AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA): The Palestinian prisoners advocacy groups have reported an alarming surge in the number of Palestinians abducted by Israeli forces in Gaza.
In a joint statement released on Monday, the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoners Society (PPS) said that thousands had been “forcibly disappeared” from the blockaded region over the past few months.
Israel refuses to disclose the number of Palestinian abductees from Gaza.
The Israeli prison administration “announced at the beginning of November 2024 that there are 1,627 detainees from Gaza classified by the occupation as “unlawful combatants,” noting that this figure does not include all detainees from Gaza, particularly those in camps run by the occupation’s military,” the statement read.
Testimonies from 15 detainees following a recent visit by the Commission’s legal teams revealed atrocities committed by Israeli prison authorities against them.
The Israeli brutality includes "all forms of physical and psychological torture, medical crimes, starvation, and sexual assault.”
Since his arrest on February 15, 2024, a detainee said he has been continuously shackled and “suffers from severe pain in his hands, bruises, swelling, and intense burning sensations at the stumps of his amputated legs.”
These physical torture “has become a regular daily practice without exception, targeting all detainees, whether minors, the sick (including paraplegics and wounded), or the elderly,” the statement said.
The organizations said his testimony “is just one of many shocking accounts from detainees,” among a series of ongoing practices at the camp, “including being shackled for over ten months continuously.”
Detainees also reported “losing their sense of time, being denied knowledge of the time or access to tissues and soap, and being allowed to shower only once every ten days, with each detainee allotted only three minutes.”
The Israeli arrest campaign across the occupied West Bank has also pushed the total number of Palestinians abducted since October 2023 to over 11,700.
The latest PPS report detailed “detention campaigns carried out since 7 October,” involving “humiliation, brutal beatings, threats against detainees and their families,” as well as the destruction of detainees’ houses and the looting of their property.
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