Israeli-Palestinian War: Palestinian detainees from Gaza die in Israeli custody, report says

Several Palestinians from Gaza held by Israel in a military detention center died in unclear circumstances, according to a report published Monday by Haaretz.

According to Haaretz, hundreds of people are being held in an Israeli prison without beds and with the lights on all night.

Hundreds of Palestinians from the besieged enclave have reportedly been arrested by Israeli soldiers and taken to a detention center near Beersheba in Israel’s southern Negev desert.

Several of them have since died, without the Israeli authorities having explained the circumstances of their deaths.

The Israeli military told Haaretz that those who died in the detention center were “terrorists” and that an investigation into their deaths was underway.
Detainees are locked in fenced enclosures with their eyes covered and their hands handcuffed for most of the day.

Lights are on throughout the night in the prison grounds and inmates sleep on thin mattresses on the floor, the report added.

Among the detainees, some were arrested during the surprise Hamas attack in southern Israel on October 7, which left around 1,200 people dead. Hundreds more have been arrested since the Israeli ground operation in the enclave in late October.

Women and children detained

Women and children were also arrested by Israeli soldiers in Gaza and are being held in a detention center near Jerusalem, the report added.
MEE reported last week that the Israeli army had arbitrarily detained dozens of women and girls from Gaza without revealing their whereabouts or the charges against them.

According to a Haaretz report published last week, only 10 to 15 percent of Palestinians detained by Israel in Gaza in recent days are linked to Hamas.
Palestinians in Gaza are detained under the “unlawful combatants law,” which human rights advocates and legal experts have long said is used by Israel to detain civilians on the basis of little of evidence and without a fair trial.

The law states that an Israeli court must review the incarceration order within 14 days, and then every six months.

The Israeli military told Haaretz that the people from Gaza detained were “on probable cause of involvement in terrorist activity.”

MEE obtained a list of the names, first names, ages and professions of 25 people among those arrested by Israel earlier this month in the enclave.

This list, as well as testimonies, indicate that these detainees include academics, journalists, teachers in UN-run schools, schoolchildren, workers and employees of the Palestinian Authority.

Since October 7, the Israeli army has killed nearly 19,000 Palestinians in attacks, most of them women and children.

Translation: AFPS