IOF troops storm Negev prison, confiscate captives’ winter clothes

[ 24/12/2010 - 11:03 AM ]

Gaza, (PIC)-- The National Supreme Committee for supporting Palestinian captives in Israeli jails said on Thursday that the Israeli occupation troops stormed the Negev desert jail and wreaked havoc on it before confiscating coats and winter clothes of Palestinian captives there. Riyadh Al-Ashqar, the information officer of the committee, said in a statement he issued in this regard that the storming operation lasted for several hours where the jail guards backed by IOF troops assaulted the captives and confiscated their coats and dress they use for the biting winter season. The jail is located in the desert of Negev, which is known for its extreme cold climate during winter. According to Ashqar, the Israeli prison authority alleged that the captives own mobile phones and other communication devices, and that they videoed parts of the party they held in the prison to celebrate Hamas 23rd founding anniversary and distributed it to media outlets. He added that the IPA used such fabrications to transfer a number of the captives to different Israeli jails, accusing the Israeli occupation authority of deceiving the world by trying to show that Palestinian captives in Israeli jails live in luxury. "In fact, the IPA wants out of such allegations to suppress the captives further, to confiscate all the achievements they have made while in prison, to deny them their legal rights, to justify imposing fines on them, and to send them to solitary confinement", Ashqar pointed out. He urged all human right institutions to protect the captives against the "barbaric" Israeli occupation measures against them. Commenting on the matter, Palestinian lawmaker MP Salah Al-Bardaweel of the Hamas change and reform bloc described the Israeli storming of the prison as "criminal" and a form of the Israeli extortion of the Palestinian people. He also said in a statement he issued on Thursday that the practices of the Fatah militia against the Palestinian people and the political prisoners in Fatah jails in the West Bank have encouraged the Israeli occupation to escalate aggression against the Palestinian captives in Israeli occupation  jails. "It seems that they [the Israeli occupation and Fatah militia] are sharing the roles in blackmailing the Palestinian people and squeezing the Palestinian resistance", Bardaweel underlined. He also called on the Palestinian factions as well as human rights and institutions to consolidate efforts to protect the captives and to expose the Israeli crimes against them.