refugee camp, south of Tubas. In the evening, 3 Palestinians were injured with live bullets when IOF opened fire at them to protect the Israeli settlers who conducted attacks in Al-Lubban ash-Sharqiya village in Nablus. Also, a Palestinian was shot with a live bullet in his foot during clashes with IOF at Husan village’s entrance in Bethlehem.
In the Gaza Strip, at least 4 IOF shootings were reported on agricultural lands in the eastern Gaza Strip and one on fishing boats off the western Gaza shores, where Israeli gunboats pumped water at a Palestinian fishing boat, damaging its engine and ripping the fishing nets.
So far in 2023, IOF attacks have killed 173 Palestinians, including 87 civilians; amongst them 27 children, 6 women, a person with disability, and the rest were members of the Palestinian armed groups, including 3 children, 7 killed by settlers, and two died in Israeli prisons. Meanwhile, 818 Palestinians, including 127 children, 26 women and 15 journalists, were injured in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Land razing, demolitions, notices and settlement
IOF demolished 10 housing units and destroyed 3 facilities and other property in the oPt, displacing 46 persons, including 23 children and 10 women. Details are as follows:
On 15 June 2023, IOF dismantled 4 barracks and uprooted 4 residential tents in northern Jordan Valleys, east of Tubas, under the pretext of illegal construction in Area (C). As a result, 4 families of 16, including 4 women and 5 children, were displaced.
On the same day, IOF demolished Maher Zarina’s 150-sqm house in Beit Jala village, west of Bethlehem, under the pretext of unlicensed construction. The house sheltered 2 women.
IOF handed a cease-construction notice to 2 houses in western Shuyukh al-‘Arrub village in Hebron, under the pretext of illegal construction in Area (C). Also, IOF handed 7 eviction notices to 19 dunums in the same village, under the pretext of being state lands. It should be mentioned noting that these dunums house, a water well, a house, stone chains, and various crops.
On 18 June 2023, the Israeli government approved a decision allowing the Israeli Minister of Finance, one of the “Regavim” settlement organization founders and head of the Religious Zionist Party, to issue preliminary approval for planning and building in the Israeli settlements in addition to shortening settlements expansion procedures. The Israeli “Kan” radio station said that upon this decision, construction plans in the settlements will be approved without needing the approval of Israel’s top political echelons, contrary to the status quo for the last 25 years.
On 19 June 2023, IOF demolished 3 animal facilities built of tinplate in Qalandia in occupied East Jerusalem, under the pretext of building in Area C.
On the same day, IOF handed 10 cease-construction notices to a house, buildings, rooms, and a street in eastern Yatta in Hebron, under the pretext of unlicensed construction in Area (C).
On 20 June 2023, the Israeli municipality demolished a 2-storey residential building in Silwan village in occupied East Jerusalem, under the pretext of unlicensed construction, rendering 2 families of 15, including 2 women and 11 children, homeless. The building belonged to two brothers, namely Wafi and Bahjat al-Taweel.
On the same day, IOF forced Nasri al-Rajbi to implement the Israeli municipal order and self-demolish his 90-sqm house in Beit Hanina village in occupied East Jerusalem, under the pretext of unlicensed construction, rendering his family of 7, including 5 children, homeless.
On 21 June 2023, IOF demolished a 120-sqm apartment built of fortified tin and belonging to Ziyad Abu Sbitan in al-Tur neighborhood in occupied East Jerusalem, under the pretext of unlicensed construction.
IOF also demolished a retaining fence surrounding a plot of land in Sho’afat refugee camp, occupied East Jerusalem, under the pretext of unlicensed construction.
Since the beginning of 2023, IOF have made 104 families homeless, a total of 651 persons, including 138 women and 298 children. This was the outcome of IOF demolition of 110 houses and housing units; 26 were forcibly self-demolished by their owners and 12 were demolished on grounds of collective punishment. IOF also demolished 89 other civilian objects, razed other property, and delivered dozens of notices of demolition and cease-construction in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
Demolitions on grounds of collective punishment
On 15 June 2023, IOF destroyed a residential unit belonging to the family of the Palestinian detainee Osama ‘Alaa Al-Taweel in Nablus, as part of IOF’s collective punishment policy against Palestinian families of those accused of carrying out attacks against IOF and/or settlers. PCHR’s fieldworker reported that IOF moved into Nablus, broke into a 5-storery house belonging to Al-Taweel family, and forced out its residents that included 8 families of 37, amongst them 10 women and 14 children, in addition to 10 other families from nearby houses amid firing of tear gas canisters and stun grenades to entice fear among them and prevent them from approaching the area. During the raid, IOF implanted explosives on the 4th floor of the house and remotely detonated it, destroying the 165-sqm floor that housed a family of 6, including two children. It is noteworthy that IOF arrested Osama Al-Taweel on 13 February 2023 after he was shot with three live bullets in the abdomen and thighs and accused of carrying out an attack that killed an Israeli soldier on 11 October 2022.
