Israel is using prison as collective punishment of the Palestinians

A report compiled by Addameer, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society and Al-Mezan Centre for Human Rights has explained the statistics of the arrest and imprisonment of Palestinians by Israel in 2016. The figures are staggering.

A total of 6,400 Palestinians were arrested, including 1332 children, of whom 300 are still imprisoned, among them 11 girls. There were 1,742 administrative detention orders in 2016, of which 635 were new; the others were renewals of existing orders. Prisoners are held indefinitely with neither charge nor trial under this system.

Perhaps the most striking observation of the report with regard to administrative detention was its rampant use against younger Palestinians: “The majority of administrative detention orders were issued against young people, including those who do not belong to the factions or student blocs.” This contradicts Israel’s regurgitated “security concerns”, yet it is disseminated as a mere observation rather than a fact that should at the very least demand greater scrutiny. Appealing for accountability will remain a wasted effort and one that attracts further violations due to the fact that there is no solid foundation upon which to construct such requests. The language in such circumstances has also failed Palestinians; it borrows heavily from the vocabulary of the colonised in order to make itself heard and, in turn, is ignored systematically by the international community.

Other violations mentioned in the report are the issues of former prisoners who have been refused parole; the Israeli government’s refusal to release the fourth batch of Palestinian prisoners as part of the deal put together during the last stalled negotiations; and the re-arrest of prisoners who were granted freedom as part of the Gilad Shalit prisoner swap. Solitary confinement, medical negligence — which has, in some cases, led to death — and Palestinian protests through hunger strikes are also given prominence. The report attributes 50 prison deaths to medical negligence.

If anything is to be gleaned from the report, it is the widespread effects of incarceration upon Palestinian society, as well as the consistent omission of important assertions that feed unwittingly into both the Israeli and the international narrative. It can be argued, of course, that the scope of the report is to impart statistical information, but the continued emphasis on involving ambiguous legislation to make a point – in this case administrative detention – without pointing out the flaws in such legislation which stops short of declaring it a violation of human rights regardless of circumstances, will not aid the Palestinian cause.

Families have already been plunged into irreparable difficulties due to previous imprisonment campaigns across the whole community. Israel’s targeting of the younger generation, which has increased since the commencement of the Jerusalem Intifada, has now ensured that gaps in Palestinian society become more tangible, particularly psychologically and emotionally.

Meanwhile, the international community continues to flaunt its abandonment of Palestine in different ways. The failure to uphold, let alone support, Palestinian anti-colonial struggle is the main violation committed against Palestinian society since Israel was given international recognition. Promoting awareness that such reports are describing an interminable cycle should come across unapologetically, and the blame for such repetitive, systematic violations attributed directly to the aggressor and its external accomplices. At the very least, Israel should be condemned for using imprisonment as a political tool, for it is no less than collective punishment, which is in itself a violation of international law.

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