During the year 2020, the Israeli occupation authorities continued the policy of systematic abuse and their systematic violations of the rights of prisoners and detainees guaranteed by international covenants and norms, as part of the structure of violence they impose on the Palestinian reality, as a number of violations dominated the reality of the issue of detainees and prisoners in Israeli prisons, especially with the spread of the Corona virus. And the transformations that accompanied the epidemic, through a set of measures imposed by the occupation's prison administration and contributed to the worsening of detention conditions.

The Palestinian prisoner Kamal Abu Waer is among 4 prisoners who were killed in the occupation prisons during the year 2020 (communication sites)

Scary numbers

According to the follow-up of human rights institutions related to prisoners' affairs, the Israeli occupation forces arrested about 4,634 Palestinians during the year 2020, including 543 children and 128 women, and the number of administrative detention orders issued reached 1,114.

The Prisoners' Affairs and Human Rights Institutions (Prisoners' Affairs and Executives' Affairs Club, the Palestinian Prisoners Club, the Addameer Prisoner Care and Human Rights Foundation, and the Wadi Hilweh Information Center-Silwan), in an annual report issued today, Thursday, and Al-Jazeera Net received a copy, indicated that the number of Palestinian prisoners and detainees Occupation prisons As of the end of December, there were about 4,400 prisoners, including 40 female prisoners.

While the number of children and minors in the occupation prisons reached about 170 children, and the number of administrative detainees reached about 380 detainees, while the number of martyrs of the captive movement reached 226 martyrs, as 4 prisoners were martyred inside the occupation prisons this year, and they are: Nour al-Din Barghouti and Saadi al-Gharabli, And Dawood Al-Khatib, and Kamal Abu Waer.

The mother of the prisoner Abdullah al-Barghouti raises his picture at a sit-in in front of the Prime Minister in Amman (Al-Jazeera)

The number of prisoners who were sentenced to life imprisonment reached 543, including 5 prisoners during the year 2020, noting that the highest sentence among them is for the prisoner Abdullah Al-Barghouti and the period of 67 life.

While the number of sick prisoners has reached nearly 700, of whom about 300 are chronic and serious cases in need of adequate treatment and continuous care, and there are at least 10 cases of people with cancer and tumors of varying degrees, including the prisoner Fouad El Shobaki (81 years), who is the oldest of the prisoners.

The most prominent of the sick prisoners in the "Clinic Ramleh" prison are: Khaled al-Shawish, Mansour Muqaddah, Mutassim Raddad, Nahed al-Aqra ', Saleh Saleh, and Muwaffaq al-Arouq.

Note that most of them have been in the Ramla clinic for years of their arrest, and comrades who were held for years with them were martyred, including: Sami Abu Dayak, Bassam Al-Sayeh, and Kamal Abu Waer.

The number of prisoners killed by the occupation through deliberate medical negligence measures (slow killing) - which is part of a consistent and systematic policy - has reached 71, since 1967.

The occupation continues to detain the bodies of 8 prisoners who were martyred in prisons, they are: Anis Dawla, who was killed in Ashkelon prison in 1980, Aziz Uweissat since 2018, Faris Baroud, Nasar Taqatqa and Bassam Al-Sayeh, and four of them were killed in 2019, Saadi Al-Gharabli, Daoud Al-Khatib, and Kamal Abu Waer who were killed in 2020.

The number of old prisoners detained before the signing of the Oslo Agreement reached 26, the oldest of whom were: Karim Yunus and Maher Yunus, who have been continuously detained since January 1983, and Nael Barghouti, who spent the longest period of detention in the history of the captive movement, totaling more than 40 years, of which 34 were spent. He was released continuously in 2011 in the "Wafa Al-Ahrar" deal, and in 2014 he was re-arrested with a number of the Legislative Council members in its last session, and the number of detainees reached 9.

Read arrests over the course of 2020

The highest rate of arrests was recorded in January 2020, reaching 496 arrests, and the lowest rate was recorded in April 2020, reaching 197 arrests, but since May the occupation has escalated the systematic arrests despite the escalation of the Corona epidemic. Since March 2020.

The Prisoners' Institutions confirm that the highest rate of arrests in the governorates this year were recorded in Jerusalem and its towns, and it reached 1975 arrests, the highest in the town of Issawiya, where 642 arrests were recorded, including 363 minors, and 100 women, including 3 minors.

The occupation authorities have escalated their targeting of towns and camps that are witnessing an ongoing confrontation with him, especially the towns and camps near settlements built on large parts of the Palestinian territories.

The arrests also targeted university students in an attempt to undermine any social or militant contribution that could constitute a lever for Palestinian society and contribute to spreading national awareness. Students of Birzeit University in particular were at the focus of targeting, and arrests among university students during the year 2020 reached more than Of 70 cases.

Palestinian prisoner Asem Al-Barghouti in the session in which he was sentenced to 4 life terms (communication sites)

3600 arrests since the beginning of Corona

The institutions report includes the most prominent cases that imposed themselves on the reality of detainees and prisoners, as the Corona epidemic issue constituted a fundamental turning point on the reality of prisoners, with the measures that were accompanied by the occupation's prison administration, and turned the epidemic into a tool of repression and abuse, and doubled the isolation of prisoners, as well as the continuation of the forces The occupation - despite the spread of the epidemic - in the systematic arrests, incursions into homes and harassment of citizens, as the number of arrests since the beginning of the epidemic reached more than 3,600 cases.

The report dealt with the issue of systematic detention of children and women, which targeted in particular the children and women of Jerusalem. The highest rate of arrests of children and women was recorded in Jerusalem, in addition to some areas and towns that witness an ongoing confrontation with the occupation.

The report shows the most prominent robberies and violations carried out by the occupation army against the detainees from the moment of their arrest, through the investigation stage, and the conditions they face later after they are imprisoned.

The report also reviews the set of policies that the Israeli occupation authorities have continued to implement against the prisoners, the most prominent of which are: torture, deliberate medical neglect (slow killing), which led to the death of 4 prisoners during the year 2020, and solitary isolation that escalated its implementation, and the systematic incursions and repression of prisoners' sections and rooms. .

In addition to the nightly incursions into citizens 'homes, including the harassment that accompanies them, which falls under the policy of collective punishment, in addition to the policy of demolishing homes and denying visits to hundreds of prisoners' families, and the changes that the epidemic measures imposed on the right to visit, especially Gaza prisoners and their families.

The families of the sick prisoners called on the Palestinian leadership to take care of the issue of their children (Al-Jazeera)

Rights of prisoners and their families

In the context of escalating policies targeting the rights of prisoners and their families, the report dealt with the escalating war on the issue as a whole, which affects the Palestinian existence, and the Palestinian right to struggle and self-determination, as the issue of war over the allocations of prisoners and their families constituted the most prominent issues that imposed themselves during the year 2020, with what it carried from Different dimensions.

In the face of the occupation policies, most notably the issue of administrative detention, the report reviewed the hunger strike as a historical means of confrontation, and the effectiveness imposed by the prisoners, through education and the liberated sperm, which imposed a new equation in the lives of prisoners and their families.