WEST BANK (Dispatches) – A Palestinian prisoners’ advocacy group says representatives of Palestinian political prisoners in the Zionist regime’s detention have declared a state of general mobilization in protest against a new series of repressive measures by the regime.
The Palestinian Authority’s Detainees Affairs Commission said the decision was made after the Israel Prison Service (IPS) reneged on the deals that were previously reached with prisoners’ representatives following the Gilboa jail break last September, Palestine’s official Wafa news agency reported on Sunday.
“In response to this, the Palestinian prisoner movement of all its spectra declared the state of general mobilization, including the dissolution of all partisan bodies starting Monday,” the commission said.
After six Palestinians managed to escape from the regime’s highly-fortified Gilboa prison in the northern part of the occupied territories through an underground tunnel on September 6, 2021, the Zionist regime implemented a repressive campaign against more than 4,500 Palestinian political prisoners in its jails.
The punitive measures included moving scores of detainees to solitary confinements, preventing inmates from going to the prison yard, banning prisoners from meeting their families, and closing the canteens.
In protest against the regime’s repressive measures, Palestinian political prisoners in detention planned to start a set of measures, including a partial hunger strike. The prisoners also set fire to detention cells inside some prisons, namely Ofer and Kzi’ot.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian Prisoners Society (PPS) has said Palestinian prisoners at the regime’s Nafha and Rimon prisons have decided to lock down all of the sections of the two jails in protest at a decision by the IPS to reduce the daily break-time by 50 percent.
In a statement on Sunday, the PPS said as a result of the IPS decision, prisoners at certain sections have been unable to meet prisoners from other sections during the daily break-time as before.
The Palestinian Information Center also reported that the Palestinian Captive Movement decision to disband all its regulatory committees representing the prisoners came after the IPS escalated its repressive measures against Palestinian inmates in the regime’s jails, including new restrictions imposed on the daily outdoor time they spend in prison yards.
The decision which will be effective as of Monday will force jailers to deal with each prisoner individually, it added.
There are reportedly more than 7,000 Palestinians held in Israeli jails. Hundreds of the inmates have been apparently incarcerated under the practice of the so-called administrative detention.
Prison authorities keep Palestinian inmates under deplorable conditions lacking proper hygienic standards. The prisoners have also been subjected to systematic torture, harassment and repression, according to Palestinian officials.
Human rights organizations say the Zionist regime violates all the rights and freedoms granted to prisoners under the Fourth Geneva Convention.