THE ARREST AND DETENTION OF PALESTINIAN LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL MEMBERS (PDF)

•    Prior to the Al-Aqsa intifada in September 2000, there were only 5 Palestinian women imprisoned in Israeli jails. Since then, the number of Palestinian female prisoners has risen dramatically, reaching its highest figure of over 120 in 2004 and a total of more than 700 over 8 years.

•    There are currently around 65 Palestinian women imprisoned, detained or held under administrative detention – or detention without trial – in Israeli jails, among which 5 women are sentenced for life, while 11 are sentenced for more that 10 years. Five of them are girls, under the age of 18. An additional 15 women are mothers of approximately 50 minors, including one woman who gave birth in prison and was allowed to keep her child with her.

•    Given their small number in the total of Palestinian prisoners, Palestinian women are usually detained in harsher conditions than men in jails dating back to the British Mandate period (1922-1948), lacking modern day infrastructure or gender-sensitive health care. Humid, unhygienic, deprived of natural sunlight and overcrowded, these facilities have been designed for men and by men and rarely do they meet women’s needs.

•    While interrogated, women are often subjected to such forms of cruel treatment as humiliation, intimidation, shouting, sleep deprivation, prolonged shackling in painful positions, isolation in cells and even beatings. According to ex-prisoners accounts, psychological pressure is the most preferred technique used towards Palestinian women by Israeli interrogators. Threats of house demolitions, arrests of family members, forced collaboration, rape or other forms of sexual abuse and harassment are thus an often practice.

Lack of gender sensitive health care and hygiene standards

•    Due to insufficient and poor quality nutrition cooked for Palestinian female prisoners by Israeli criminal offenders, women suffer from loss of weight and hair, general weakness, anemia and iron deficiency. Their diet is not changed or improved when they fall ill, are pregnant or breast-feeding.

•    Poor ventilation, lack of fresh air, moisture and the presence of cockroaches and insects in the cells contribute to the development of dermatological diseases. Additionally, the lack of movement, the unavailability of sports equipment and a spacious recreation area as well as uncomfortable iron bed frames and only 3 to 5 centimeters thick mattresses cause women back and joints pains.

•    Huge mental pressure, the lack of appropriate nutrition and isolation through the denial of family visits contribute to the perturbation of women’s menstrual cycles, whereas older women suffer from psychological and physical difficulties caused by menopause. However, the Israeli Prison Service does not provide them with specialized gynecological health care. While it should be applied as a preventive measure, gynecological health care is only offered to those women in need of hospitalization.

•    Additionally, rooms at Damon, one of the prisons where more than 30 Palestinian women are detained do not include showers making women’s hygiene requirements hard to fulfill during both menstruation and menopause.

Denial of Family Visits

•    At least 10 Palestinian women are prevented from family visits as a punitive measure. An additional, 6 female prisoners are allowed to receive visits only from minors, namely children under the age of 16, either their younger siblings or their own kids as adult members of her families are barred from permits on “security grounds”. As minors are allowed to visit by themselves only once a month, these women are subjected to further isolation.

•    Mothers of minors are subjected to the same restrictions as men in terms of access to family visits even though international regulations on women in prison give precedence to the maintenance of strong family ties giving them the opportunity to serve their sentence close to home upon their request and making visits as often and flexible as possible.

•    Palestinian female prisoners are only allowed to have open visits and thus physical contact with those of their children who have not reached the age of six. However, research on female prisoners worldwide proves that the lack of adequate and sufficient contact with children and family members is a key source of anxiety for women in jails. Such feelings are translated into depression, anger and guilt and lead to the deterioration of the overall mental state and health condition of the woman.

•    Communication with the outside world in general is very restricted. Phone calls are permitted only in exceptional or humanitarian cases depending on the record of the prisoner. Letters are delivered to prisoners after huge delays, creating thus a huge disincentive for families to communicate with women in prison in such a way.

•    Importantly, the isolation of female prisoners reduces their chances of an easier reintegration into the society and the family upon their release.

