Israeli prisons reduce food rations for Palestinian detainees
Some testimonies from recently released Palestinian detainees indicate that Israeli authorities have turned over thirteen prison facilities into ones that subject detainees to conspicuous emaciation that has reduced food portions to almost inedible levels.
On Wednesday, a freed Palestinian prisoner recounted that Israeli prison guards explicitly stated their intent to provide only “enough food to stay alive. ” Atef Awahdeh, whose interview on social media is rapidly gaining attention, described the dire conditions: What we got as food was unbelievable; two plates of rice was what we were given for 11 prisoners.
Sami Khalili from Nablus, who was also detained in the GSS, explained this accurately: “Three spoonfuls of rice a day, exactly. ” This posed a massive problem in the provision of meals that saw most detainees losing a lot of weight. Sari Hurriyah, the lawyer who was also arrested, noted that she had reduced her weight by eight kilograms (17. 63 pounds) in ten days. They ordinarily received a US $1 for the whole day, which five detainees shared one plate and ate with their hands.
Former prisoner Firas Hassan said something shocking to the team. Firas Hassan gave another appalling revelation about the team. From this statement, one can infer that the severe conditions the author was subjected to during his imprisonment because “when I got out, I weighed 25 kilos (55. 2 pounds) less. My family didn’t recognize me”.
These testimonies give a glimpse of the evil and appalling situation of Palestinian detainees in Israeli detention centers. The reported food rationing practices indicate that this was an intentional policy of making the detainees physically and psychologically weak through possibly near starvation.
Sari Hurriyah: Atef Awahdeh, Sami Khalili, and Firas Hassan’s accounts are forgotten stories for which many people have demanded accountability. The failure to take proactive action regarding the violation of the aforementioned prisoners’ rights has led human rights organizations and activists to call for urgent action.
Telling the word through the terms defined by the former prisoners, these cases illustrate the main problem within the Israeli prisons for Palestinians where they are detained under severe violation of human rights. The stated food deprivation is only one of the numerous documented abuses of patients in that facility: denial of proper health services, physical assault, and psychological torture.
The relationship between Israel and the Palestinians has been a sore subject for a long time now, and various global bodies and human rights NGOs have not shied from pointing out what they consider to be the abusive treatment of Palestinian detainees. These contemporaneous reports escalate the pile of appeals for implementing active and systemic changes. The released prisoners have depicted horrendous acts contrary to the different international policies for handling detainees as well as prisoners of war.
The international society is called on to act in making the Palestinian prisoners’ rights observed and the perpetrators of the abuses confronted. Tales of near-starvation and extreme emaciation are still heard in the detention centers that are part of the Israeli Prison Services; it is for this reason that a change is necessary and imperative within the ISPS.
These experiences shared by these former prisoners are still quite viral on social media and, importantly, bring to the limelight the plight of Palestinians detained. They suggest it is necessary to maintain the pressure from the international community to advance further the situation in the countries and ensure prisoners’ rights protection.
