Palestinian campaigners call on Israel to protect Palestinian prisoners amid coronavirus pandemic

Palestinian campaigners have launched a campaign to mount pressure on Israeli authorities to provide adequate health care services to the Palestinian prisoners who are languishing in the regime's jails amid the coronavirus pandemic.

News ID: 449980

Date: 12 April 2020 - 22:34

RNA - Jameel Sa'adeh, head of the legal department at the Palestinian Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs Commission, said on Sunday that the Palestinian inmates were more vulnerable now with the absence of vital preventive measures during the pandemic.

Adnan Hamarsha, an ex-detainee said during a radio show that Palestinian prisoners are subjected to deliberate and systematic negligence by the Israel Prison Service (IPS), which puts their lives at risk.

In recent weeks, several countries and international organizations have called for the release of prisoners with health problems as well as children, women and elders in Israeli prisons.

Defense for Children International-Palestine (DCIP) has repeatedly called on the Israeli authorities to take immediate action to release all Palestinian child detainees.

There have been growing calls from regional and international rights groups, including the Europal Forum, to put pressure on the Israeli regime to provide Palestinian prisoners with enough protection against the COVID-19 pandemic.

Palestinian and Arab activists also launched a media campaign late last month by using local radio stations and Twitter hashtags to help protest the Palestinian prisoners.

According to the Palestine Information Center, over 60 official and private institutions from around the world, including societies, unions and media outlets have participated in the campaign so far.

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry also said last month that Tel Aviv must “take full and direct responsibility for the life and health of the prisoners” as the contagion rages around the world, including across the occupied Palestinian territories.

On April 6, the secretary general of the Arab League appealed to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to secure the release of Palestinian prisoners from the Israeli jails amid rising coronavirus cases in the occupied territories.

Ahmed Abul Gheit, in a letter addressed to Director General of ICRC Robert Mardini expressed regret that Israeli authorities had released some settlers charged with criminal offenses, but excluded Palestinian prisoners.

Speaking in a phone conversation with Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh On April 10, Iranian Judiciary Chief Ebrahim Raisi said Iran was worried about the lives of thousands of  Palestinian prisoners kept in Israeli jails as well as the people of the Gaza Strip who are living in the “world’s biggest prison”

Raisi, who is also the head of the Iranian Judiciary’s High Council for Human Rights, said the release of Palestinian inmates innocently jailed by the Zionist regime is more necessary than anything else today, as they are in danger because of COVID-19 crisis.

The resistance movement Hamas warned of the dire consequences of keeping Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and detention facilities, slamming Tel Aviv's utter disregard for local and international calls to release them to protect their lives as the corona crisis deepens.

Israeli forces regularly storm Palestinian towns to make mass arrests.

Many Palestinian inmates are kept in Israeli custody without trial or charge under the so-called Israeli policy of administrative detention.

Palestinians complain that they are subjected to assault and torture at Israeli prisons. The detainees have on many occasions resorted to open-ended hunger strikes to voice their outrage at dire prison conditions.

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