For more information on Palestinian female prisoners, their detention conditions, access to health care and education, please refer to Addameer’s “Protection of Palestinian female prisoners and detainees” project website at: www.aseerat.ps

Israel’s violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention (1949), which explicitly prohibits “individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not” , not only has an impact on Palestinian prisoners’ detention conditions or access to legal aid, but also and most importantly hugely affects the communication and relationship with their families and broader social networks. Geographic isolation can be considered as a form of cruel and unusual punishment in the sense that it inflicts severe mental suffering on the prisoner and their relatives by severing ties between them.

Families of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, cannot visit them freely, or according to their own schedule as they are subjected to Israel’s system of closure and restrictions of movement imposed on the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt). Family ties are thus dependent on the Israeli permit system. Upon the arrest of a Palestinian by the Israeli Occupying Forces, no information is usually provided to his / her family regarding his or her detention status and location, as prisoners are typically prohibited from notifying their relatives. Families hence immediately register with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in order to be updated on the place of detention and interrogation of their relative and possible transfers as well as to be included in the family visit program.

Only the nuclear family is allowed to visit prison. Such a rule not only reduces a prisoner’s chance for an easier reintegration upon release, but further isolates those prisoners without nuclear family. For every prisoner, only three adults and two minors are allowed to visit at the same time.

A Permit System
The process of family visits is different depending on the family’s registered place of residence and is hugely affected by the political process. For instance, the family visit program for Gazans has been completely halted since Israel declared the Strip “enemy entity” in September 2007. Currently, 900 Gazan prisoners are fully denied the right to family visits. Residents of the West Bank apply through the ICRC for permits. When Israel does not consider them a “security threat” they are granted the right to visit twice a month, on the same day of the week.

However, anyone who has once been arrested by the Israeli authorities for either a criminal offence or “security reasons” is automatically prohibited from visiting prison. Given that more than 700 000 Palestinians have been arrested since the Israeli occupation of the Territories in 1967 making it the highest incarceration in the world, the likelihood that at least one family member has been to prison is extremely high.

Such a rule not only obstructs these family members’ right to conduct visits, but also the right of other members – men and women – who neither have a criminal record nor have they ever been involved in military or political activities. Thus, in practice, in many cases only old and young relatives – under the age of 16, who do not require permits – are able to visit prison. Thousands of prisoners serve their entire sentence without seeing their siblings or parents even once.

The Journey
The journey from home to prison depends on the family’s residence as well as on their ID card. In order to see their relative for 45 minutes only West Bankers – the vast majority of visitors – travel anywhere from 14 to 20 hours, depending on their place of residence – village or city – and the number of checkpoints they have to cross. In many cases it involves waking up as early as 3:30 – 4:00 am, taking public transportation to the ICRC meeting point in a governorate city and then taking the ICRC bus to the nearest Green Line crossing. During this first part of the journey, visitors are subjected to random searches at checkpoints and ID controls. Once they arrive to the Green Line crossing, everyone is forced to walk through 7 to 10 sets of revolving doors and is subjected to lengthy personal searches, as well as scanning through X-ray machines. Bags are emptied and searched in separate rooms. The process usually lasts around 2 hours, after which families are directed to different ICRC buses, registered in Israel. Escorted by police vehicles, they continue their journey to prison.

Every month however, cases of visitors with valid permits who are rejected at a Green Line crossing by the Israeli authorities are reported.

The Visit
The visit lasts usually 45 minutes, but as some families claim, it can be at times shortened to a half hour only. Private visits are permitted only for children under the age of six. Other visits always take place in a room, which resembles a long corridor separated into two by a glass partition. Visitors and prisoners sit in front of it and communicate by talking to each other on the phone. On the family side usually only two phones are provided, and hence not everyone can partake in the conversation at the same time whenever there are more visitors.

As families are not allowed to wear watches inside prison, they do not know when the visit actually ends and in consequence might not have sufficient time to communicate what they had intended to.

Children under the age of 12, who visit prison alone – as their family members are not granted permits on the premise of constituting a “security threat” – usually express deep feelings of guilt due to their conviction of not meeting either the prisoner’s or the family’s expectations in terms of communication.

