- Israel arrests over 7,350 Palestinians post-Hamas attack
- Detainees face severe abuse, neglect, and interrogation
- Administrative detention used extensively, violating rights
The Israeli authorities summoned Hashim Matar to the police station in occupied East Jerusalem at the beginning of November.
He was questioned for ten days regarding his perceived allegiance to Hamas and membership in the Palestinian organization. Matar and the other detainees were confined to a small chamber between interrogations, where they were subjected to punches, kicks, and baton strikes.
Three months after being released from detention, Matar, a 54-year-old man with a short grey goatee and laugh lines around his eyes, reminisced, “Many individuals had their sternum or heads fractured, frequently gushing with blood.”
“We were not even treated animalistic.” At the very least, animals are treated with some dignity.
Israel has captured thousands of Palestinians since October 7, when Hamas launched an attack on the country that resulted in 1,139 fatalities and approximately 250 abductions.
According to the Addameer monitor stationed in Ramallah, the total number of Palestinians apprehended in the occupied West Bank has surpassed 7,350 individuals since that time.
Although some Palestinians have been set free, 9,100 continue to be held captive. This is a significant increase from the 5,200 individuals held in Israeli prisons as of October 7.
Thousands of adults and children have allegedly been detained, tormented, and interrogated by the Israeli military in makeshift prisons throughout Gaza without legal or civilian oversight. These figures do not include these individuals.
Neglect and violence
The level of violence employed by Israeli authorities during arrests has increased since October 7, according to an Addameer staff member who requested anonymity.
When Israeli authorities storm a residence in the West Bank, they frequently assault the occupants with kicks, punches, and blows. In certain instances, Israeli soldiers threaten to abduct family members “hostage” unless the desired individual comes forward.
Palestinians who are apprehended are forcibly confined within vehicles and subjected to physical abuse en route to the detention centre. They are repeatedly instructed to undress, change into clothing, and then strip again at that location, where they are also beaten, sometimes on their genitalia.
Behind chains, captives are subjected to even worse treatment. Addameer stated that detainees are not permitted visits from family members or the Red Cross or granted access to water or electricity. Even for injuries sustained during an arrest, the majority of victims are denied access to healthcare, according to the rights organization. Pupils have perished as a consequence of health neglect.
“Ten prisoners from the West Bank have died thus far.” “Within this brief time frame, this is the highest number ever recorded,” an Addameer employee reported.
Matar was concerned that he might become unwell while incarcerated. He elaborated on how Israeli guards would flood the cells with light at night to rouse detainees from their slumber on the cold floors while turning the lights out during the day to prevent them from starving to death.
Matar stated, however, that being assaulted was the worst aspect of detention.
“I would inquire as to why they were maligning us.” “What did we do to deserve your victory over us?”
Administrative confinement
Additionally, Israel has weaponized quasi-judicial measures to apprehend thousands of Palestinians without cause. Israel inherited the emergency measure of “administrative detention” from the colonial British Mandate for Palestine; it is currently holding 3,050 of the total Palestinians detained since October 7.
Indefinitely held in administrative detention, inmates are not provided with any information regarding the allegations levied against them or the apparent evidence that implicates them.
Israeli authorities frequently fail to apprise Palestinian families of the whereabouts of their detained family members, constituting a violation of international law known as “forced disappearance.”
“Israel’s extensive use of administrative detention is unlawful,” stated Human Rights Watch’s Israel-Palestine director Omar Shakir.
However, these practices have existed for decades, not years, and have intensified since October 7th.
Forty Palestinian children languish in Israeli prisons, forty of whom are held under administrative detention, according to an Addameer staff member. Captives afflicted with severe or terminal ailments are prevented from seeing their families and have little chance of being released.
The Addameer employee reported that a 23-year-old cancer patient passed away in an Israeli prison at the end of February.
He has just passed out. They reported that he passed away five months after being unable to see his family.
“This collective punishment is cruel.” Consider [the family of this individual] who has lost their cherished. They were unable to even share his final moments with him.”
Temporary institutions
Since instigating its destructive conflict in the enclave, the Israeli army has apprehended thousands of Palestinians from Gaza, in addition to the extensive detention in the West Bank.
In the past five months, Israel has caused the displacement of nearly the entire population of 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza and murdered over 31,000 Palestinians. Fears have been raised that many have vanished, causing them to be entombed beneath the debris or lingering in the labyrinth of improvised Israeli prisons in Gaza.
The 29-year-old Ibrahim Yacoub was apprehended on November 21 in northern Gaza by Israeli forces. According to him, his hands were bound behind his back, and he was compelled to walk alongside eighty other captives to an Israeli detention facility.
“A soldier would strike one of us on the crown of the head whenever one of us fell,” he explained. “I couldn’t help but worry about when they would strike me again.”
Ultimately, Yacoub was led to a warehouse that appeared to be deserted, where he was questioned by Israeli soldiers who inquired repeatedly about his involvement in Hamas operations and his position within the organization.
“As I continued to assure them, I am not a combatant. Yacoub said, “I am a civilian,” via telephone several weeks after his release.
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Yacoub was transferred to two additional locations during his 53 days in captivity, where he endured mistreatment and encounters with attack canines and was forced to endure severe starvation. As documented by Addameer, he was not, however, among the 1,073 Palestinians transferred to Israel from Gaza.
Yacoub is not at liberty, notwithstanding his parole.
Presently, he is in Rafah, a bordering hamlet with Egypt that is home to over a million Palestinians who have been forcibly displaced from Gaza. Israel has issued a threat to invade the town in its entirety for weeks, a course of action that would exacerbate the already severe humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Yacoub, similar to numerous Palestinians, lacks the ability and liberty to emigrate. He is equally incapable of imagining establishing a fresh existence in Gaza from the ground up.
“Everything I once knew has vanished… “my office and my flat,” he explained. “My future and entire life are engulfed in flames.”
