RAMALLAH, Monday, October 23, 2023 (WAFA) – The Israel Prison Services (IPS) is taking advantage of Israel’s barbaric war on the Gaza Strip to abuse and mistreat Palestinian female prisoners, taking advantage of preventing lawyers and families from visiting them and the blackout regarding the situation in the prisons in general.
It said that on October 19, the repressive Israeli forces wearing bulletproof armor with batons, gas bombs, and weapons, broke into Damon Prison, where the Palestinian female prisoners are kept, turned the rooms upside down and emptied them of all items, such as tables, chairs, kitchen utensils, food supplies, even special items that the female prisoners made or bought from their own accounts to the point that the drawings on the wall were not spared and were torn up.
When the female prisoners protested this, the repressive forces beat them up and placed some of them in solitary confinement. They also threw gas canisters inside the rooms without any consideration for the presence of minors, elderly, injured, and sick women, knowing also that there are female prisoners who suffer from allergies and asthma.
In addition to the above, female prisoners have been subjected to severe punishments for 16 days, including the following measures:
1. Preventing female prisoners from contacting their families and canceling family visits.
2. Preventing visits from lawyers.
3. Denying them time spent outside the cells.
4. Denying buying from the canteen.
5. Confiscation of all electrical tools.
6. Reducing the time for showering to a quarter of an hour per day for each room.
7. Repeated raids of the cells, death threats, and constant insults.
The Prisoners’ Commission noted that a large number of people were detained recently, most of which were under the pretext of incitement and writings on social media, as the current number of female prisoners has reached approximately 50 female prisoners in Damon Prison, in addition to the female detainees who are undergoing interrogation or held provisionally at Hasharon Prison.
M.K.
