WEST BANK (Dispatches) – The Zionist regime jail authorities assaulted Palestinian women prisoners on Tuesday morning amid a push to enforce strict new measures against Palestinian inmates introduced by the regime’s far-right minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
The Palestinian Prisoners’ Society said in a statement that Zionist troops beat women prisoners in Damon jail, fired tear gas at them and used pepper spray.
The Palestinian Authority’s prisoners’ affairs commission said Israel Prison Service (IPS) also confiscated electronic devices and some personal data-x-items from the prisoners in what it called “collective punishment”.
In response, the prisoners set some cells ablaze. The IPS said Yasmeen Shaaban, the representative of the Palestinian women prisoners who was among those assaulted, was put in solitary confinement for attempting to set her cell on fire.
“The punitive actions taken in the Damon prison will have consequences in all prisons. The situation is getting worse as of the measures taken by the fascist minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. The Israeli regime bears full responsibility for the situation and its consequences,” the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society said.
The assault on women prisoners caused anger among Palestinian detainees across all Zionist jails.
The prisoners’ commission said inmates in Ofer prison refused to accept their breakfast meals amid news of the crackdown and demanded to speak with Damon prisoners on the phone.
The assault came a day after 120 Palestinians in the notorious Negev desert prison launched a hunger strike against IPS’s recent punitive measures. IPS had cut electricity in the Negev prison, barred prisoners’ families from visits, and stopped serving them meals.
Dozens of Palestinian prisoners in Ketziot, Ofer and Megido prisons were put in solitary confinement over the weekend, allegedly for celebrating the killing of seven Zionist settlers by a Palestinian man in a shooting in occupied East Al-Quds on Friday.
Palestinian prisoners said they will also stop agreeing to security checks by IPS as part of their protests against the IPS growing crackdowns.
The rise in prison tensions follows a week of violence across the occupied Palestinian territories.