WEST BANK (Dispatches) – The Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights issued a warning about “grave” violations against Palestinian prisoners in the Zionist regime’s jails, including “physical and psychological torture and other inhuman and degrading treatment, medical neglect, and starvation policies”.
Based on a recent visit to the Naqab Prison, located in southern parts of the Israeli-occupied territories, by Al-Mezan’s lawyer, the group said on Tuesday that torture and abuse were widespread and not confined to the notorious Sde Teiman detention facility, where a serious sexual assault on a Palestinian prisoner led to the arrest of several Zionist troops, according to Al-Jazeera.
According to the rights group, the regime’s authorities are currently holding approximately 600 residents of Gaza in deplorable conditions at Naqab and some estimate the number could be as high as 900.
“Israeli authorities have abused Palestinians in their custody for over ten months now, amid international silence and the absence of accountability,” Al-Mezan said in a statement.
“Palestinian residents of Gaza are treated as ‘human animals’, demonstrating that the dehumanizing and genocidal rhetoric employed by the highest levels of the Israeli leadership to characterize Palestinians as a group was embraced throughout all ranks within the military and the IPS [Israeli Prison Service],” it added.
Al-Mezan’s report comes not long after Human Rights Watch called on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate the regime’s military for the custodial torture of Palestinian doctors, nurses and paramedics.
The group said on Monday it interviewed eight released health workers who described mistreatment in Israeli custody, including humiliation, beatings, forced stress positions, prolonged cuffing and blindfolding, and denial of medical care.
“The Israeli regime’s mistreatment of Palestinian healthcare workers has continued in the shadows and needs to immediately stop,” Acting Middle East Director at Human Rights Watch Balkees Jarrah said.
In a 118-page report published in early August, Israeli rights group B’Tselem accused the regime of conducting a policy of institutionalized abuse and torture against all Palestinian detainees since October 7.
According to the report, the torture prisoners faced included, “Frequent acts of severe, arbitrary violence; sexual assault; humiliation and degradation, deliberate starvation; forced unhygienic conditions; sleep deprivation, prohibition on, and punitive measures for, religious worship; confiscation of all communal and personal belongings; and denial of adequate medical treatment.”