Palestine rights group: Israel tortures female prisoners

The Palestinian Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs revealed on Thursday that Israel “tortures and abuses” female Palestinian prisoners in Damon Prison, northern Israel.

The commission disclosed in a report that the 40 female Palestinian prisoners in Damon prison are facing “brutal detention and interrogation conditions” and are “subjected to all methods of psychological torture and deprivation of the most basic life necessities.”

The report cited the testimony of prisoner Mona Qaadan, 50, from the Jenin governorate in northern West Bank, who has been detained for nearly three months.

According to the commission, Qaadan was continuously interrogated for 22 days, from 8:30 am until 4 am the next day. Qaadan was arrested for the sixth time and has spent a total of eight years in Israeli prisons.

“During the [interrogation sessions], she remained handcuffed with iron handcuffs to the back, attached to a chair and was subjected to obscenities, insults and threats to arrest all her family, including her brother Tariq, who was actually arrested later,” the report disclosed.

The report quoted Qaadan describing her detention cell as: “Full of damp and smelly, sometimes cold and sometimes hot, they (the jailers) controlled the room’s temperature, and although I asked for cleaning materials several times, they refused.”

Israel detains around 4,850 Palestinians, including 225 children and 540 administrative detainees.

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