Neglect, abuse, harassment: The West is ignoring the fate of Palestinians stuck in Israeli jails
Eva Bartlett, RT.com, Apr 27 2024
For over six months, the world has watched the devastating Israeli campaign against Palestinians in Gaza, which has killed over 34k people so far (including over 16k children). Fewer are aware, however, of the nearly 10k Palestinians held in Israeli prisons, many of whom have been repeatedly arrested and held for prolonged, indefinite periods. These include children, university students, medics, doctors, and journalists, among others.
While these numbers have increased dramatically in just over half a year, media coverage is scant, with the exception of some reporting on Layan Nasir, one of the Christian university students reimprisoned earlier this month. She was taken by Israeli troops from her family’s home in the early morning, with her parents held at gunpoint. But this is not an isolated phenomenon, she’s just one of many Palestinian students similarly abducted, ostensibly in the name of security, for taking part in campus activism. On Apr 7, the Palestinian Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs condemned the latest kidnappings of Layan Kayed and Layan Naser, two young women who have previously been targeted and imprisoned, along with multiple others.
The greater issue is that, as of Apr 17, which is Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, over 9,500 Palestinians are being held in Israeli prisons, roughly one third of whom are imprisoned under what is termed ”administrative detention,” a procedure that allows the Israeli military to hold people based on secret evidence, indefinitely and without trial. It is justified by Israel’s Emergency Powers laws, under the constant state of emergency the country has been in since 1948. Some 3k Gazan Palestinians have been detained by Israel since the current war on Gaza started last October – a number revealed by an investigation by Palestinian NGO Al Mezan Cetner for Human Rights. According to Al Mezan, this includes “women, children, elderly people, as well as professionals such as doctors, nurses, teachers and journalists.”
Out of the estimated 3k detainees, 1,650 Gazans are held under the Unlawful Combatants Law, a law similar to administrative detention but specific to Gazan Palestinians. They are also imprisoned without charge or legal representation, suspected of being “unlawful combatants.” They are, Al Mezan notes, “held in total isolation from the outside world” and “are neither granted the status of prisoners of war under the Third Geneva Convention, nor afforded the protections of civilian detainees under the Fourth Geneva Convention.” Another 300 (including ten children) not currently detained under the Unlawful Combatants Law are being imprisoned pending investigation.
Meanwhile, in the West Bank, according to the Commission of Detainees Affairs, as of Apr 16 8,270 Palestinians have been arrested, including 275 women, 520 children, 66 journalists (with 45 still in custody, 23 of whom are in administrative detention). Of these, 80 women (not including women from Gaza) and over 200 minors are imprisoned. The total number held under administrative detention is more than 3,660, including more than 40 children. Since last Oct 7, 16 West Bank Palestinian captives have died in Israeli prison due to ”systematic measures of torture, medical crimes, the policy of starvation and many other violations and assaults conducted against male and female detainees, minors and elderly detainees,” according to a report by NGO the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society.
Haaretz reports 27 Palestinians from Gaza have died since Oct 7:
The detainees died at the Sde Teiman and Anatot facilities or during questioning in Israeli territory.
The same article refers to a UNRWA report published by the NYT recently, which states that detainees released to Gaza testified that they were beaten, robbed, stripped and sexually assaulted, and had access to doctors and lawyers denied. Reports of torture of incarcerated Palestinians (including children) have been published over the years, with more emerging in recent months. Israeli rights group B’Tselem notes:
Every year, Israel arrests and detains hundreds of Palestinian minors, while routinely and systemically violating their rights: during the arrest [and] under interrogation.
In March, the executive director of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel expressed extreme concern, stating that the nearly 10k imprisoned Palestinians is “a 200% increase from any normal year” and that, since last October, at least 27 Palestinians have died in Israeli prison camps inside Gaza. Prisoners include children and the elderly, including an 82-year-old grandmother. These detention camps, from what I saw in Jan 2009 in Gaza, are large areas bulldozed flat, without tents or shelter. Former inmates describe them as “open-air cages,” where prisoners are “handcuffed and blindfolded 24 hours a day.
There are numerous new testimonies of Palestinians mistreated in Israeli detention. Examples include one elderly man from southern Gaza alleged to have been tortured so badly that his leg became infected and after seven days of medical negligence, had to be amputated. Another 60-year-old man is said to have been held for over 50 days, and beaten severely during that time. Human-rights groups continue to document such accounts and to speak out. Already in February, organizations like Adalah, HaMoked, Physicians for Human Rights Israel, and the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, submitted a plea to the UN Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment:
To take immediate action to halt the systematic abuse, torture, and ill-treatment of Palestinian prisoners and detainees in Israeli prisons and detention facilities.
