Tag: hostages

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Torture and genocide Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 by Francesca Albanese

PLEASE TAKE ACTION RIGHT NOW AND SEND YOUR LETTER TO THE UN OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL ADVISER ON THE PREVENTION OF GENOCIDE AND THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT PROSECUTOR.

This report examines Israel’s systematic use of torture against Palestinians from the occupied Palestinian territory since 7 October 2023, encompassing both custodial and noncustodial practices, which meet the threshold for genocide under the Genocide Convention. It documents how torture has become integral to the domination of and punishment inflicted on men, women and children, both through custodial abuse and through a relentless campaign of forced displacement, mass killings, deprivation and destruction of all means of life to inflict long-term collective pain and suffering. A continuous, territorially pervasive regime of psychological terror is being imposed, designed to break bodies, deprive a people of their dignity and force them from their land. This is not incidental violence. It is the architecture of settler-colonialism, built on a foundation of dehumanization and maintained by a policy of cruelty and collective torture.

Continue reading at https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/hrbodies/hrcouncil/sessions-regular/session61/advance-version/a-hrc-61-71-auv.pdf

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Beyond Accountability Legal Analysis of the Occupying Power`s Policy of Impunity by Addameer

PLEASE TAKE ACTION RIGHT NOW AND SEND YOUR LETTER TO THE UN OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL ADVISER ON THE PREVENTION OF GENOCIDE AND THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT PROSECUTOR.

In light of the definition of genocide as outlined in Article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, “genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”

This definition was subsequently embraced by Article 6 of the Rome Statute. Consequently, the Israeli actions against Palestinian prisoners fulfill the criteria of this crime, particularly as the Israeli occupation strategies now focus on prisoners as members of the Palestinian national group, amidst a broader framework of collective punishment and systematic starvation. Acts of torture and other forms of ill-treatment have been employed as genocidal acts, particularly in relation to the situation in the Gaza Strip.

Continue reading at https://www.addameer.ps/sites/default/files/publications/in%20the%20Context%20of%20Crimes%20Committed%20Against%20Palestinian%20Prisoner.pdf

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The Deadliest Period in History for Palestinian Prisoners in Israeli Detention by Mariam Barghouti

PLEASE TAKE ACTION RIGHT NOW AND SEND YOUR LETTER TO THE UN OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL ADVISER ON THE PREVENTION OF GENOCIDE AND THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT PROSECUTOR.

According to the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society, the current period is the deadliest for Palestinian detainees in Israeli detention in history.

“The inhumane conditions in which Palestinian political prisoners are being held represent another facet of the ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip,” the joint statement said. “Time has now become a critical factor in determining the fate of thousands of prisoners and detainees held by the Israeli occupation, amid a period in which Israel continues to carry out acts of genocide with complete impunity.”

Continue reading at https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/palestinian-prisoners-israeli-detention-abuse-starvation-death

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Nurse Lana Abugharbieh Witnesses Release of Palestinian Prisoners During Second Gaza Mission by Instituted for Palestine Studies

PLEASE TAKE ACTION RIGHT NOW AND SEND YOUR LETTER TO THE UN OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL ADVISER ON THE PREVENTION OF GENOCIDE AND THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT PROSECUTOR.

[TRIGGER WARNING torture, rape, and sexual assault] My patient explained that the guards would spray the concrete floors with ice-cold water, then force them to strip and lay face-down on the wet ground (during the winter months). For 18 hours a day, they had to sit on their shins, blindfolded, wrists bound, in excruciating silence. Most of them developed scabies, causing severe and constant itching. Not only did scratching make the infections worse, but any movement—including shifting positions, asking for medicine, even flinching—was met with beatings from the IOF soldiers. 

But the abuse didn’t end there. My patient showed me the position the soldiers would force them into before sodomizing them with electric batons. He said the IOF guards burned them with cigarettes, released attack dogs that mauled their bodies—especially targeting their genitals—and used pepper spray to torment them further. 

