#Title

‘They beat us day and night’

Released Palestinians allege mistreatment, deprivation in Israeli prisons
AFP, Ramallah
Released under a prisoner-hostage exchange between Israel and Hamas, former Palestinian detainees have described beatings, deprivation and a radical deterioration in conditions in Israeli jails following Israel’s Gaza offensive on October 7.
On that day, Hamas fighters streamed across the Gaza Strip’s militarised border into Israel, kidnapping around 240 people, Israeli officials say.
In response, the Israeli military launched a campaign to eradicate Hamas that has since killed more than 16,000 people, most of them women and minors, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run government.
The only respite in fighting was a seven-day truce that ended Friday and saw scores of Israeli hostages freed by Hamas in exchange for more than 200 Palestinian prisoners released from Israeli jails.
One of those prisoners, 23-year-old activist Rouba Assi, told reporters after her release last week that Israeli prison authorities “took everything away” from Palestinian detainees.
Since October 7, they had been subject to a “state of emergency” announced by prison officials.
For detained Palestinians, there would be no more leaving their cell -- and therefore no more visits -- no more buying food from the canteen, no more power in their electrical outlets, and more frequent surprise searches, authorities said in a statement.
The Palestinian Prisoners’ Club, an advocacy group that keeps a tally of detainees from the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem, has said visits from representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) also stopped.
Under its guidelines on confidentiality, the ICRC has not commented on that claim.
Assi is uniquely placed to compare life on the inside before and during the war. Between 2020 and 2022 she was jailed for 21 months on charges of throwing stones and belonging to an illegal organisation, the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
She was arrested again after the start of the current war, along with 3,580 other Palestinians detained so far, according to the Prisoners’ Club. There are around 7,800 Palestinians prisoners in Israeli jails, the Club says.
During her latest stint, Assi found things were very different.
“In Damon prison (in northeast Israel) seven of us slept in a cell designed for three detainees, on the bare floor, without a mattress or a cover, despite the cold and regardless of one’s age,” she said.
Ramzi Abbasi, a Palestinian activist from east Jerusalem, was freed under the Israel-Hamas deal from Ketziot prison in the Negev desert. “They beat us day and night,” the 36-year-old told AFP.
“Some prisoners had their legs or arms broken after October 7 and received no care.” Approached several times by AFP, Israeli prison authorities declined to comment on the allegations.