Al Mezan reports visiting 40 Palestinian detainees in Ashkelon and Ofer prisons, whose testimonies include being brutally beaten and deliberately starved as a form of torture and collective punishment. One 19-year-old told Al Mezan that “three of his fingernails were removed with pliers during interrogation” and he was “handcuffed and bound in stress positions for long periods, three times over three days of interrogation.” Al Mezan reports all detainees “suffer from acute emaciation, fatigue and back curvature due to being forced to bend their backs and heads while walking,”and that the NGO’s lawyer who spoke with these prisoners stated he had never seen such poor prison conditions in 20 years of working with detainees. More recently, Haaretz reported on a doctor’s treatment of Palestinians in a field hospital in Israel and of horrific conditions:
Just this week, two prisoners had their legs amputated due to handcuff injuries, which unfortunately is a routine event.
According to him, all patients have all four limbs cuffed and are blindfolded and fed through a straw, meaning “even young and healthy patients lose weight after a week or two of hospitalization.” Now, compare this situation to cases when similar reports or claims come from a state targeted by Washington for regime change or designated as “rogue” or as an “adversary.” In such cases, the claims are often taken at face value, extrapolated, amplified and widely broadcast. For example, in 2017 Western media latched onto claims of a “slaughterhouse” in the town of Saydnaya, Syria, where there were supposed “mass hangings” by the Syrian government. These accusations were uncritically endorsed by legacy media, despite having numerous fallacies and not being based on primary sources.
As noted at the time, Amnesty International admits that since no photos, videos or concrete testimony exist of Saydnaya Prison, they were forced to devise “unique ways with interactive 3D models and digital technology, animations and audio software” and liaised with West-based NGOs that support efforts to overthrow the Syrian government to craft their report, which gained media traction because it supported the NATO narrative on Syria. When it comes to Palestinian prisoners and their reports of being tortured, starved, and denied urgently-needed medical care while in Israeli detention or prisons, such level of effort and media coverage is nowhere to be seen, likely because of the political inconvenience this would cause to Washington and its allies.
Hamas releases new hostage video
RT.com, Apr 27 2024
Hamas has released a proof-of-life video of two hostages, including a US dual citizen. In the footage, the captives urge Netanyahu to strike a ceasefire deal with the Palestinian militants. Published on Saturday, the undated video depicts Omri Miran, an Israeli, and Kieth Siegel, an Israeli-American dual citizen, speaking to a camera against a nondescript background. Miran says that he has been held for 202 days, indicating that the video was filmed on Friday. Miran describes “living in extremely tough conditions due to the intense bombardment,” while Siegel encourages Netanyahu to “be more flexible in negotiations to reach an exchange deal soon.” Miran adds:
It’s about time to reach a deal that would bring us back home safe and alive.
The video concludes with a message to the Israeli public from Hamas:
Your Nazi leaders don’t care about the fate of your imprisoned sons and their feelings. Realize this before it’s too late.
While Miran and Siegel likely read their statements under duress, their sentiment is shared by organizations representing the roughly 130 hostages thought to remain in Hamas captivity in Gaza. These groups have organized weekly protests in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem demanding that Netanyahu reach a deal with Hamas to release their loved ones. At a rally in Tel Aviv on Saturday, Miran’s father called on Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar to “show some humanity” to his son, and implored Netanyahu to approve “any feasible deal” to bring him home. Saturday’s video was released three days after a similar clip showing injured Israeli-American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin. Goldberg-Polin tells Netanyahu in the video:
While you sit and have holiday meals with your families, think of us, the hostages, who are still here in hell.
Netanyahu has vowed to continue waging war in Gaza until Israel achieves “total victory” over Hamas, and has thus far refused to consider the group’s demand that any ceasefire deal be permanent and include an Israeli withdrawal from the enclave. In a statement on Saturday, Hamas said that it was studying an Israeli ceasefire proposal delivered via Egyptian and Qatari mediators earlier this month. West Jerusalem anticipates an answer from Hamas within the next 48 hours, Israel’s Channel 12 news outlet reported later in the afternoon. Israel and Hamas agreed to a week-long truce in November, during which 80 Israeli hostages were exchanged for 240 Palestinians held in Israeli jails. As Israel’s military campaign in Gaza approaches the eight-month mark, the UN warned on Friday that “famine thresholds in Gaza will be breached within the next six weeks” unless Israel allows “massive and consistent” deliveries of food to the besieged enclave. According to the latest data from Gaza’s health ministry, at least 34,388 people have been killed since the Israeli campaign began, most of them women and children.
Blinken in Beijing: The US tried to turn China against Russia – but did it work?
Maxim Yusin, Kommersant, Apr 23, via RT.com, Apr 26 2024
Antony Blinken traveled to China this week to warn Beijing about sanctions for supplying military technology to Russia, according to the Financial Times and Bloomberg in their previews of the US Sec State’s visit. They didn’t specify which sanctions might follow, although FT sources suggested that financial and other institutions in China could face restrictions. Meanwhile, the Izvestia newspaper has revealed that several Chinese banks, including the largest, ICBC, are already not accepting payments in yuan from Russia, for fear of secondary sanctions. Almost 80% of payments to China have been returned, the newspaper claimed. Washington is apparently convinced that China’s support for the Russian defense industry, although not publicized, is genuine and that this is having a significant impact on the course of the Ukraine conflict.