Three hundred and seventy Palestinian children are currently detained by Israel and over 2500 have been arrested since the beginning of the Intifada in September 2000.

The youngest Palestinian detained in 2003-2004 was 12-year-old Rakan Ayad Nasrat from Jericho who spent several months in prison. He was arrested on 29 September 2003 at a checkpoint in Bethlehem and taken to an Israeli settlement where he was threatened with electric shocks while under interrogation and then placed for 12 days in solitary confinement in a small room measuring 2m by 2m. He was beaten and sexually assaulted. He tried to commit suicide four times including once when he was hospitalized for two days. In an affidavit to Defence for Children International/Palestine Section, Rakan stated:

“because there was no one I could talk to and I felt incredible frightened and scared I tried to commit suicide while being in solitary confinement. On October 12th I was moved to Ofer military prison camp. When I arrived the soldiers asked me to take off my clothes and I was standing in my underwear. Then one of the soldiers took off even my underwear and started to use the metal detector on my naked body. While he was doing that he used his other hand to touch my body concentrating mainly on my back and bottom. This continued for a while and I was crying being terrified that something would happen.”

Before and during interrogation, Palestinian children face extreme physical and psychological pressure to confess and are often pressured to provide information on the political activities of other Palestinians. Seventeen year old Murad Abu Judeh recounts the abuse to which he was subjected prior to his interrogation in December 2000:

[A masked soldier wearing civilian clothes] took me outside, handcuffed me and put a sack on my head. It was raining. A group of soldiers began punching me and they were telling each other to beat me; speaking in Arabic so that I could understand them. Following that two soldiers carried me and threw me inside a jeep. I fell on someone else in the jeep- another prisoner - and hurt him. The jeep began moving and one of the soldiers started beating us and swearing at us until we reached the Etzion Interrogation Center … Before I entered interrogation, one of the soldiers threatened that he would return back to my house and destroy it if I didn’t confess.

Another 17-year old boy arrested for stone-throwing recounted to B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights organization:

Three more people in masks came into the room. They blindfolded me, put a hood over my head…. They kicked and slapped me. They beat me with a plastic pipe and whatever they could get their hands on. I couldn’t see anything because I was blindfolded. I just felt the blows. That lasted ten to fifteen minutes… later they stood me on a chair and handcuffed me to a pipe that was fixed to the wall. They removed the chair from under me and left me hanging in the air, with my handcuffed hands holding onto the pipe and the weight of my body, hanging in the air, pulling my hands downwards. They left the room.

Given the climate of fear and exposure to physical mistreatment and intimidation, most children tend to confess relatively quickly, even if they are innocent. In many cases children sign confessions without a clear idea of what they contain, especially as the confessions are written in Hebrew, a language most Palestinian children do not understand. Indeed, there are many examples of children confessing to an offence in order to escape torture or other forms of maltreatment.

Another particularly disturbing element in this type of coercion, is the attempt to obtain information from children about other activists within their community or even to recruit children as collaborators with the occupying force in exchange for lighter sentences or early release. Child political prisoners are particularly vulnerable to such coercion. Although this aim of Israel’s detention of children is recognized within the occupied territories it is rarely discussed publicly. One child described his experience of torture in 1998 as linked with attempts to recruit him as a collaborator:

The interrogators would say, ‘If you work with us we’ll give you money and let you go otherwise you’ll be given a very long sentence.’ When I refused they tied me to a small chair with 15-cm legs (kindergarten chair) and tied my hands behind my back and my feet to the chair. They put a filthy sack (with no ventilation) on my head. I was placed in this position for 6-12 hours. Other times I was placed in solitary confinement.

Length of sentencing has also increased for Palestinian child detainees since the beginning of the Intifada. Some examples of sentences given in 2002 are as follows:

• A 17-year old boy convicted of throwing stones, sentenced to 20 months in prison plus 24 months if he should commit the offense again, and a US$1000 fine.
• A 14-year old boy convicted of throwing stones, sentenced to six and a half months in prison and a US$500 fine.
• A 16-year old boy convicted of making - not throwing- a Molotov cocktail sentenced to 53 months in prison plus an extra 18 months if he should do it again within the next 5 years.
• A 17-year old boy who threw stones and a Molotov cocktail sentenced to six years in prison.

