Palestine Prisoners' Club: 73 prisoners killed due to torture in Israeli jails since 1967

The Palestinian Society Prisoner’s Club (NGO) announced that since 1967, 73 Palestinian prisoners had been martyred as a result of torture during their interrogation by the Israeli occupation forces.

The Club said in a statement, Wednesday, that the Israeli occupation authorities use several methods to torture Palestinian prisoners and detainees. These are both physical and psychological methods designed to strip them off of their humanity and pressure them to make confessions during the investigation period.

The Club explained that 95 per cent of the detainees were subjected to torture from the moment of their arrest. This continues during the investigation and even after prisoners are placed in public detention centres.

The Club further explained that in a prominent case, in 2013, Arafat Jaradat was killed by torture in the cells of Megiddo Prison five days after his arrest. In 2014, Israeli forces killed Yassin Al-Saradih at the time of his arrest after torturing him and shooting him at point-blank range. The same year, Nahshon forces (select units in prisons to suppress prisoners) killed the prisoner Aziz Eweisat after torturing him in the cells of Eshel Prison. He was then transferred to an Israeli hospital until the announcement of his martyrdom on 20 May 2018. On September of the same year, the occupation forces killed the detainee Mohammed Al-Khateeb (Al-Rimawi) the moment of his arrest from his home after being tortured. The latest prisoner to be killed as a result of torture during interrogation was detainee Nassar Taqatqa on 16 July 2019.

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The Club pointed out that the torture is not limited to the violence used against the prisoner during arrest and interrogation. Rather, it includes all the abuses the prisoners face inside the detention centres. The most prominent of these methods are solitary confinement, the detention of prisoners in conditions that do not meet the minimum health standards and the methods by which they are transported. This transportation method is also known as “Bosta”, wherein Palestinian prisoners are cuffed all the way to and from court or clinic while sitting on metal chairs. The policy of medical negligence falls under the methods of physical and psychological violence, in which the prisoner experiences a slow death.

According to the Prisoner’s Club, the crackdowns carried out by the oppression units of the Israeli Prison Administration are one of the most famous methods of collective torture of prisoners. The Club pointed out that since the beginning of this year, these units had carried out several repressions that have been extended since February this year when they stormed Ofer Prison. During the confrontation, dozens of prisoners were harmed by the use of pepper gas, sound bombs, rubber bullets, batons and police dogs, followed by a crackdown in Megiddo and Raymond prisons. The confrontation reached its peak again in Ktzi’ot Prison in March, when dozens of prisoners were harmed, some were left with severe injuries, a result of torture. This included severe beatings, spraying gas, tying to beds for several days without treatment for the injured. Prisoners were also stripped of all their belongings and turning the prison section into a collective isolation cell.