Israeli rights group describes local prisons as ‘network of torture camps’

ANKARA

An Israeli rights group on Monday described the country’s prisons as a “network of torture camps,” confirming a systematic policy of torture and degrading treatment of Palestinian detainees in Israeli jails.

B’Tselem said it gathered testimonies from 55 Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons for its report, confirming the ill treatment they received during their detention.

“The testimonies clearly indicate a systematic, institutional policy focused on the continual abuse and torture of all Palestinian prisoners held by Israel,” it said.

“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,” B’Tselem said.

The rights group counted several forms of acts by Israeli prison wardens including “arbitrary violence, sexual assault, humiliation and degradation, deliberate starvation, sleep deprivation…and the denial of adequate medical treatment.”

“These descriptions appear time and again in the testimonies (of Palestinians) in horrifying detail and with chilling similarities,” it added.

It stressed that the testimonies it gathered from Palestinian detainees in various prison facilities make “no room to doubt an organized, declared policy of the Israeli prison authorities.”

One Palestinian detainee told B’Tselem that “two guards came and took me to a cell the size of 1.5 square meters with no toilet. I was in that cell for more than three months…The light was on 24\7.”

While some prisoners were locked in their cells throughout the entire day, “others were allowed out for an hour once every few days in order to shower. Some never saw daylight during their time in prison,” B’Tselem added.

Confirming the severity of Israel’s inhumane treatment of Palestinian detainees, it noted that this can be seen “in the number of Palestinian prisoners who have died in Israeli custody — no less than 60.”

The report concluded by urging the international community “to do everything in their power to put an immediate end to the cruelties meted out on Palestinians by Israel’s prison system.”

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