Palestinian female detainees tell horrific stories of abuse in Israeli prisons

Thursday, 08 March 2012

Women show their solidarity with Hanaa Shalabi, a Palestinian prisoner on hunger strike to protest her detention by Israel, at a rally in Palestine. (File photo)

 

 By Amjad Samhan
Al Arabiya Ramallah

Throughout the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, around 800,000 Palestinians have been arrested by Israeli authorities, more than 10,000 of whom are women. Many of those female detainees were subjected to several forms of abuse, sexual in particular, but very few were willing to talk. On the eve of International Women’s Day, however, some decided to break their silence.

S.H., who refused to disclose her full name, was arrested for a few days to put pressure on her husband, also detained at the time, and extract confessions from him.

“They striped me and the officer who was interrogating me sat beside me and tried to molest me but I resisted,” she told Al Arabiya.

Hanaa Shalabi, the 30-year-old prisoner who has been on a hunger strike for 21 days in protest of the humiliation to which she was subjected in detention, said that an officer in civil clothes claimed he was a nurse at the prison and asked her to take off her clothes so he could search her.

“When I refused, he called other officers who tied me up and started beating me,” she said in a statement to the Palestinian Prisoner Society.

Shalabi’s lawyer Mahmoud Hassan said that one of the female officers wanted her to take off all her clothes in front of the other interrogators for the search.

“She kept refusing until the officer had to search her in the bathroom but threatened to retaliate against her,” he said in statement, of which Al Arabiya obtained a copy.

Hassan added that his client’s hands and legs were illegally tied during the trial.
Shalabi, who has so far lost 10 kilos, vowed to go on the hunger strike until she is released. She was sentenced to six months in jail and the sentence was reduced to four months, but no clear charges were leveled against her.

According to former detainee Iman Nafea, Israeli authorities abuse female prisoners all the time if not physically then at least verbally.

“In many cases, they search female prisoners after forcing them to take off their clothes. This is very humiliating even if it is done by a female officer because it shows there are bad intentions.”

Nafea argued that Israeli officers do not need to get prisoners naked to search them properly because they have advanced equipment that can reveal what is under the skin.

Nafea added that Israeli officers do not necessarily harass Palestinian detainees through direct physical contact with them, but they use other forms of sexual abuse.

“I know of a Palestinian woman who was assaulted with a club and several others who were constantly threatened with rape.”

On the occasion of International Women’s Day, which is an official holiday in Palestine, Palestinian Minister of Social Affairs Magda al-Masry stated that women have always been an integral part of the Palestinian struggle for freedom.

“This struggle is manifested in the plight of female detainees like Hanaa Shalabi,” she told Al Arabiya.

Masry added that the Palestinian government should take a firm stance on the naked search of Palestinian female detainees.

“This violates all human rights laws and the world has to break its silence.”
All Palestinian women, stressed Masry, will mark International Women’s Day by declaring solidarity with Shalabi.

“We will all support her until Israeli occupation forces release her.”

Several Israeli human rights organizations filed 17 complaints on behalf of Palestinian female detainees who accused Israeli officers of sexual harassment.

According to the organizations, the Israeli military prosecution is currently looking into the complaints.

(Translated from Arabic by Sonia Farid)

PA: Israel should reimburse tuition for prisoners

RAMALLAH (Ma’an) -- The Palestinian Authority ministry of prisoners affairs wants Israel to return tuition money paid by the PA to detained students who are no longer permitted to enroll in courses.

The prison service has frozen all the money allocated for tuition on behalf of detainees enrolled in the Open University, after the government decided to deprive Palestinian prisoners of education.

Of the 6,000 detainees in Israel, 280 are enrolled in Open University. Some would be graduating soon.

Prisoners minister Issa Qaraqe said Saturday that his ministry would appeal to Israel's High Court of Justice seeking to restore the money allocated for prisoners’ tuition.

In a separate matter, Hussein Ash-Sheikh, a Palestinian lawyer who works for the ministry, said Saturday that Israeli soldiers tried to rape a 13-year-old Palestinian at Etzion detention center.

The lawyer based his claim on what he heard from the teen’s brother, whom he identified as 26-year-old Ammar Sa’di Jabir from Hebron in the southern West Bank.

He said Ammar was detained along with his brother Mahmoud, 13, from their home on July 25. He was taken to Kiryat Arba detention center where the soldiers beat him on the face and body before transferring him to Etzion.

Ash-Sheikh said he noticed during a visit that “Ammar’s body had bruises and swelling, and he lost some teeth.”

