When we got off the bus, a soldier said to us: "Welcome to hell."
From the testimony of Fouad Hassan, 45, a father of five and resident of Qusrah in Nablus District, who was held in Megiddo Prison. Read the full testimony here.
This report concerns the treatment of Palestinian prisoners and the inhuman conditions they have been subjected to in Israeli prisons since 7 October 2023. B’Tselem’s research for the report includedncollecting testimonies from 55 Palestinians who were incarcerated in Israeli prisons and detention facilities during this time. Thirty of the witnesses are residents of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem; 21 are residents of the Gaza Strip; and four are Israeli citizens.
The testimonies were given to B’Tselem after the witnesses were released from prison, the overwhelming majority of hem without being tried.
The testimonies clearly indicate a systemic, institutional policy focused on the continual
abuse and torture of all Palestinian prisoners held by Israel:
Frequent acts of severe, arbitrary violence; sexual assault; humiliation and degradation, deliberate starvation; forced unhygienic conditions; sleep deprivation, prohibition on, and punitive measures for, religious worship; confiscation of all communal and personal belongings; and denial of adequate medical treatment – these descriptions appear time and again in the testimonies, in horrifying detail and with chilling similarities.
Over the years, Israel has incarcerated hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in its prisons, which have always served, above all, as a tool for oppressing and controlling the Palestinian population.The stories presented in this report are the story of thousands of Palestinians, residents of the Occupied Territories and citizens of Israel, who have been arrested since the beginning of the war,as well as Palestinians already incarcerated on 7 October who experienced the massive increase in hostility from prison authorities since that day.
TVNL Note: B'Tselem is an Israeli Human Rights Organization. This article is a summary of the report the organization has documented about the horrific treatement of Palestinian prisoners by Israel. A link to the entire documents is available for download on the first page.
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