XPost: uk.legal, soc.culture.jewish, alt.news-media   
   XPost: alt.politics.democrats, alt.atheism   
   From: void@invalid.noy   
      
   Israel’s genocidal war on Palestinians since last October has extended   
   beyond the daily mass death, displacement, and starvation of the   
   civilian population in the Gaza Strip. Behind the bars of Israeli   
   prisons, Israel has been waging war against Palestinian prisoners,   
   creating conditions that make the continuation of human life   
   impossible. The effects of this brutal campaign have reverberated   
   among prisoners’ families outside of jail, who are watching their   
   loved ones being systematically starved, beaten, tortured, and   
   degraded.   
      
   Shortly after October 7, Israel imposed a new set of rules in its cell   
   blocks. In some detention centers like Ofer near Ramallah, the Israeli   
   army was reportedly handed over control of the prison, while the   
   Israel Prison Services guards were given a free hand in dealing with   
   Palestinian inmates inside the jail sections. This shift was   
   accompanied by a dramatic increase in the number of Palestinian   
   detainees who were arrested after October 7, doubling the prisoner   
   population as early on as mid-October. This included prisoners from   
   Gaza, for whom the hardest part of the treatment was reserved.   
      
   In mid-May, CNN released an exposé based on the testimonies of Israeli   
   whistleblowers about the horrific treatment of Palestinians from Gaza   
   at the Israeli military base of Sde Teiman, now containing a detention   
   center. The whistleblower testimonies detail a number of medieval   
   practices to which Palestinian prisoners have been subjected,   
   including being strapped down to beds while blindfolded and made to   
   wear diapers, having unqualified medical trainees conduct procedures   
   on them without anesthesia, having dogs set on them by prison guards,   
   being regularly beaten or put into stress positions for offenses as   
   minor as peeking beneath their blindfolds, having zip-tie wounds   
   fester to the point of requiring amputation, and a host of other   
   horrific measures.   
      
   On June 6, the New York Times published another story about Sde Teiman   
   based on interviews with former detainees and Israeli military   
   officers, doctors, and soldiers who worked at the prison, bringing new   
   horrors to light about the treatment of Gazan prisoners. Detainee   
   testimonies repeated many of these same accounts but also included   
   additional disturbing accounts of sexual violence, including   
   testimonies of rape and forcing detainees to sit on metal sticks that   
   caused anal bleeding and “unbearable pain.”   
      
   Other depravities have been documented in several other prisons, often   
   gloatingly by Israeli news channels who broadcast scenes of the abuse,   
   including degrading treatment, in what can only be described as snuff   
   films. Israeli prison doctors have assisted in the torture of   
   Palestinian detainees, both before and after October 7. Alongside   
   these acts of torture and humiliation, prison authorities have   
   severely restricted prisoners’ food intake to the point of   
   near-starvation, giving 20 prisoners enough food for two people.   
      
   The picture that emerges is one in which Israeli authorities are   
   putting Palestinians in animal-like conditions calculated to torture,   
   humiliate, and in man cases, to bring about their death. In March, the   
   Israeli daily Haaretz reported that some 27 Palestinian detainees had   
   died in detention in two facilities, including Sde Teiman.   
      
   Meanwhile, the families of Palestinian detainees, both from Gaza and   
   the West Bank, have been left to wonder about the fate of their loved   
   ones for months on end as horror stories continue to trickle out of   
   Israeli prisons from those who are released, further feeding the   
   anxieties of the families.   
      
   Death by beating   
      
   According to Palestinian prisoners’ rights groups, Israel has arrested   
   no less than 8,800 Palestinians since October from Gaza, the West   
   Bank, and Jerusalem. Many have been released, including as part of a   
   prisoners’ exchange between Israel and Hamas in November. Currently,   
   some 9,300 Palestinians continue to be held behind bars, including 78   
   women, 250 children, and more than 3,400 detainees without charge or   
   trial under the military legal system of administrative detention.   
      
   Thaer Taha, a Palestinian in his forties, was one of them until last   
   April when he was released after two years of administrative   
   detention. Taha was arrested in May 2022 and was given a detention   
   order of six months. By October 7, he had spent almost a year and a   
   half in Israeli jails.   
      
   “The day his detention order expired, we prepared ourselves to welcome   
   my father at home,” Guevara Taha, his 22-year-old daughter, told   
   Mondoweiss. “My mother made his favorite meal, my siblings and I   
   dressed up, and friends and family members prepared to receive him at   
   the checkpoint,” says Guevara. “That day, the lawyer called us and   
   said that the occupation had renewed my father’s detention order for   
   another six months,” she recalls.   
      
   On October 7, Thaer Taha was a month away from ending his second   
   detention period. Since his arrest, he had been receiving family   
   visits once a month.   
      
   Then, everything changed. Israel suspended all family visits for   
   Palestinian inmates and began a series of unprecedented repressive   
   measures against them. “Even those who had experienced the occupation   
   jails in the 1970s and the 1980s said that they had seen nothing like   
   the past eight months in the occupation’s prisons,” Thaer Taha says,   
   referring to past periods that had hitherto been regarded as the   
   highest point in Israel’s repression of Palestinian prisoners.   
      
   “The organized daily life inside cells, which so many [prisoners] had   
   struggled for over the years, suddenly disappeared. Books and other   
   personal belongings were confiscated and we were no longer allowed to   
   have any kind of activity or representation,” explains Taha. “Guards   
   began to violently raid our cells on a daily basis, food quality   
   immediately decreased, and covers were taken away. We were   
   intentionally put into insecurity, hunger, and cold. At the same time,   
   the cells became crowded. We were 12 people in a 9 by 4 meter cell.”   
      
   The worsening of detention conditions for Palestinian inmates had   
   already begun before October 7. In February 2023, Israel’s security   
   minister Itamar Ben-Gvir began to reduce water access for Palestinian   
   prisoners, beginning by limiting shower time to four minutes per day.   
   The step caused outrage among human rights groups at the time. After   
   October 7, it went to a whole new level.   
      
   “In mid-December, our water supply inside each cell was reduced to one   
   hour per day. We used this hour to store as much water as we could,   
   and since we only had one bottle in the cell, we filled empty cans,”   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)