He added that Mahmoud was also beaten and soldiers took him to a deserted room and tried to rape him. When he saw the soldiers, Ammar added, he hurried to defend his brother and clashed with them.

Ammar was then accused of attacking soldiers, Ash-Sheikh said.

In another incident, Ash-Sheikh said Yousif Abdul-Aziz, 27, a prisoner from Jenin, filed a complaint against an Israeli warden accusing the official of taking inappropriate photos of him.

The photos were taken at Megeddo prison while he was being strip-searched, Ash-Sheikh said.

Officials at Israel's prison service could not immediately be reached for comment.

Hamas prisoners announce protests against IPS

[ 04/04/2011 - 10:20 AM ]

WEST BANK, (PIC)-- Hamas prisoners in Israeli jails have announced a state of high alert as steps have been launched to protest against the Israeli prison system. ”The battle” may start at any hour or it may be delayed to make further arrangements, Hamas's high committee for prisoner struggle said on Sunday. They said the first step will be a hunger strike participated in initially by a limited number, so prisoner leadership does not feel that the strike weakens the front as time progresses. The prisoners speaking on behalf of the Hamas committee said they have devised a plan and called on all prisoners to commit to it. They have also given several directives, asking prisoners to keep their hair short and to change their diet habits to prepare for the upcoming ”battle”. Liason during this period must only be made by the committee which will announce the protest steps and inform the prison administration, the committee said. The committee will decided when the action will be taken and when it will be suspended. The escalation comes after the Israeli Knesset passed a package of laws last week tightening restrictions on Palestinian prisoners. Separately, a report released Monday by a Palestinian human rights group says the Israeli Prison Service placed one man in isolation and severely beat him after finding a pen cap in his pocket. After the pen cap was found in his possession last month several restrictions were placed against him. He was placed in isolation for a week, banned from visits for two weeks, denied the right to education for an entire year and banned from using the canteen for two weeks. Cameras were placed in his cell, and his cell was invaded by six prison guards who tied him  to his mattress, stripped him naked and began beating him. He said a guards tried to rape him amid accusations that he tried to commit suicide.

IOF soldiers sexually abuse detained Palestinian children

[ 13/09/2010 - 09:15 AM ]

RAMALLAH, (PIC)-- Israeli occupation soldiers sexually abused Palestinian children while in custody in violation of international laws and norms and in a cruel violation of human rights, according to media reports. Hebrew daily Yediot Ahronot said on Sunday that charges were leveled against Israeli soldiers of child molestation, noting that foreign media outlets had published such news on their websites. The paper said that one of those detained minors said that an Israeli soldier tried to sexually abuse him in front of ten officers, who watched and laughed at the act, including their commander.

Abuse of Palestinian children in Israeli jails

Ma'an

Testimonials and events documented by human rights organizations show the abuse of Palestinian children in Israeli prisons to be regular and widespread.

Physical abuse, sexual abuse, torture, threats and intimidation as well as the denial of basic basic human rights, such as access to education are the most common forms of abuse, documents show.

In 2009, a report from the UK-based children's rights group Defence for Children International found, there were 305 Palestinian children being held in Israeli jails. The US-based NGO Save the Children further estimates, that over 6,700 children were arrested between October 2000 and April 2009. Both organizations confirm Israel routinely prosecutes Palestinian children as young as 12, describing the ill-treatment and torture of Palestinian children as "widespread, systematic and institutionalised."

Forms of abuse

In 2009, DCI collected 100 sworn affidavits from Palestinian children and teenagers who said they were abused in Israeli military and police custody. Almost 70 percent complained of being beaten, four percent reported being sexually assaulted, and 12 percent said they were threatened with sexual assault.

According to the report, most of the incidents occurred during interrogation and were used against detainees to force a confession.

Physical abuse

The physical abuse of children by soldiers has most frequently been documented as involving "slaps, kicks, punches or blows with a rifle stock or club," DCI stated.

Nearly all children surveyed by DCI, 97 percent, were held for hours with their hands cuffed, and 92 percent were blindfolded for long periods of time. Twenty-six percent said they were forced to remain in painful positions.

In 2010, Palestinian lawyer Hiba Masalha reported the case of Muhammad Rashid Abu Shahin, 16, from the Balata refugee camp. After being arrested, the youth said he was manhandled and beaten by soldiers using rifle butts. He was then transported to the Huwwara detention centre where where he was beaten with a plastic pipe to force a confession. The child is suffering chronic back pain as a result of being hit on the spine.

