Israel imposes restrictions on Palestine detainees' rights 

The Israeli Prisons Authority has imposed punitive measures on Palestinian detainees, the Prisoners’ Information Office warned this morning, adding that this could lead to a “serious escalation” in tensions in jails.

Occupation authorities have reduced the time prisoners are allowed to spend outside to one hour and reduced the number of detainees in the prison yard at any one time. It has also closed the prisoners’ shop, from which they buy essentials including soap, and moved prisoners who are members of the Islamic Jihad movement around into different prisons.

Lawyers and family visits have now been banned, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation’s Prisoners’ Affairs Authority said.

The Prisoners’ Information Office stressed that “prisons are on the verge of a dangerous escalation in light of the punitive measures imposed by the prison administration on prisoners.”

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Spokesman for the Prisoners’ Affairs Authority, Hassan Abd Rabbo, confirmed that the occupation authorities transferred all prisoners from Gilboa prison to a number of other prisons, and placed them in solitary confinement.

These measures come after six Palestinian detainees, five of whom were members of Islamic Jihad, escaped from Israel’s high-security Gilboa Prison in the early hours of yesterday.