Israeli prison (social networking sites)

Haaretz said that Israeli soldiers arrested an 82-year-old Palestinian woman suffering from Alzheimer's disease, as an "unlawful combatant," and transferred her to Dimon Prison in northern Israel, where she remained for nearly two months before she was released after appeal.

Fahmiya Al-Khalidi, 82 years old, was arrested in early December in a school in Gaza, where she took refuge after fleeing her home due to the bombing. The prison to which she was referred refused a request by a lawyer from the Israeli organization Physicians for Human Rights to meet her, and she was released. two weeks ago.

The newspaper explained that many details related to the imprisonment of Al-Khalidi, who was born in 1942, are still unknown, because since her release she has not been able to reconstruct what happened to her, but she had a full-time caregiver with her due to her health condition and the fact that her children live abroad, and she was arrested. The caregiver was not released with her.

According to the newspaper, Al-Khalidi's daughter and her sons learned of their mother's arrest from neighbors, but they were unable to find out her whereabouts, because Israel has refused since the beginning of the war on Gaza to provide the families of the detainees and human rights organizations with any information about the whereabouts of the detainees from Gaza.

Physicians for Human Rights learned by chance that Al-Khalidi was being held in Dimon Prison, but a lawyer from another organization, who was visiting female prisoners from the West Bank, learned from them that there was an elderly prisoner from Gaza who did not speak and moved with difficulty, so the lawyer informed the family and transferred Al-Khalidi’s personal information to Physicians for Human Rights. For human rights.

On December 27, Mona Abu Al-Younis Al-Khatib, a lawyer for Physicians for Human Rights, submitted a request to meet with the elderly woman from Gaza, but the Dimon Prison administration responded to her by saying, “Female prisoners are prohibited from meeting with a lawyer until February 21, 2024, by decision of the official.” ".

Sudden release

The newspaper indicated that lawyer Tamir Blank submitted a medical report from June last year, in which he said that Al-Khalidi suffers from a group of medical problems and faces difficulty walking, in addition to the fact that she suffers from a group of medical problems and is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, and he obtained an appointment to meet the elderly woman. On January 21.

But Al-Khalidi was released from Dimon Prison on January 19, along with 5 other women who were considered “unlawful combatants.” Physicians for Human Rights learned that Al-Khalidi had been released by chance again, after a lawyer from another organization who was visiting the prison heard that she had been released. 6 women were released from Gaza, including Al-Khalidi.

Various media reports provided some information about her situation in prison, and one of the women released in Gaza said that Al-Khalidi sometimes went to the prison clinic handcuffed, and that she was in a wheelchair. Another prisoner also said that Al-Khalidi was not the only elderly and sick prisoner there. .

On the Palestinian side of the border crossing, Al-Khalidi was sent to a hospital in the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, where she remains. The hospital contacted a person with the same last name, and he immediately came to visit her, but it turned out that they were not relatives.

Naji Abbas, director of the prisoner division at Physicians for Human Rights, who was in regular contact with the Khalidi family and coordinated his organization’s handling of her case, said that his organization had received reports of other people in their 80s and 90s who were arrested by the Israeli army and whose families had not been contacted.

In response to this article, the Israeli Prison Service said, “The prisoner was received in the Prison Service on December 10, 2023, and was detained for 30 days until her release, and she was detained during that period in accordance with the law.” However, witness accounts indicate that, contrary to this, According to the Prison Service, she was released on January 19, more than 30 days after her arrival at the prison.

The Prison Service did not respond to the newspaper’s inquiry about whether Al-Khalidi had undergone a doctor’s examination, and whether the prison decided based on this examination that she was an unlawful combatant and should not be allowed to see a lawyer. It also did not respond to the inquiry whether the prison authorities found it strange to consider a woman In her case, she is an illegal combatant.

Source: Haaretz