Sexual abuse

Fourteen percent of child prisoners surveyed by DCI said they were sexually abused or threatened with sexual assault to pressure them into confessions.

In May 2010, the Dubai-based Al-Jazeera news network published the testimony of an unnamed Palestinian child released from an Israeli jail.

"There was a dog barking outside the room… The soldier told me he would bring it in to f**k me if I didn't confess… I was so scared… The guy then took out a stick; he whipped it forward and it got longer. He told his friends, who were looking on and laughing at me: "This boy doesn't want to talk. Let's pull down his pants so I can shove this stick up his a**."

"I tried to hold on to the chair; he kept poking me, groping my privates with the stick, trying to get me off the chair."

Threats and intimidation

Many Palestinian child prisoners testify to being forced into confession by threats and intimidation, including threats against family members, threats of prolonged imprisonment and threats of physical and sexual abuse.

Abuse by other prisoners

Palestinian child prisoners are reportedly confined in close quarters with adult prisoners and become the subject of physical and sexual abuse.

Denial of basic services

Palestinian children in Israeli detention only received limited education in two out of five prisons and no education whatsoever in any of the interrogation and detention centers. According to Save the children, in 2009, Israel prevented 1,821 detainees from writing the high school certification exam, known locally as the Tawjihi.

Typical scenario

According to Save the Children, Palestinian children are typically arrested between midnight and 4a.m. without their families being notified where the child is being taken. The children are normally handcuffed, blindfolded, and subjected to physical abuse in addition to humiliating treatment during arrest and can be detained up to 90 days without access to a lawyer whilst being interrogated. Children can be detained for two years from the time charged until the trial.

Stone throwing is the most common offense Palestinian children are charged with under Israeli military law accounting for 26.7% of cases. The maximum penalty is 20 years imprisonment. Save the Children reports that in 91 percent of cases involving Palestinian children, bail is denied. The group also says that currently, 32.9 percent of sentenced children are 15 years of age or younger and that 21.25 percent are sentenced for a one-year period or longer.

Effects on the child

A 2009 report by Save the Children says most detainees develop Post Traumatic Stress symptoms as a direct result of their abuse in prison. The psycho-social consequences of detention affect the immediate behavior of children, the way they think including their analysis of the outside world.

International and domestic law

The UN Rules for the Protection of Juveniles Deprived of their Liberty states imprisoning children should only be a "last resort and for the minimum period and should be limited to exceptional cases" further stating that "fundamental international law must be respected at all times with no exceptions" and "the welfare, special needs, best interests, and human rights of juveniles "shall be a primary consideration".

Despite being a State member of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), Israel identifies a "child" as any person below the age of 12, "youth" as any person between 12 and 14, "young adult" as any person between 14 and 16 and "adult" as any person above 16. Israeli citizens however, are legally considered an adult at 18. This denies Palestinian children many of the basic services granted to Israelis of the same age.

Israeli accountability

Reports by groups such as B'Tselem, Save the children and DCI are regularly dismissed by the Israeli military as "inaccurate" and are rarely investigated. A 2009 report from the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, says that from 600 complaints regarding abuse of children all were dismissed without a single criminal investigation.

Urgent Call: A Girl Abused Sexually in Jail

Posted: 20 Sep 2009 06:29 AM PDT
The lawyer of the Women's Organization for Political Prisoners (WOFPP), Taghreed Jahshan, is appealing to everybody from the international community, the European Union, Parliament members, governments, courts, judges, journalists, human rights organizations, peace activists, to rescue the life of a Palestinian girl who was abused SEXUALLY SEVERAL TIMES by an IDF jailer, a warden from the inhuman military jail of Hasharon. lawyer Jahshan stated that the victim is a minor and that the she lives under severe punishment in an isolation cell. Jahshan expressed her great concern after the victim was transferred to an unhealthy isolation cell after she complained formally against the sexual abuse by the warden. She said that the jailer spread the victims cell with poisonous chemicals and locked the door of the cell after five minutes.

The health of the minor is deteriorated after breathing the chemicals. She is vomiting and suffering of constant headache. The inhuman situation and ill treatment which the minor suffers is a clear violation of the duties contracted by Israel by signing the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and other treaties of international humanitarian law. The incarceration of this minor is equally a violation of obligations acquired by Israel to protect civilians, as she is incarcerated and mistreated by Israel solely for being a Palestinian.

Read further information’s published by Women's Organization for Political Prisoners (WOFPP) in English, Arabic as PDF, and Hebrew as PDFPDF.

