The Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH) strongly condemns Israel’s treatment of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails. Israel is holding about 5,000 Palestinians on security-related charges; 1,000 of these are in administrative detention, meaning they face indefinite imprisonment without trial.

In the last week alone, several incidents that exemplify a pattern of cruel and unusual treatment of Palestinian prisoners and detainees have been reported. One Monday, June 23, a Palestinian detainee held in Israel’s Naqab prison reported that an Israeli surgeon removed his appendix without anesthesia. Via a cellular phone, which had been smuggled into his cell, the 24-year-old Anas Kamel Shahada described the ordeal. The Israeli doctor ordered that Shahada’s hands and feet be tied down, and then he began the operation without providing the patient any anesthesia. Says Shahada, “I got anxious and started shouting for help but to no avail…. I went into a coma upon spotting the blood gushing forth and feeling the severe pain. Yet, nothing moved the heart of the Israeli doctor, who wore his cruel heart on his sleeves."

Also last week, the serious condition of prisoner Ahmad Talab Barghouthi, age 27, worsened, when he entered his 26th day of a hunger strike. Held in Ramle prison, Barghouthi was imprisoned in April 2002 yet still has not been charged with a crime. According to the prisoner’s father, Ahmad was striking to protest his five-month solitary confinement in a cell filled with cockroaches and mice. His father says that he has not seen his son since he was arrested and that Ahmad has not been allowed to see his lawyer since he began the hunger strike. "All he wants is to be treated in a humane way. He is kept in conditions unfit for animals,” says his father.

Finally, it was also reported last week by the Defence for Children International that 2,000 Palestinian children have been arrested by Israeli forces since September 2000 and that nearly 100 percent of them have suffered some form of torture or mistreatment (from beatings to psychological abuse to intimidation).

MIFTAH calls upon the international community, particularly human rights organizations, to protest the conditions of Palestinian prisoners and detainees held in Israeli jails, regardless of their age. MIFTAH also calls upon the United States, as the primary backer of the “road map,” to hold Israel responsible for the fair and legal treatment of prisoners as a gesture of its commitment to a just resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. MIFTAH calls on Israel to immediately put an end to its harsh treatment of prisoners, which is in violation of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment of Punishment (which Israel ratified in 1991).

The continuation of the harsh treatment and deplorable conditions for Palestinian prisoners is one of the most blatant human rights violations in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and as such, is responsible for justifiable frustration and anger among Palestinians and all those concerned with the protection of human rights.