My patient also described how the Israeli forces brought Israeli teenagers into the detention camps to mock and humiliate them. These teenagers cursed them, insulted their mothers, wives, and sisters with vile and degrading slurs. They spat on the detainees, urinated on them, and poured freezing cold, or scalding hot water over their bodies.

Continue reading at https://www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/1657353

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Israel’s escalating use of torture against Palestinians in custody a preventable crime against humanity: UN experts by Francesca Albanese and others

PLEASE TAKE ACTION RIGHT NOW AND SEND YOUR LETTER TO THE UN OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL ADVISER ON THE PREVENTION OF GENOCIDE AND THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT PROSECUTOR.

  1. Countless testimonies by men and women speak of detainees in cage-like enclosures, tied to beds blindfolded and in diapers, stripped naked, deprived of adequate healthcare, food, water and sleep, electrocutions including on their genitals, blackmail and cigarette burns. In addition, victims spoke of loud music played until their ears bled, attacks by dogs, waterboarding, suspension from ceilings and severe sexual and gender-based violence.
  3. … “Torture practices are irredeemably unlawful and constitute international crimes, yet form part of the modus operandi of Israel’s notorious detention and torture system,” they warned. “These practices are intended to punish Palestinians for resisting occupation and seek to destroy them individually and collectively.”
  5. “Israel’s genocidal destruction in Gaza, which is spreading across the West Bank, including east Jerusalem, serves as the backdrop to its abusive detention programme today,” the experts said.

Continue reading at https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/08/israels-escalating-use-torture-against-palestinians-custody-preventable

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The genocide in Israeli prisons by Qassam Muaddi

PLEASE TAKE ACTION RIGHT NOW AND SEND YOUR LETTER TO THE UN OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL ADVISER ON THE PREVENTION OF GENOCIDE AND THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT PROSECUTOR.

  1. 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.
  3. … 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. 
  5. 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. 

Continue reading at https://mondoweiss.net/2024/06/the-genocide-in-israeli-prisons/

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Hostages of Israeli revenge in the Gaza Strip: Testimonies of 100 released Palestinian detainees reveal crimes of torture, cruel treatment by EuroMed Human Rights Monitor

PLEASE TAKE ACTION RIGHT NOW AND SEND YOUR LETTER TO THE UN OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL ADVISER ON THE PREVENTION OF GENOCIDE AND THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT PROSECUTOR.

  1. Since the start of the massive and unprecedented Israeli military attack on the Gaza Strip and the genocide against its entire Palestinian population, ongoing since 7 October 2023, the Israeli army has launched widespread arbitrary arrest campaigns. These campaigns have targeted Palestinian civilians, including women, children, the elderly, and displaced people, and have occurred most commonly during Israel’s ground incursions into cities, refugee camps, and various residential neighbourhoods in the Strip.

… the Israeli army used physical and psychological torture against Palestinian civilian detainees, including beatings with the intent to kill, sexual violence, electrocution, blindfolding, and long-term hand and foot shackles. Detainees were also denied access to food and medical care, including critical and life-saving care, were spat and urinated upon, and were subjected to other cruel and degrading acts and psychological abuse, including threats of rape and death, insults, and other forms of sexual violence.

Continue reading at https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/6342/Hostages-of-Israeli-revenge-in-the-Gaza-Strip:-Testimonies-of-100-released-Palestinian-detainees-reveal-crimes-of-torture,-cruel-treatment

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ICC Prosecutor Completely Neglects to Mention the Crimes Committed Against Palestinian Prisoners in Arrest Warrants for Israeli Officials by Addameer

PLEASE TAKE ACTION RIGHT NOW AND SEND YOUR LETTER TO THE UN OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL ADVISER ON THE PREVENTION OF GENOCIDE AND THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT PROSECUTOR.

On May 20, 2024, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced that he had requested arrest warrants for two high-profile Israeli officials, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Security Minister Yoav Gallant. The Prosecutor stated that he had reasonable grounds to believe that Netanyahu and Gallant had committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza from at least October 8, 2023. The decision made by the ICC Prosecutor to hold Israeli officials accountable for their crimes marks a significant step towards ending decades of impunity for crimes committed in occupied Palestine. This decision underscores the importance of international justice in addressing long standing oppressions and human rights violations.