On 21 June 2023, IOF raided the family houses of Mohannad Shehadeh and Khaleh Sabah, who were killed after carrying out a shooting attack that killed 4 settlers the day before in the village of ‘Orif in Nablus. IOF took measurements of the two houses in preparation for demolition, as part of IOF’s collective punishment policy against Palestinian families of those carrying out attacks against IOF and settlers. Before IOF’s withdrawal, the latter arrested 6 Palestinians, including 2 children.
Since the beginning of the year, IOF destroyed 12 houses on grounds of collective punishment.
Settler-attacks and retaliatory acts
On 16 June 2023, settlers from the Ma’on settlement established on the lands of Hebron attacked shepherds in eastern Yatta, denied them access to the pastures in their lands that are under the Israeli settlers’ control after the establishment of the pastoral settlement outpost “Mtsad Yehuda”.
On 17 June 2023, settlers from Tafouh settlement, established on the lands of Yasuf village, east of Salfit, stole 10 sheep from a barn in the village and killed a watchdog.
On 20 June 2023, settlers carried out widescale attacks and retaliatory acts across the West Bank, following a shooting attack that killed 4 settlers in Eli settlement between Nablus and Ramallah. Details are as follows:
Four Palestinians, including one with his wife and daughter, were injured after settlers threw stones at the Palestinian vehicles near the entrance to Yasuf town, east of Salfit, carrying out riots on the roads and breaking windows of a vehicle.
A child sustained injuries after a settler who was riding a bike near the entrance to Al-Laban Al-Sharqiya village in Nablus. Later, settlers marched towards the village, and reached As-Sawiya High School, chanting “Death to Arabs”. They threw stones at the school and houses, set fire to two car workshops, attacked commercial facilities with stones, and burned 5 vehicles completely.
On 21 June 2023, at dawn, settlers attacked a Palestinian house in the town of Kafr Al-Dik, west of Salfit, by smashing its windows, setting a tractor ablaze, and stealing an electric bike.
In the evening, dozens of settlers, protected by IOF, carried out widescale attacks and retaliatory acts in the town of Turmusaya in Ramallah, and burned dozens of homes and vehicles. (Details available in PCHR’s press release).
Since the beginning of the year, settlers have conducted at least 252 attacks against Palestinian civilians and their property. As a result, 7 Palestinians were killed, and dozens of others were injured; most of them due to being beaten and thrown with stones. Also, dozens of houses, vehicles and civilian facilities were set ablaze.
IOF incursions and arrests of Palestinian civilians:
IOF carried out 198 incursions into the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem. Those incursions included raids and searches of civilian houses and facilities and establishment of checkpoints. During those incursions, 69 Palestinians were arrested, including 14 children and a woman.
So far in 2023, IOF have conducted 4,803 incursions into the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem, during which 2,696 Palestinians were arrested, including 26 women and 318 children. Also, IOF arrested 39 Palestinians from the Gaza Strip including 17 fishermen, 19 infiltrators into Israel, and 3 travelers at Erez Crossing. IOF also conducted 17 incursions.
Israeli closure, restrictions on freedom of movement, and collective punishment:
Israeli occupation maintains its illegal and inhuman 16-year closure on the Gaza Strip. Details available in PCHR’s monthly-update in the Gaza crossings.
In the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem, IOF continue to impose restrictions on the freedom of movement. On top of its 110 permanent checkpoints, IOF established 106 temporary military checkpoints in the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem, and arrested 2 Palestinians at those checkpoints.
On 20 June 2023, IOF closed Marah Rabah village’s entrance, south of Bethlehem, to vehicles’ movement in and out.