19 Septmber 2009
Since the last month WOFPP has accompanied, with deep concern, the minor political prisoner who complained of sexual harassment by one of the guards in Hasharon Prison where she was held.
WOFPP's lawyer, Taghreed Jahshan, visited the prisoner many times during the recent period and has sent a very urgent letter, on 6 September 2009, to the Prisons Service Commissioner, with copies to the Central Area's Commander and other persons of the Service Prison staff and to the Chairman of the Bar Association's Prisons Committee.
Since there was no reply, another urgent letter was sent on 14 September, and again it had not been answered in writing.
The letter raised serious claims of the prisoner – verified by affidavit – according to which, following the complaint she has submitted, the Prisons Service harassed the prisoner, by transferring her to another prison to the isolation/separation wing in which criminal prisoners are being held, without any legal basis, and holding her in inhuman conditions: a stuffy, very damp cell, without any sunlight, without TV, ventilator, books (except one book she brought with her) and without handicraft materials. The prison authorities also had taken from the prisoner her head coverings. In addition, there were many ants in the cell that disturbed her sleep at night. In fact, the prisoner sat about 24 hours a day facing the walls without anything to occupy herself with.
All these details were reported in a letter to the Prisons Service Commissioner; however he did not see fit to reply in writing concerning these claims. Even worse, probably following the letter, insecticide was sprayed in the wing. The prisoner was taken out of her cell for a few minutes and, immediately after the spraying, she was returned. As a result, she was overcome by feelings of suffocation and dizziness for some hours, and she continued to feel chest pain.

Only on 15/9/09, after a month during which the prisoner was held in the conditions described above, she was transferred to a cell with reasonable conditions, but still in the same isolation/separation wing.
These last days, staff members in charge at the prison where the prisoner is detained, made telephone contact with attorney Jahshan and told her that the most senior ranks handle the matter of the prisoner, aiming to find a solution for her by transferring her from the wing which she is held in.
Our position is clear in this matter: a political prisoner should be in a political prisoners' wing – there is no other solution.
The same staff members promised attorney Jahshan to update her on Monday 21 September 2009. If the decision that will be taken will not meet the required objective, a plea in the prisoner's name will immediately be submitted to the court.
Regarding the prisoner's complaint against sexual harassment (attorney Jahshan represents her also in this matter): The prisoner says that she will continue to fight until the guard will get the punishment he deserves.
It should be noted that WOFPP is in close and continuous contact with the prisoner's family which is updated on every detail.
The minor prisoner has been held in isolation/separation for over a month and probably will have to spend the holiday of Eid-elFiter alone.
Isolation/separation is a kind of torture
Please write letters of protest to the Israel Prisons Service:
Prisons Service Commissioner
P.O. Box 81
Ramle 72100
Israel
Fax: +972-8-9193800
And to the Israeli embassy in your country.

Palestinian girl sexually assaulted by Israeli prison guard

[ 18/09/2009 - 11:59 AM ]

GAZA, (PIC)-- An 18-year-old Palestinian girl, imprisoned at the Israeli occupation jail of Hasharon, was sexually assaulted by an Israeli prison guard, according to a statement by the Palestinian Ministry of Prisoners Affairs. Reyad al-Ashqar, head of the information office of the ministry said on Thursday that the victim was detained six months ago and that she was being held in a solitary cell. Two weeks ago, an Israeli prison guard called the prisoner at 3:00 in the morning and asked her to get close to the door of the cell because he had an important message for her, as she stood close to the door, he put his hands through the hatch used to pass food for the prisoner and held her hands, pulled her closer to the door and tried to grope her. The victim tried to free her self from his grip and  started shouting forcing him to let her hands free, but he threatened her with sever punishment if she told anyone about the assault and said that he would recommend that she does not leave her solitary cell if she complained. The girl was frightened and did not make a complaint to the prison's governor. A convicted prisoner in the same section saw what happened and informed the count officer. The victim was then called by the prison's authority and was questioned about the incident. She was told that the incident will be investigated and that the concerned prison guard was given leave until the conclusion of the investigation.

UN torture watchdog demands access to secret jail

Jonathan Cook, Foreign Correspondent

• The National Last Updated: May 16. 2009 10:53PM UAE / May 16. 2009 6:53PM GMT

The UN is demanding that Facility 1391, a secret prison camp in northern Israel where it is believed prisoners are routinely tortured, be opened to inspectors.

