Occupied Jerusalem-SANA
Today marks the 48th anniversary of the Palestinian Prisoner Day, and 4450 prisoners, including 160 children and 32 women, are still detained in the cells of the Israeli occupation, whose forces have launched a massive campaign of arrests since the beginning of this year, affecting more than 2140 Palestinians until the end of March, and culminating in the 15th of this month when They stormed Al-Aqsa Mosque and arrested more than 450 Palestinians, including women and children.
The Palestinians commemorate the anniversary by organizing supportive events for the prisoners, the first of which was held yesterday evening, through the participation of hundreds of Palestinians in torchlight rallies and lighting the torch of freedom in the occupied territories in 1948 and the cities and towns of the West Bank and the besieged Gaza Strip, emphasizing the support and assistance of the prisoners in their struggle for their freedom and dignity and drawing the world’s attention to their suffering Under the harsh conditions of their detention, which violate all international covenants and laws.
In a statement to SANA reporter, Head of Studies and Documentation Unit in the Prisoners’ Affairs Authority, Abdel Nasser Farwana, explained that the occupation continues to detain 4,450 Palestinians in 23 prisons, including more than 600 sick prisoners, 200 of whom are in chronic condition, including 130 in need of urgent surgeries and 22 cases of cancer, the most dangerous of which is the case of the prisoner Nasser Abu Hamid.
Farwaneh pointed out that dozens of prisoners joined this year the list of deans of prisoners who had been detained for more than 20 years, bringing their number until the end of last March to 152 prisoners, the oldest of whom were Karim Younis and Maher Younis, who have been detained since January 1983, pointing out that 227 prisoners were martyred inside the occupation prisons. Because of torture and medical neglect, the last of them was the prisoner Sami Al-Amour, in addition to hundreds of prisoners who were martyred after being released from prison due to the serious diseases they suffered during their detention.
In turn, Director of the Prisoner’s Club in Jenin Montaser Sammour explained that the activities of lighting the torch of freedom on the occasion of Prisoner’s Day started this year from the city of Jenin in fulfillment of the six prisoners, the heroes of the Freedom Tunnel, and the blood of the martyrs who rose on the land of Jenin in defense of the freedom and dignity of the Palestinian people who continue their steadfastness in the face of the occupation to topple its plans Colonialism aimed at liquidating the Palestinian cause.
Sammour pointed out that there is an escalation in the pace of arrests compared to previous years, especially in Jenin, where the occupation arrests 500 prisoners from the city inside its cells, 245 of whom were arrested this month while responding to the occupation's repeated attacks on Jenin and its villages, indicating that the activities supporting the prisoners will continue in the coming days to support them in Their fight for their freedom and dignity.
The spokesman for the Commissariat of Martyrs and Prisoners of the Fatah movement Nashaat al-Wahidi stated that a campaign was launched to support the prisoners under the slogan (for how long) through a series of activities that will be launched today and over the coming days in the besieged Gaza Strip and the West Bank to draw the world’s attention to the suffering of male and female prisoners who are facing slow killing inside the prisons. occupation and pressure to release them.
For her part, a member of the Political Bureau of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the liberated captive, Maryam Abu Daqqa, explained that the prisoner’s day comes this year in light of difficult circumstances that the prisoners and the Palestinian cause are going through, with the escalation of the Israeli attack aimed at breaking the will and steadfastness of the Palestinian people, stressing that the prisoners are at the forefront of the ranks in defending Palestine and its just cause, and that the torch of struggle that they raise will remain burning until the Palestinians regain their full legitimate national rights, foremost of which is ending the occupation and establishing an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.
The head of the International Commission to Support the Rights of the Palestinian People, Salah Abdel-Aty, confirmed that the prisoners are subjected to war crimes inside the occupation’s prisons, including medical neglect and physical and psychological torture, in clear violation of the rules of international law and the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, calling for international intervention to stop the crimes of the occupation against the prisoners and refer their case to the International Criminal Court to ensure Accountability of the occupation for its crimes, stressing at the same time that the prisoners deserve from all the free people of the world urgent intervention to protect them and save them from death and put pressure on the occupation to release them.
Mohammed Abu Shabab
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