Israel accused of disappearing Marwan Barghouthi and other Palestinian prisoners
Currently, Israel continues to detain 7,000 Palestinians in its prisons, including at least 200 children and 62 women, according to human rights groups.
Israel “bears full responsibility” for the life and fate of Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouthi, the Palestinian Commission for Prisoners and Detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoners Club said in a joint statement on Monday, December 18.
The “Revolutionary Council,” the general assembly of the Fatah movement, of which Barghouthi is one of the main leaders, also issued a statement warning that Barghouthi’s life “is under real threat” in Israeli prisons.
Both statements came after the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club reported that Mr. Barghouthi had been transferred by Israeli authorities from his former place of detention, the Ofer detention center, to an unknown location a week ago .
Also on Monday, the Prisoners’ Affairs Commission and the Prisoners’ Club accused Israel of “enforced disappearance” of Palestinians from Gaza, detained since October 7.
The two organizations called on international human rights bodies to pressure Israel to release information on Gaza detainees. The statement refers to reports published by the Israeli press on the deaths of some Gaza detainees, the most recent of which was a report in the Israeli daily Haaretz.
“The occupation’s insistence on not revealing the fate of Gaza detainees and continuing to forcibly disappear them has only one explanation: the decision to commit crimes against them away from the public eye” , we can read in the declaration.
Last week, the Israeli army released images of dozens of Palestinian men detained in Gaza, stripped naked and taken in the back of trucks to an unknown destination. Israeli forces claimed the detainees were surrendered Hamas fighters. Hamas denied that the detainees were fighters in its ranks.
Palestinians testified that they recognized family members among the detainees in Gaza, insisting they were civilians sheltering in asylum centers. Among the detainees identified in the footage was TNA Arab reporter Diaa Al-Kahlout.
Shortly after October 7, Israel arrested Palestinians from Gaza who were working in Israel. The Palestinian Prisoners’ Club told TNA their number was estimated at several thousand.
Gaza workers who were freed by Israel and deported to the occupied West Bank told TNA they were mistreated, including beatings and threats, before being released.
Before October 7, Israel held some 5,000 Palestinians in its prisons, including 1,300 without charge or trial. Since October 7, Israel has arrested around 4,500 Palestinians, placing around 2,000 of them in administrative detention without charge.
Previously, Palestinian human rights groups warned that testimonies from freed Palestinians indicated that Israeli authorities had increased repressive measures against Palestinian detainees, including repeated raids on prison cells. using tear gas and beatings, depriving them of food and time in the sun.
At the end of November, Israel released dozens of Palestinian women and minors in exchange for the release by Hamas of 110 Israeli hostages, women and minors, and other hostages of Asian nationalities.
Freed Palestinian women told TNA about the “brutal” treatment they suffered in Israeli prisons since October 7, including the cutting off of water and electricity, overcrowding of cells, violent searches of cells and the considerable reduction of the time of exposure to the sun.
Currently, Israel continues to detain 7,000 Palestinians in its prisons, including 200 children and 62 women, according to human rights groups.
Source: New Arab
AFPS translation
