RAMALLAH, May 26, 2016 (WAFA) – A Palestinian prisoner in Israeli jails has started a hunger strike in protest of being subjected to physical abuse, including torture, during and after his detention by the Israeli occupation forces.

Jacklin Fararjeh, an attorney with the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society (PPS), said that prisoner Malek Qadi, 19 years old from Bethlehem in the West Bank, declared an open-ended hunger strike in protest of being subjected to torture during his detention on May 23.

He told Fararjeh that at predawn on May 23, Israeli soldiers raided his family house handcuffed him for an hour. And whenever he tried to improve his sitting, the soldiers beat him up mercilessly.

Qadi was then moved to nearby Etzion military compound, where the soldiers handcuffed him back to a pole and began beating him while shouting loudly.

In 2014, a report by Israeli human rights group B’Tselem acknowledged that 105 torture methods are used against Palestinian detainees which are considered serious violations of human rights.

A UN human rights committee described the torture in Israeli prisons as “crossing the line”, noting that Israel’s brutal methods of torture included breaking backs, pulling fingers apart and twisting testicles.

Israeli intelligence bases their torture of detainees on the so-called secret guidelines that were approved in 1987, after the outbreak of the first Intifada. These guidelines allow them to apply “moderate” physical and psychological pressure on prisoners. This gives a legal cover to the torture practiced by Israeli intelligence agents.

In the last 10 years, interrogators have decreased their use of torture, moving away from physical torture and instead used harsh psychological methods that can leave enduring scars, while continuing to use direct physical torture of varying degrees.

M.N