Nazareth, Israel // The United Nation’s watchdog on torture has criticised Israel for refusing to allow inspections at a secret prison, dubbed by critics as “Israel’s Guantanamo Bay”, and demanded to know if more such clandestine detention camps are operating.

In a report published on Friday, the Committee Against Torture requested that Israel identify the location of the camp, officially referred to as “Facility 1391”, and allow access to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Findings from Israeli human rights groups show that the prison has in the past been used to hold Arab and Muslim prisoners, including Palestinians, and that routine torture and physical abuse were carried out by interrogators.

The UN committee’s panel of 10 independent experts also found credible the submissions from Israeli groups that Palestinian detainees were systematically tortured despite the banning of such practices by the Israeli Supreme Court in 1999.

The existence of Facility 1391 came to light in 2002, when Palestinians were detained there for the first time during Israel’s reinvasion of the West Bank.

In a submission to human rights groups last week, Israel denied that any prisoners are currently being held at the site, although it admits that several Lebanese were detained there during the attack on Lebanon in 2006. The committee expressed concern about an Israeli Supreme Court ruling in 2005 that found it “reasonable” for the state not to investigate suspicions of torture at the prison. The panel is believed to be concerned that without inspections the prison might still be in use or could be revived at short notice.The Israeli court, the committee wrote, “should ensure that all allegations of torture and ill-treatment by detainees in Facility 1391 be impartially investigated [and] the results made public”.

Hamoked, an Israeli human rights organisation, first identified the prison after two Palestinian cousins seized in Nablus in 2002 could not be traced by their families. Israeli officials eventually admitted that the pair were being held at a secret site.

Israel still refuses to identify the precise location of the prison, which is inside Israel and about 100km north of Jerusalem. A few buildings are visible, but most of the prison is built underground.

“We only learnt about the prison because the army made the mistake of putting Palestinians there when they ran out of room in Israel’s main prisons,” said Dalia Kerstein, the director of Hamoked.

“The real purpose of the camp is to interrogate prisoners from the Arab and Muslim world, who would be difficult to trace because their families are unlikely to contact Israeli organisations for help.”

Ms Kerstein said the prison site was an even grosser violation of international law than Guantanamo Bay because it had never been inspected and no one knew what took place there.

According to the testimonies of the Palestinian cousins, Mohammed and Bashar Jadallah, they were held in isolation cells measuring two metres square, with black walls, no windows and a light bulb on 24 hours a day. On the rare occasions they were escorted outside, they had to wear blacked-out goggles.

When Bashar Jadallah, 50, asked where he was, he was told he was “on the moon”.

According to the testimony of Mohammed Jadallah, 23, he was repeatedly beaten, his shackles tightened, he was tied in painful positions to a chair, he was not allowed to go to the toilet and he was prevented from sleeping, with water thrown on him if he nodded off. Interrogators are also reported to have shown him pictures of family members and threatened to harm them.

Although Palestinians passing through the prison were interrogated by the domestic secret police, the Shin Bet, foreign nationals at the prison fall under the responsibility of a special wing of military intelligence known as Unit 504, whose interrogation methods are believed to be much harsher.

Shortly after the prison came to light, a former inmate – Mustafa Dirani, a leader of the Lebanese Shia group Amal – launched a court case in Israel claiming he had been raped by a guard.

Mr Dirani, seized from Lebanon in 1994, was held in Facility 1391 for eight years along with a Hizbollah leader, Sheikh Abdel Karim Obeid. Israel hoped to extract information from the pair in its search for a missing airman, Ron Arad, downed over Lebanon in 1986.

Mr Dirani alleged in court that he had been physically abused by a senior army interrogator known as “Major George”, including an incident when he was sodomised with a baton.

The case was dropped in early 2004 when Mr Dirani was released in a prisoner exchange.

Ms Kerstein said there was no proof that more prisons existed in Israel like Facility 1391, but some of the testimonies collected from former inmates suggested that they had been held at different secret locations.

She said the concern was that Israel might have been one of the countries that received “extraordinary rendition” flights, in which prisoners captured by the United States were smuggled to other countries for torture.

“If a democracy allows one of these prisons, who is to say that there are not more?” she said.

The committee examined other suspicions of torture involving Israel. It expressed particular concern about Israel’s failure to investigate more than 600 complaints made by detainees against the Shin Bet since the panel’s last hearings, in 2001.

It also highlighted the pressure put on Gazans who needed to enter Israel for medical treatment to turn informer.

Ishai Menuchin, executive director of Israel’s Public Committee against Torture, said his group had sent several submissions to the committee showing that torture was systematically used against detainees.

