Sunday 26 September 2010

Resistance leaders sit in at Gaza to support Palestinian prisoners

[ 25/09/2010 - 04:47 PM ]

GAZA, (PIC)-- Palestinian faction leaders and other speakers at a press conference on Saturday agreed to escalate efforts supporting Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. The press conference was organized at the sidelines of a sit-in held in Gaza to support war prisoners.

The sit-in was held at the courtyard of the Unknown Soldier in Gaza and was attended by Palestinian forces and factions, prisoners’ families, and hundreds of Palestinian people.

Gaza’s prisoner committee coordinator Sabir Abu Karish warned that medical neglect on the part of the Israeli prison administrations has caused 199 deaths since 1967.

More than 15 women continue to be held and tortured in Israeli jails and placed in solitary confinement, Karish said, adding that they are subjected to policies that conflict with international law, conventions, and humanitarian norms.

On his part, Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said that such events involve several messages, the first of which is addressed to Israel, that the violations it commits against war prisoners will only cause activists to increase their demand for the release of prisoners on their terms.

The second message is to the world, which has supported one captured Israeli soldier and does not care about the torture of thousands of Palestinian POWs.

The third message is to the Red Cross and other human rights organizations, “to come out of the box of silence” and try to expose Israel’s violations against prisoners and take action to release them.

On his part, Nasir al-Far secretary of the national and Islamic committee for POWs said the event came as part of a range of public events to support the prisoners cause, and is also timed to coincide with the current hunger strike in protest to poor treatment prisoners have sustained from the Israeli prisons authority.

Linking prisoner issues to the peace talks, Islamic Jihad movement politburo member Dr. Mohammad Al-Hindi said the direct negotiations held between de facto Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have provided the prison administrations a cover for brutal attacks against Palestinian prisoners.

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