Military Orders
On 7 June 1967 the new Israeli occupying forces in the West Bank issued Military proclamation No. 1.  It justified itself with the words ‘in the interests of security and public order’.  Since that time, the Israeli authorities have issued over 2,500 such military orders, with enormous impact on Palestinian life. These orders serve as justification every time the Israeli authorities arrest a Palestinian in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT).  Issued by the Israeli Military Commander in the OPT, they provide the ‘legal’ basis for charging Palestinians with political offences and for bringing them before the Israeli military courts, which enforce these decrees and punish offenders with imprisonment and fines.  They don’t apply to Israeli settlers living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, who are governed by Israeli civil law.

There are approximately more than 1500 military regulations governing the West Bank and up until the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 there were over 1400 military regulations governing the Gaza Strip. The military commander may issue new military regulations at any moment. Thus the issuance of new orders often remains unknown and become apparent only when they are implemented. Palestinians are often unaware that new military orders have been issued because they have not been made public or translated into Arabic. They are frequently revised, almost impossible to challenge, and can apply retroactively (1).

Military Courts
Once the interrogation phase is completed, Palestinian detainees from the West Bank are processed for trial, sentencing and imprisonment in one of the two Israeli military courts currently in operation in the OPT. Palestinian detainees from Gaza are tried in Israeli domestic courts, since Israel’s so-called disengagement from Gaza in 2005. These military tribunals are presided over by a panel of three judges appointed by the military. Most of the judges do not have long term judicial training and as such, the court procedures rarely fall within the required international standards of fair trial.

Within these military courts, military orders always take precedence over Israeli and international law. Israeli military courts refuse to apply international laws and conventions, and it is impossible to make any legal claims to protect individuals under military occupation. When international law is used, it is used in situations that favour the occupying power.

Military Order 1530 limited the trial process to two years before issuing an indictment. Prior to this, there was no time limit for the trial process. The period of time between the issuing of charges and the actual trial is often prolonged, with detainees sometimes waiting for months before being tried before a military court. In more frequent cases, if a charge sheet is not presented after interrogation, the detainee is transferred to administrative detention.

Language is an additional problem, since many Palestinians do not speak Hebrew, and translations or interpreters are rarely available within the military court system. There are also inevitable communication and language difficulties even between lawyer and client. As a result violations of Palestinian prisoners’ rights are routine, and often go unchallenged.  Of particular concern is the continued practice involving Palestinian detainees being made to sign confessions written in Hebrew, a language few detainees comprehend. Once obtained, it is these confessions that constitute the primary evidence against Palestinian detainees in the Israeli military courts.

Discriminatory Laws
There are several stark discrepancies between Israeli law pertaining to Palestinian and Israeli detention respectively. For example, a Palestinian can, as of August 2003, be held in custody for 8 days before being brought before a judge. An Israeli citizen, however, can be held in custody for only a maximum of 24 hours before being brought before a judge.

A Palestinian can be held without charge, by order of a military judge, for an initial period of up to 90 days not necessarily continuously. This period can be extended for another period of up to 90 days by the legal advisor for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, via a military court of appeals (this form of detention differs from administrative detention, in which case no charges are brought against the detainee). An Israeli citizen can be held without indictment for an initial period of 15 days, which can be extended for only another 15 days.

In another example of discriminatory laws, whereas lawyer visits can be prohibited for up to 90 days after the day of arrest for a Palestinian detainee, the meeting between an Israeli detainee and his attorney can only be delayed for a total of 15 days.

As the maximum allowable sentences in civilian courts are considerably less severe than those permitted in the military tribunals, there are often significant differences in sentences passed for identical crimes committed by Israelis and Palestinians. For example, a Palestinian convicted of manslaughter by a military tribunal is subject to a maximum sentence of life imprisonment, while an Israeli convicted of manslaughter in a civilian court and sentenced to life imprisonment is imprisoned for a maximum of 20 years in most cases and, occasionally, at the most, 25 years.

