Cell phone video shows a Palestinian mother hugging her son
who was just released from an Israeli prison near Hebron
in the occupied West Bank last month, overwhelmed with
emotion. She asks if she's really seeing her son
a new report out by an Israeli rights group says
Palestinian prisoners held by Israel are subject to a systematic
policy of abuse and torture since the start of the
war in Gaza on October 7th. Sid Mikha Eli
is a spokesperson for Betselem which issued the report.
So the people we interviewed for the report have actually
been released recently. So clearly Israel does not accuse
them of anything yet. They still experience the same
, the same kind of systemic abuse and torture that
all Palestinian prisoners experienced. Now throughout all of Israel's
detention system. The group said the report was based
on interviews with 55 Palestinians from Gaza, the West
Bank and Israel who were detained in Israeli prisons since
the October 7th attack on Israel that set off the
war. Most of them without being tried. It
comes nine days after the Israeli military detained nine soldiers
accused of severe abuse of a Palestinian prisoner in a
military facility. Those arrests touched off protests by right
wing activists defending the accused soldiers. Israeli media reports
say the victim, a member of an elite Hamas
unit was subjected to sexual assault. Firstly, it's
important to tell the stories of the victims of people
who have been exposed to horrific abuse in Israel's prison
system. Additionally, this publication is meant to change
the reality. Therefore, beli has called his appeal
to all nations and to all relevant institutions including the
International Criminal Court to intervene, to end this reality
and to hold Israeli policymakers accountable for what is going
on for the torture of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prison
facilities. A spokesperson for the Israel prison service said
that all prisoners were treated according to the law and
all basic rights were fully applied by professionally trained guards
. The Israeli military which runs some detention facilities where
Palestinian prisoners have been held said that it operated according
to the rule of law and any specific claims of
abuse were investigated even before last month's arrest of the
nine Israeli soldiers. Palestinians held by Israel had described
abuse within the system was released from a detention center
in July where he'd been held since October. He
spoke to Reuters from a hospital bed in Bethlehem.
Life in jail since October 7th is a life that
no human on earth can imagine in general, especially
in the Negev prison which is like Guantanamo SSMN up
. It is a prison in the Negev desert down
at the bottom of Palestine. On the map,
this prison is isolated from the world. They act
in the most disgusting and tough torture on earth against
isolated detainees, handcuffed, hungry and ill. The
Ha Astra. A ZYJ A the report by Betselem
, a group that documents human rights violations by Israel
in the occupied West Bank and other areas said the
harsh treatment was a deliberate policy implemented under the direction
of the hardline National Security Minister, Itamar Ben Gvir
. A prison service spokesperson said that since the October
7th attack, Ben Gvir had ordered that prison conditions
be made more strict to reverse an improvement in conditions
allowed previously.