“After the court decision in 1999, interrogators simply learnt to be more creative in their techniques,” he said.

He added that, since Israel’s redefinition of Gaza as an “enemy state”, some Palestinians seized there were being held as “illegal combatants” rather than “security detainees”.

“In those circumstances, they might qualify for incarceration in secret prisons like Facility 1391.”

jcook@thenational.ae

Legal center: Condition of Palestinian minors in Israeli jails deteriorating

[ 07/04/2009 - 06:26 AM ]

GAZA, (PIC)-- The Palestinian center for the defense of prisoners has revealed on Sunday that the Israeli occupation authority is still detaining 423 Palestinian minors in Israeli jails under harsh and miserable incarceration conditions. In a report it issued in this regard and a copy of which was obtained by the PIC, the center pointed out that the Israeli prison guards were practicing psychological pressures on the young Palestinian captives, including sexual harassment in a bid to break their morale. According to the center, out of the 423 juveniles, around 231 were put on trial, 182 were awaiting trial, and at least ten of them were arbitrarily put under administrative detention without any charge being tabled against them. Among the children prisoners is Yousef Al-Zaqq, one year, who is detained with his mother Fatima Al-Zaqq after she delivered him last year at the Israeli Meir hospital in Kfar Saba colony. Moreover, the center accused the IOA of medical neglect against the minor captives in the same way it does with other Palestinian prisoners, prompting an increase in the number of sick minor captives. It added that strange and communicable diseases have appeared and started to spread out among the children captives as a result of that medical neglect. At least ten of the minors, who are detained at the infamous Israeli Talmond prison, were poisoned few days ago after they ate rotten canned food given to them by the jail's administration. Furthermore, the center accused the Israeli prisons authority of using a number of methods to demoralize the juveniles, including strip search and badmouthing them in a bid to pressure them into agreeing to work for and to collaborate with Israeli intelligence. Moreover, the center disclosed that the detention cells where the children are jailed are not fit for "animals" rather than to be fit for human beings, stressing that the international and Arab legal associations were not doing much to bail those children out of the misery. "This farce must end, and all international, Arab, and regional legal institutions must give more attention to this issue, and we must put it on top of our priorities during forums, conferences, and discussions", the center underlined. "Where is the international efforts that should be exerted to give those children their rights?! Why are those children not released up till now?!", the center questioned in the report, urging Arab and international media to focus on, and to highlight the prisoners issue in general, and the issue of the minor captives in particular. Around 11,000 Palestinian citizens, including hundreds of women, children, and sick people are locked up in different Israeli jails across occupied Palestine, many of them had been there for more than two decades.

Farawna: “March 8th a day of solidarity with Palestinian female detainees”

Friday March 06, 2009 23:51 by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies

Palestinian researcher, specializing in the issue of detainees, Abdul-Nasser Farawna, stated on Friday that, March 8th, International Women's Day, should be a day of solidarity with the Palestinian women detained by Israel.

File - Palestinian woman kidnapped by soldiers, image, Palestine-info

“The world marks this day to salute women and their important role, struggle and achievements,” Farawna said, “but it forgot that there are thousands of Palestinian women suffering under Israeli occupation, imprisoned and abused.”

He added that the world must understand that the detained Palestinian women are facing harsh treatment in Israeli prisons and are deprived from their basic human rights.

“They face torture, both physical and psychological,” Farawna said, “[s]ome of them are even sexually harassed during interrogation.”

He also said that dozens of women are still imprisoned by Israel; some of them have given birth in prison, while others have left children behind, while a number of them are below the age of 18.

Detainee Amal Jom’a has cancer and is not receiving proper medical attention; her condition is deteriorating. She was kidnapped five years ago and was sentenced to eleven years imprisonment.

Farawna also said that a number of female detainees have been sentenced to multiple life terms, such as Ahlam Tamimi, sentenced to 16 consecutive life terms, Qahera Al Sa’ady, sentenced to three life terms and an additional thirty years, in addition to Amena Mona, Sana’ Shihada, Dua’ Al Jayyousi and several other detainees who are sentenced to at least one life term.

The Israeli Army has kidnapped more than 10,000 Palestinian women since 1967. 800 of them were kidnapped during the al-Aqsa Intifada. There are currently 85 female detainees still imprisoned by Israel.

Furthermore, Farwana said that Israel is still holding the bodies of some Palestinian women who died in attacks against Israeli targets. Some of them are buried in what is known as the “numbers graveyards”.