The difference in sentencing structures is reinforced by rules in the two penal systems regarding the early release of prisoners. Under the Israeli penal code, criminal prisoners may be released after serving one-half of their sentences, whereas Palestinians judged under military rule are only allowed to appeal for probation after two-thirds of the sentence has been served. It should be noted that Palestinian detainees are rarely released early. Palestinians are divided and imbalanced before the law; they are governed under different penal codes and in different courts than Israelis, and application of the law is systematically prejudiced.

Targeting of Human Rights Defenders
Curfews and other forms of collective punishment inflicted upon the Palestinian community by the Israeli military occupation considerably hinder everyone’s work, including, among others, those attempting to collect information concerning human rights violations and verification.  Human rights activists and organisations, constantly face the risk of arrest or closure the by the Israeli occupation forces.

Most recently on July 8, 2008, the Israeli authorities closed down the Nafha Society for the Defense of Prisoners and Human Rights, on the basis of a military order issued by the Israeli Army Commander in the West Bank. Legally established and registered with the Palestinian Authority in 2006, Nafha is one of several NGOs that represent Palestinian detainees in Israeli courts and advocate on behalf of Palestinians in Israeli prisons and detention centres. Indeed this is not the first time that Israeli authorities have targeted Nafha. On August 2, 2007, Israeli soldiers arrested Mr. Mohammad Bsharat, Nafha Executive Director, in Nablus, without an arrest warrant (2).

Lawyers
The treatment of Palestinian lawyers by the Israeli authorities has been characterised by a total lack of respect, ranging from a general harassment, to beatings and even arrest during the course of their duties. To practice in the Israeli High Court, lawyers must be members of the Israeli Bar Association. Currently, Palestinian lawyers are not recognized by the Israeli authorities and have no direct access to the Israeli judicial system.  In addition to the ‘official’ restrictions placed on Palestinian lawyers, their treatment by individual members of the Israeli authorities further impede their abilities to discharge their duties to their clients.

The difficulties faced by lawyers in the exercise of their work are mainly related to the arbitrary nature of occupation and impunity. Palestinian lawyers from the OPT are not permitted any special travel privileges in order to defend their clients. They are subjected to the same travel restrictions as all Palestinians in the OPT. Those lawyers who are able to access detainees are often subjected to strip searches and humiliated when visiting their clients.  Many must wait a couple of hours before being allowed access to their clients.  In addition the Israeli Prison Authority often transfers the detainee without informing the lawyer in advance of his/her visit. There are also restrictions imposed on lawyer-client meetings, which often have to be conducted within the view or hearing of prison guards in open areas (3).

1.  Israel rationalises military orders as necessary for ‘security’.  In practice, security is defined so broadly that virtually any restriction of Palestinian freedom can be covered.  For example, in 1980, the Military Commander of the West Bank issued a military order that effectively placed all West Bank universities under military control.

2.  Closing down of the Nafha Society for the Defence of Prisoners and Human Rights. Available online at: http://www.fidh.org/spip.php?article5741

3.  Addameer Prisoners’ Support and Human Rights Association:  (2008) ‘Defending Palestinian Prisoners: A report on the status of defense lawyers in Israeli courts’ (Forthcoming).

Torture
On September 6, 1999 the Israeli High Court of Justice, ruled to ban the use of torture during interrogation.  This, however, did not explicitly forbid the use of torture but rather allowed that interrogation methods deemed as torture (named as moderate physical pressure) may be used in the “necessity of defence” and in situations where a detainee is deemed a ‘ticking bomb’. In some instances, detainees have died while in custody as a result of torture. Confessions extracted through torture are admissible in court and/or military tribunal (1).

