XPost: uk.legal, soc.culture.jewish, alt.news-media   
   XPost: alt.politics.democrats, alt.atheism   
   From: prmandrake@gmail.com   
      
   NefeshBarYochai wrote:   
   > 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.   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)