So far in 2023, IOF have established 2,862 temporary military checkpoints and arrested 131 Palestinians at those checkpoints.
Palestinian prisoners held under the Zionist regime’s so-called ‘administrative detention’ policy, are planning a mass open-ended hunger strike in protest at their unlawful and indefinite imprisonment without trial or charge.
The protest action is to start next Sunday, June 18, the official Palestinian Wafa news agency reported on Monday, citing the Palestinian Administrative Detainees’ Committee.
Palestinian inmates will also keep up their boycott of the regime’s courts “as a means of drawing attention to the violation of their rights,” the committee added.
It also noted that the detainees’ key demand is for the regime to end its practice of ‘administrative detention,’ while also seeking to force “‘Israel’ to respect its obligations under the international humanitarian and human rights law.”
Under its policy of ‘administrative detention,’ the occupying regime detains Palestinians without trial or charge for up to six months; a period which can be extended for an indefinite number of times.
The detention takes place on the orders of a military commander and on the basis of what the regime describes as “secret” evidence. Some detainees have been held in ‘administrative detention’ for up to 11 years.
According to the latest figures released by Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, the Zionist regime is currently holding around 5,000 Palestinian political prisoners in its prisons and detention facilities, including 155 children and 32 women. The figure also includes 1,014 Palestinians, who are being kept under the regime’s ‘administrative detention’ policy.
Palestinian detainees have resorted to open-ended hunger strike on frequent occasions to express outrage at their plight under the occupying regime’s inhumane detention policy.
The committee said the plan to hold a mass open-ended hunger strike came after its negotiations with the ‘Israeli’ Prison Service [IPS] failed.
During the talks, the committee demanded, among other things, an end to the occupation regime’s ‘administrative detention’ policy and lifting of the penalties and other forms of collective punishment targeting prisoners affiliated with the Islamic Jihad movement. The committee also urged the ‘Israeli’ entity to end the solitary confinement of female detainees at Ramleh Prison.
The committee stated that the IPS and ‘Israeli’ spy establishment turned a deaf ear to all of the above demands and even resorted to threats.
Israeli occupation forces during a night raid in the occupied West Bank (September 6, 2022 / photo by The Jerusalem Post).
Israeli occupation’s oppression proceeds in several areas across the West Bank and Al-Quds, with Palestinian people confronting the aggression with all possible means.
Occupation forces arrested a large number of Palestinians during raids across the West Bank and Al-Quds in the early hours of Monday.
At dawn on Monday, Israeli occupation forces (IOF) stormed homes during a brutal raid in Al-Mughayyir village, near Ramallah, where it arrested 15 young men and injured many others, including a teenager.
The Palestinian Detainees’ Committee said IOF used excessive force while searching the homes and ransacking them, causing damage.
9 other Palestinians were arrested in several raids in towns near Jericho and Bethlehem.
The vandalism inflicted by Israeli occupation forces during a raid last night into a house in Aqabat Jabr refugee camp, in the occupied West Bank city of Jericho. pic.twitter.com/NDWslytkce
Meanwhile, the IOF continued, for the 20th day in a row, to impose a siege on Al-Mughayyir village. Occupation forces have been since last month blocking the village’s two entrances, prohibiting residents from entering or leaving it. Al-Mughayyir is frequently targeted by illegal Jewish settlers and IOF.
On the other hand, incursions by Zionist settlers proceeded. Palestinian media reported dozens of settlers, backed by IOF, storming the holy compound in occupied Al-Quds.
Earlier on Sunday, Barqa town, near Nablus, was subjected to brutal attacks by Israeli settlers, who were backed by IOF. Dozens of Palestinians were injured as masked Zionist settlers attacked Palestinian houses and vehicles.
The settlers came from Homesh, a nearby Israeli settlement outpost which was recently revived at orders from hard-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and rogue Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, after it had been evacuated in 2005.
CCTV footage documenting an attack by masked Israeli Jewish settlers on the Palestinian village of Burqa, north of the occupied West Bank, at sunset yesterday. pic.twitter.com/Yq4IGoqedu
Palestinian Red Crescent reported that nearly 60 Palestinians were injured as they were confronting the colonial Israeli settlers who were backed by well-armed Israeli soldiers.
UPROOTED PALESTINIANS: SALAM ALQUDS ALAYKUM 