Palestine accuses Israel of ‘starving’ Palestinian detainees

The umbrella Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) accused Israel, Thursday, of applying a “policy of starvation” against Palestinian detainees in Israeli jails, Anadolu Agency reports.

In a statement, the PLO’s Commission of Detainees’ Affairs said the Israeli policy of starving Palestinian prisoners has caused them “to lose between 15 to 25 kilograms per prisoner”.

“This policy will have negative repercussions on the lives of detainees,” it warned.

According to the statement, the Israeli prison administration’s reduction of food quantities provided to male and female prisoners to much less than the minimum required amounts, its poor quality, method of preparation and deliberate contamination, will make their bodies easy prey for viruses and diseases.

“The prisoners will find themselves facing a complex health situation in the near future, which has already begun to appear, as the number of sick prisoners has clearly doubled, and hunger has become a method of daily punishment that has continued since 7 October until today,” it added, citing the Commission’s lawyers who had recently visited the prisoners.

The Commission has also accused the Israeli prison authorities of depriving Palestinian detainees of their medication during the harsh winter season and preventing the entry of clothes and blankets, which would exacerbate their suffering and cause their health to further deteriorate.

In a related development, the Commission and the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club said the Israeli forces have arrested about 7,170 Palestinians from the Occupied West Bank since the start of the Israeli devastating war on the besieged Gaza Strip on 7 October.

A joint statement issued by the two institutions, on Thursday, explained that the ongoing and escalating arrest campaigns in an unprecedented manner come within the framework of the comprehensive aggression against the Palestinian people, their land, property and sanctities, and the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

More than 9,000 Palestinians are currently held in Israeli prisons, including 3,484 held without trial or charge under Israel’s notorious policy of administrative detention, according to prisoners’ affairs groups.

For the first time since its creation in 1948, Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, the highest judicial body of the United Nations, over its deadly offensive on the Gaza Strip, which has killed at least 29,410 people since 7 October, following a Hamas attack, while nearly 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been killed.

However, since then, it has been revealed by Haaretz that helicopters and tanks of the Israeli army had, in fact, killed many of the 1,139 soldiers and civilians claimed by Israel to have been killed by the Palestinian Resistance.

An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.

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