Since October 7, 2023, conditions in Israeli prisons have paralleled the besieging and retaliatory war on the people of Gaza. But the heightened aggression against Palestinian prisoners started almost one year earlier.
Palestinian men are detained by Israeli forces in the streets of Beit Lahiya, in the northern Gaza Strip, December 7, 2023. Photo taken by Israeli soldiers and widely distributed on social media. Some men in the photo were interviewed by journalists from +972/Local Call. <https://www.972mag.com/israel-torture-camp-gaza-detainees/> In December 2022, Itamar Ben-Gvir, the leader of the ultra-nationalist, anti-Arab Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power), became Minister of National Security, giving him control of the police and the Israel Prison Service (IPS). “[O]ne of the highest goals I have set for myself,” Ben-Gvir declared <https://x.com/itamarbengvir/status/1808031178277925263>, “is to worsen the conditions of the terrorists in the prisons, and to reduce their rights to the minimum required by law.”[1] <https://merip.org/2024/10/israel-is-waging-war-on-palestinian-prisoners-2/#_edn1> He immediately began instituting numerous <https://www.addameer.org/media/4978> cruel measures <https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/5816/Israel%E2%80%99s-tormenting-of-Palestinian-prisoners-is-illegal-and-morally-unjustifiable> to shrink <https://www.timesofisrael.com/ben-gvir-said-to-order-reduced-shower-time-for-terror-inmates/> Palestinian prisoners’ already scant resources and elevate their suffering. In February 2023, he set a four-minute limit <https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-02-21/ty-article-opinion/.premium/a-four-minute-shower-for-palestinian-prisoners-is-ben-gvirs-new-diktat/00000186-6f5d-dc65-a5de-efdd743f0000> on shower time and bragged in a TikTok post <https://www.tiktok.com/@middleeasteye/video/7197860514968472837> about closing the prisoner-run bakeries in Ketziot and Nafha while he waved a fistful of pita at the camera. In August, over 1,000 prisoners—one-fifth of Palestinians incarcerated at the time—declared a hunger strike <https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/hundreds-of-palestinians-held-by-israel-start-indefinite-hunger-strike/2970830> to protest their dire situation. Ben-Gvir retaliated by reducing family visits to one every two months. https://merip.org/2024/10/israel-is-waging-war-on-palestinian-prisoners-2/ -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#33535): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/33535 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/109537780/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