Addameer welcomes the decision of the ICC Prosecutor’s Office; however, substantial efforts are still required to achieve comprehensive justice and hold Israeli officials fully accountable for their crimes. 

… Addameer also documented a worrying increase in the acts of torture committed against Palestinian detainees since the beginning of the genocide. Palestinians are systematically victim of torture and mistreatments during their arrest, interrogation, and while in detention. Detention conditions are deteriorating, including with the provision of extremely poor food portions, forcing detainees to sleep in very cold cells, overcrowding of cells, and detainees having to sleep on the floor. Palestinian detainees are subjected to beatings multiple times a day, sometimes until loss of consciousness, forced to stay in stress positions, threatened, including with death, sexual violence, or threats on their families, and regularly strip searched.

… Israeli nationals committing crimes against Palestinian detainees are never prosecuted by the Israeli occupation authorities. According to the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI), more than 1,400 complaints of torture  were submitted to the what so called Israeli Ministry of “Justice” since 2001 and all the cases were closed without a single indictment.

… Addameer strongly encourages the Office of the Prosecutor to investigate the aforementioned crimes and issue arrest warrants for those responsible… Failing to investigate and prosecute Israeli perpetrators of such crimes will only reinforce injustice and the system of complete impunity created by the occupying state.

Continue reading at https://www.addameer.org/news/5356

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Immediate Action Needed to Ensure Independent International Oversight in Israeli Prisons and Detention Centers by Addameer, Al-Haq, Al-Mezan, Palestinian Centre for Human Rights

PLEASE TAKE ACTION RIGHT NOW AND SEND YOUR LETTER TO THE UN OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL ADVISER ON THE PREVENTION OF GENOCIDE AND THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT PROSECUTOR.

Israeli authorities held Palestinian residents of Gaza separately from other Palestinian prisoners and detainees. Many are being held in ad hoc, army-administered detention camps, primarily situated in the Naqab desert in southern Israel. Testimonies from released prisoners indicate that the torture inflicted on Gaza detainees has reached unprecedented levels. During their abduction and detention, Palestinian residents of Gaza are treated as ‘human animals’, demonstrating that the dehumanizing and genocidal rhetoric used by the highest levels of the Israeli leadership to characterize Palestinians was embraced throughout all ranks within the military and the IPS. 

Our organizations maintain that the actual number of Palestinians who have “died” while in Israeli custody is much higher than the documented cases suggest. This assertion is grounded in the dozens of testimonies from released prisoners collected by our organizations and other civil society organizations. These testimonies include accounts from tortured detainees who witnessed other fellow detainees being beaten to death. 

Continue reading at https://pchrgaza.org/en/immediate-action-needed-to-ensure-independent-international-oversight-in-israeli-prisons-and-detention-centers/

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Smuggling Palestinian Prisoners: Smuggling Freedom, Writing from Captivity by Basil Farraj

PLEASE TAKE ACTION RIGHT NOW AND SEND YOUR LETTER TO THE UN OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL ADVISER ON THE PREVENTION OF GENOCIDE AND THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT PROSECUTOR.

As Israel’s genocidal violence continues to be unleashed across historic Palestine, a war has been unfolding inside Israeli prisons. This war has rid Palestinian prisoners of rights earned through decades of struggle, including their ability to write and communicate with the outside world. Despite the horrendous conditions of captivity, however, it is certain that prisoners will find ways to smuggle freedom outside their prison cells. These practices should be approached as instances of smuggling freedom rather than mere resistance practices or simple inversions of power and violence, as they are commonly conceptualized. By articulating Palestinian prisoners’ cultural productions as instances of a smuggled freedom, the article highlighted the political nature of the prisoners’ varied responses to power and violence conceptualizing them as modes of ‘politics in-the-making’. Palestinian prisoners’ long history of cultural productions, along with the processes of smuggling them out of captivity, point to an emancipatory politics in-the-making which dreams, and works for, a liberated geography. This is specifically pertinent today.

Continue reading at https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4877&context=clcweb