In practice, Palestinian detainees are submitted to the following forms of torture:
•    Routine: sleep deprivation, hands tied with plastic cuffs, squeezing of plastic cuffs to cut off circulation, beatings, slaps, kicks, physical and psychological threats and humiliation;
•    Special methods (used in ‘ticking bomb’ cases): Shabeh (position abuse), in which detainees are shackled to a chair in painful positions, pressure on different parts of the body, strongly shaking the detainee after being shackled for a long period of time, strangulation and other means of suffocation, pulling of hair, multiple humiliations;
•    Inside cells: sleep deprivation, exposure to extreme temperatures, prolonged and continuous exposure to artificial light, solitary confinement, tear gas thrown inside cells, inhumane detention conditions.

As Israel can legally hold detainees incommunicado for up to two months, Israeli Security Agency (ISA) interrogators are able to use methods of torture with impunity. If a complaint is lodged, investigations are confidential and led by an ISA agent under the authority of the State Attorney. No agent has been charged since the responsibility for investigations was transferred to the Ministry of Justice in 1994.

Interrogation
Under Israeli military regulations a Palestinian can be detained for up to 8 days without the Israeli military informing the detainee of the reason for his/her arrest and without being brought before a judge. Between April and June 2002, this period of time was increased by Israeli military order 1500 to 18 days. Following or during the 8 days of detention, a detainee is sent to an interrogation center, charged with an offense, given an administrative detention order, or released.

According to martial law, security authorities may prohibit a detainee from meeting with a lawyer for up to 90 days. This prohibition may also apply to meeting with Red Cross representatives, who are authorised by international agreements to visit Palestinian detainees who are under interrogation. Thus, the Palestinian detainee is completely disconnected from the outside world for a prolonged duration.

On arrival at an interrogation and detention centre the detainee is either placed in a cell or taken straight for interrogation.  During the interrogation period, a detainee is often subjected to some form of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment ranging in extremity, whether physical or psychological.  Addameer receives numerous reports of the continued use of abusive techniques being employed against Palestinians during interrogation. These techniques include:
•    excessive use of blindfolds and handcuffs;
•    slapping and kicking;
•    sleep deprivation and solitary confinement;
•    denial of food and water for extended periods of time;
•    denial of access to toilets and denial of access to showers or change of clothes for days or weeks
•    exposure to extreme cold or heat
•    position abuse and  yelling and exposure to loud noises
•    arresting family members or alleging that family members have been arrested

Secret detention “Facility 1391”
In 2003 Israel admitted to having at least one secret interrogation facility (known as 1391 facility) that falls under the responsibility of the Israeli Security Agency. It is not identified on any map; therefore the exact location is unknown. Arial photography does not even include the site of this facility. It is assumed that it is located within a military base outside the 1967 occupied territory and that it falls under the responsibility of unit 504 of the military intelligence. Detainees are not told where they are being held. Legal counsel for specific clients may, upon request, learn of their client’s detention at the facility, but remain in the dark about its location. Interrogations at this facility are alleged to employ extreme measures amounting to torture and ill-treatment. The conditions of detention are reported by former detainees of the facility to include sensory deprivation, including frequent and long periods of isolation and the denial of basic sanitary conditions. The International Committee of the Red Cross has no access to this facility. It is possible that it has been in existence for approximately 25 years since it was established.  Even those in the highest political and military systems in Israel claim to have no idea what goes on inside this facility.

Disciplinary Penalties Taken Against Palestinian Detainees:
The Israeli Prison Administration (IPA) imposes harsh penalties on prisoners for trivial reasons such as the failure of prisoners to show up for morning or evening count or failure to appear for strip search. One incident was breaking into Ansar 3 Prison (Negev) on 22 October 2007, causing the death of detainee Mohammad Al-Ashqar and the injury of 300 detainees with various degrees. The forces used rubber bullets, pepper, gas bombs and clubs. Other penalties include:
•    Preventing detainees from buying goods from the canteen and from receiving financial allowance for a period of six months;
•    Imposing solitary confinement for long periods as a disciplinary penalty.
•    Imposing collective punishment as a punishment for an individual violation that a detainee may commit;
•    Confiscating personal belongings or allowed belongings as a punishment;
•    Preventing detainees from pursuing their study;
•    Preventing detainees from having the break;
•    Cutting off water and electricity;
•    Closing detainee’s canteen special account.
•    Breaking into the rooms constantly and opening fire in the air;
•    Preventing sick detainees from taking the medicine;
•    Imposing fines on detainee;
•    Preventing detainees from performing Friday’s prayer in a group;
•    Denying family’s visit for an open period;

