SIXTY-SEVEN years after the Palestinian Nakba of 1948, when Israel was founded by a massive Zionist terror against the Palestinian people, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Affairs committee head Issa Qaraqa has commented that Palestinian prisoners today are facing a legal Nakba carried out by the Israeli government and its security services.
Qaraqa estimated on Wednesday that the Israeli authorities have detained over 1 million Palestinians since 1948, and that over 850,000 Palestinians were detained since 1967 alone. Of these, some 95,000 Palestinian children have been detained in the West Bank since it was occupied by Israel in 1967, most of whom have been exposed to widespread, systematic and institutionalised abuse, The Military Court Watch NGO has revealed.
Military Court Watch (MCW) has cited 200 testimonies of minors detained between 2013 and 2015, and accused the Israeli army of widespread, systematic and institutionalised abuse of Palestinian children arrested in the West Bank. Around 9,000 Palestinian detainees were held in Israeli camps following the end of the 1948 war that imposed the state of Israel, Qaraqa said.
Prisoners were reportedly held in five detention camps including Atlit and Sarafand, in addition to jails that Israel inherited from the British Mandate and temporary detention camps set up in Palestinian villages from which residents were forced out. As there was not a detention policy by Israel during and directly after the 1948 war, Qaraqa added, execution of prisoners was common and revealed through documentation of many group executions of detained civilians.
Large numbers of Palestinians were left homeless, or ran away from massacres. For these the Israeli leaders built detention camps. Camps were run on the basis that any prisoner that needed to be released or ‘gotten rid of’ could be done so. All that was needed was the approval of an intelligence officer. Qaraqa added that speedy executions without trial were often carried out in these camps.
Qaraqa said that detention camps were supervised by members of the Irgun, Haganah and Stern groups whose brutal treatment of Palestinian detainees was well-documented. He also emphasised that the ongoing Israeli occupation and imprisonment of thousands of Palestinians since 1948 constitutes the longest colonisation in history. This is the bloody story of the last 67 years.
Meanwhile, Khader Adnan entered his 39th day on hunger strike Friday as his health continues to deteriorate, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Centre for Studies said. The director called on Palestinian, Arab and international movements to take notice and support Adnan’s cause, adding that the detainee is defending the humanitarian rights of the 500 or so Palestinians being held under Israeli administrative detention.
Adnan, a father of six children, was detained on July 8th 2014, and sentenced to administrative detention for the 10th time in his life. In his open letter Adnan says that the goal of his strike is to resist Israel and prevent it from tarnishing the achievement of prisoners who secured their freedom by going on hunger strikes in the past, only to be rearrested by military forces.
The truth is that the Palestinian working class and the masses of the youth are more determined than ever to end Israel’s grim and bloody occupation of Palestine. In this they are fully supported by the working people of the world, whose movements to boycott Israel has got the Zionist ruling clique fearful that they are being isolated, to the point where they cannot be 100% sure that their allies, namely the US and UK ruling classes, will continue to support them unconditionally.
The fact that Israel’s out and out opposition to a US-EU nuclear deal with Iran has not been able to halt it thus far, has increased the insecurity of the Zionist ruling group. Workers in the west, especially in the UK must now take industrial action to stop their governments arming and supplying Israel, and to impose an international boycott.
The Palestinian masses, whether in Fatah or Hamas must ally themselves with Hezbollah and the Syrian people in the struggle to drive imperialism and Zionism out of the Middle East!
This is the way forward to victory!