Even with all this in mind, it was hard to imagine that Blinken would communicate in the language of threats and ultimatums. The first experience of this type of rhetoric between the administration of US President Joe Biden and the Chinese showed that hard and fast pressure does not work with the current leadership in Beijing. In fact, it has the opposite effect. Proof of this was the failed meeting in Alaska in March 2021, when Blinken and National Security adviser Jake Sullivan tried to pressure their Chinese counterparts, only to be met with a harsh rebuke, and a public one at that, which was a far cry from the spirit of Beijing’s traditionally restrained diplomacy. Blinken subsequently adopted a much more subtle game. He likely tried to drive a wedge between Moscow and Beijing by exploiting the fact that China’s peace initiatives to resolve the Ukraine conflict do not match the maximalist demands of Russian officials (at least in public). That may not have worked, considering that the Chinese openly stated on Friday that NATO was responsible for the Ukraine crisis. Beijing is calling for a cessation of hostilities, in effect a freezing of the conflict, but has made no mention of Ukraine’s demilitarization, denazification,or regime change in Kiev.
Recently, there have been signals that could be interpreted as a willingness by Beijing to distance itself from Moscow. Specifically, an article in The Economist by Feng Yujun, a professor at Peking University, has caused a stir. This methodical, official expert on Russia and the Ukraine conflict speaks very much in the spirit of Western political thought: he criticizes Moscow, predicts its defeat, praises Kiev for its “strength and unity of its resistance,” and even suggests that if Russia doesn’t change its power structure, it will continue to threaten international security by provoking wars. Knowing how Chinese society is organized, it’s hard to imagine that the professor who penned this article was acting at his own risk without the support of responsible comrades in Beijing. The recent refusal of four major Chinese banks to accept payments from Russia, even in yuan, can also be seen as an alarming signal to Moscow. In other words, it may turn out that the Russian-Chinese alliance, so strong in words, is far from being effective and trouble-free in practice. And Blinken would certainly have tried to consolidate this trend.
There is a problem, however: the overall context of US-China relations doesn’t make it any easier for Washington. The package of military aid to Taiwan recently passed by the US Congress certainly doesn’t create a favorable emotional background for the delicate negotiations that Blinken tried to conduct in Beijing. Washington’s efforts to create anti-Chinese military and political alliances in the region, from the Philippines to Australia, from India and Vietnam to Japan, also aren’t conducive to mutual understanding between the two superpowers. American strategists make no secret of the fact that the main, most dangerous and most principled geopolitical opponent of the United States is not Russia, but China. If that’s the case, what’s the point of Beijing meeting Washington’s demands and joining its pressure on Moscow? Only so that later, when the US achieves its goals in Russia, Beijing will have to confront it alone? This is hardly in the plans of Comrade Xi and his team.
China calls for ‘international investigation’ into Nord Stream attack
RT.com, Apr 27 2024
China’s deputy envoy to the UN has called for an international probe into the bombing of the Nord Stream gas pipelines, adding that Russia would be involved in such an investigation. China’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN, Geng Shuang, said on Friday, according to Xinhua:
With the situation standing where it is, one cannot help but suspect a hidden agenda behind the opposition to an international investigation, while lamenting the potential cover-up and loss of quantities of compelling evidence. We reiterate our call for the early launch of a UN-led international investigation to bring the truth to light for the international community. Western nations should actively communicate and cooperate with Russia and jointly investigate the incident.
Nord Stream 1 and 2 each comprised two separate pipelines, linking Russia and Germany. Three out of the four lines were destroyed in a series of explosions near the Danish island of Bornholm in Sep 2022, severing Germany’s energy ties to Russia and leaving its gas-dependent economy reliant on more expensive American liquefied natural gas. Germany, Sweden, and Denmark all opened investigations into the attack, but Sweden and Denmark closed their inquiries in February. Swedish investigators published no conclusions, while the Danish team concluded that “there was deliberate sabotage,” but declined to blame the attack on anyone. China and Russia have demanded an international investigation into the bombings since last year. However, the UNSC rejected a Russian request for such a probe last March, with Washington’s deputy envoy to the UN, Robert Wood, accusing Russia of trying to “discredit the work of ongoing national investigations.” On Saturday, a spokesman for the German Foreign Ministry appeared to reject Geng’s proposal, telling Russia’s TASS:
An investigation is already being conducted by the German Public Prosecutor General’s Office.
Absent any official conclusions, two competing theories about the bombings have emerged. According to reports in the Western mainstream media, a team of Ukrainian commandos used a rented yacht to transport explosives to the blast sites, with the CIA and European intelligence agencies being made aware of the plot several months beforehand but ultimately failing to stop it. Seymour Hersh said that Biden ordered the CIA to blow up the pipelines. Citing sources in the intelligence community, Hersh has claimed that CIA divers working with the Norwegian Navy planted remotely-triggered bombs on the lines in the summer of 2022, using a NATO exercise in the region as cover. President Putin has said that he “fully agrees” with Hersh’s conclusions. Russian Prosecutor General Krasnov, who is leading Moscow’s investigation into the blasts, said last month:
Everyone knows perfectly well who did it. The tracks undoubtedly lead beyond the Atlantic.
Niqnaq 