Solitary Confinement
Each year, tens of prisoners in Israeli prisons are held in solitary confinement, as a disciplinary measure, or in isolation, on grounds of state, prison or prisoners’ security. Isolated prisoners are usually held alone in a separate cell for reasons other than as a disciplinary measure. In this cell, they are prevented from making contact with the general prison population, although isolated prisoners may sometimes share their separate cell with one or more other prisoners who also require isolation.  Solitary confinement is a common practice during interrogation, typically employed immediately following arrest. In most cases during interrogation, the Palestinian detainee is held for varying periods in total isolation.

Isolation
Palestinian prisoners held in isolation can be divided into two primary groups. The first includes prisoners who have been isolated on security grounds, and the second includes prisoners who suffer from mental health problems. Isolation causes mental and physical damage, both among mentally healthy prisoners and among prisoners with a history of mental illness.

Mental health services in Israeli prisons are inadequate, as they are typically limited to medication only and do not include accompanying supportive therapy sessions. This problem is greatly exacerbated for Palestinian prisoners, in whose case a language barrier exists. In most cases, prison psychiatrists do not speak Arabic but rather interact with patients through a translator belonging to the prison staff. This mediation enhances the lack of trust between the prisoner and the physician. In addition, the mental health personnel’s unfamiliarity with the culture and social codes of the Palestinian population creates an additional obstacle to providing optimal mental health treatment. Furthermore, Palestinian prisoners are not eligible for the services of social workers, who provide an additional support network for criminal prisoners. Therefore, rather than working toward less damaging therapeutic and security alternatives, prison and security authorities use isolation as a default mechanism (2).

Conditions of Isolation in Israeli Prisons
Prisoners in isolation are held alone in their cells for 23 hours a day. They are allowed to leave their cell for a daily walk of one hour, without the presence of other prisoners. One prisoner reported that his daily walk was scheduled for the early morning hours before full sunlight and that despite his protests, the prison refused to reschedule the walk. On their way to their walk, the prisoners’ hands and feet are shackled. Handcuffs may sometimes be removed, but in many cases prisoners reported to Addameer that they remained handcuffed and sometimes even leg shackled during the walk. During every transfer from the isolation cell, including for attorney visits, the prisoner’s hands and feet are shackled, and he or she is accompanied by a prison officer.

The isolation cells in the various prison wings are similar in size – between 1.5 X 2 meters to 3 X 3.5 meters. In the cell there is usually a window measuring 50 X 100 cm, which in most cases does not allow in sufficient light and air from the outside. One prisoner reported that there was no natural light or fresh air in his cell and that for two months his cell was lit by artificial light, day and night. The cells include a toilet and shower – a single unit which forms part of the cell. Prisoners typically hang a curtain to separate the toilet and shower area from the rest of the cell. The cell usually has an iron door, which includes an opening at its lower part, through which guards insert food trays. As a result, prisoners do not have eye contact with other prisoners in the isolation wing or with guards. In a few prisons, the doors of isolation cells are made of iron grid, allowing eye contact to be maintained.

1  Addameer Prisoners Support and Human Rights Association Report: ‘Violations against Palestinian Detainees 2007’

2  Physicians for Human Rights & Addameer Prisoners Support & Human Rights Association (2008) ‘Isolation and Solitary Confinement of Palestinians in Israeli Detention’.  Available online at: www.phr.org.il/phr/article.asp?articleid=621&catid=58&pcat=-1&lang=ENG

Introduction
Since the beginning of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories in 1967, over 700,000  Palestinians have been detained by Israel. This forms approximately 20% of the total Palestinian population in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). Considering the fact that the majority of those detained are male, the number of Palestinians detained forms approximately 40% of the total male Palestinian population in the OPT.

