Palestinian Prisoners - Hunger Strike

Palestinians not only live under an illegal occupation, but also under an unstable and unjust system of law and order."

Press TV photo courtesy: IMEMC

(FREIDBURG, Germany) - "The Israeli occupying government has arrested around one fourth of the Palestinian population currently residing in Palestine (25%). There is no one single family that didn’t experience the arrest of one of its members. The majority of those detained are male, which constitutes over 40% of the total male Palestinian Population in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT). This makes Palestinians the most imprisoned peoples on earth.

Since Israel began its illegal occupation of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, more than 650,000 Palestinians have been detained, representing approximately twenty percent of the current total Palestinian population in the Occupied Territories.

Israel has illegally detained Palestinian men, women and children through an extensive and systematic set of regulations that control every aspect of Palestinian life. They restrict or deny their basic human rights. Moreover, the conditions of the prisons and treatment of prisoners are horrendous, violating numerous international laws.

The Israeli military, which governs the Occupied Territories, constantly changes or issues new military orders that are often unknown to local populations until implemented. Palestinian prisoners are then subject to Israeli military tribunals, which rarely follow required international standards of fair trial.

Palestinians not only live under an illegal occupation, but also under an unstable and unjust system of law and order." (Report of "Friends of Humanity" http://www.friendsofhumanity.info/english/index.php?pagess=main&id=148, (see also http://globalgeopolitics.net/wordpress/2011/04/26/every-fourth-palestinian-under-arrest/)

"According to latest statistics there are:

8500 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails
35 Palestinian women inside Israeli jails
337 Palestinian children inside Israeli jails
15 members of the Palestinian Parliament
19 Palestinian prisoners in isolation cells
257 Palestinian administrative detainees
2000 Palestinian prisoners in need of medical care
16 Palestinian prisoners suffer from cancer
160 Palestinian prisoners suffer from heart, kidney and blood pressure problems
80 Palestinian prisoners suffer from diabetes
12 Palestinian prisoners suffer from Hemiplegia
40 Palestinian prisoners suffer from mental and psychological ailments due to the interrogation methods used by the Israeli Shabak and the Israeli prison authorities, which include torture
198 Palestinian prisoners have been killed by the IOF since 1967: 70 as a result of torture, 71 killed in cold blood after being arrested, 50 as a result of medical negligence and 7 being shot dead inside prisons by the Israeli prison authorities
313 Palestinian “Veteran Prisoners” have been locked up in Israelis jails since before 1994
115 Palestinian “Deans of Prisoners” have spent 20+ years inside Israeli jails
14 Palestinian “Generals of Patience” have spent 25+ years inside Israeli jails" (http://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com/2011/06/08/a-nation-behind-bars-8500-palestinian-political-prisoners-abused-denied-medical-care-tortured-in-israeli-prisons/)