As of November 2008, there are approximately, 9,493 Palestinian political prisoners being held in Israeli prisons and detention centers. 650 of these are administrative detainees, held without charge or trial for indefinite periods of time. 300 of the political prisoners are aged 18 and under.  There are 65 Palestinian female political prisoners, 1 of whom is a mother who gave birth in prison.  There remain 38 elected members of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), including one female PLC member.

Process of Arrest
Palestinians are routinely arrested at checkpoints, off the street and most commonly, from their homes in the early hours of the morning. In the case of arrest from the family home, units from the Israeli army will typically surround the house between midnight and 4 am and force family members onto the street in their nightclothes, regardless of weather conditions. Upon arrest, detainees are usually handcuffed with plastic cuffs and blindfolded. They are not informed of the reason for their arrest, nor are they told where they will be taken.

Physical abuse and humiliation of the detainee by Israeli forces is common. Based on numerous sworn affidavits, detainees have reported that they have been subjected to attempted murder and rape, and thrown down stairs while blindfolded, amongst many other forms of physical abuse. During their arrest, detainees have often been forced to strip in public before being taken into custody. Family members have also been forced to remove their clothes in house- to- house arrest campaigns and raids.  Mass arrests from homes in entire neighbourhoods continue to take place in the OPT during military incursions. Once bound and blindfolded, the detainee is usually placed on the floor of a military jeep, sometimes face down, for transfer to an interrogation and detention centre.  Neither the detainee nor his or her family is told why he or she is being detained or where he or she is being taken. Addameer has received numerous reports of abuse of detainees during the transfer process by Israeli soldiers, consisting of beatings, kicking and threats. These journeys can take anywhere from 20 minutes up to many hours.

Distribution of Prisoners
Israeli prisons and military detention camps are primarily located within the 1948 borders of Israel. There are a total of 4 interrogation centers, as well as secret interrogation facilities, 5 detention/holding centers, and about 21 prisons in which Palestinians from the OPT are held. The location of prisons within Israel and the transfer of detainees to locations within the occupying power’s territory are illegal under international law and constitute a war crime. The Fourth Geneva Convention explicitly states that “Protected persons accused of offences shall be detained in the occupied country, and if convicted they shall serve their sentences therein.” (Article 76) Most of the Palestinian Prisoners are being held in detention facilities located outside the OPT.

Family Visits
All Palestinian families wishing to visit a family member imprisoned in Israel must receive an entry permit into Israel (except for Jerusalem residents), which takes between one and three months to obtain and is only valid for three months. The application for the permit is submitted via the ICRC and transferred to the Israeli side. Not only do the basic criteria for receiving entry permits restrict the visiting population (16-45-year-old men are prohibited from receiving permits), but also hundreds of families may not receive permit on security grounds. As a result, hundreds of prisoners do not receive family visits for extended periods that may reach a number of years. Other sweeping restrictions may withhold Palestinian family visits, such as the prohibition of visits by families from one, or all, areas of the OPT, or to a certain prison, on security grounds. In the past, visits have been suspended for periods of over a year.

When they are not denied, visits with Palestinian prisoners take place once every two weeks for 45 minutes. As stated, only immediate family members are allowed to visit.  A glass window, sometimes accompanied by bars, separates the visitor and the prisoner. Communication takes place through a telephone or through holes in the glass. Only three family members are permitted to visit a detainee at a time. Since June 2007, Israeli authorities have placed a total ban on visits by family members from Gaza to their relatives incarcerated in Israel. This ban affects approximately 1,000 prisoners and their families. Preventing family visits has in practice led to the isolation of these prisoners from the outside world due to the strict limitations or bans placed on all forms of contact and communication by “security” prisoners. The timing of this decision to ban family visits, coincided with the capture of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in Gaza, and appears to be a form of collective punishment intended to coerce Palestinian factions to respond to Israel’s demands. In so doing, Israel is transforming Palestinian prisoners into pawns to achieve political gains not related to the official reasons for their imprisonment.

Prison Conditions
Palestinian prisoners are discriminated against in terms of their conditions of imprisonment. Due to these conditions, along with restrictions on family visits, the prisoners are almost completely cut off from the world outside the prison. The mental and physical implications of this discrimination are much graver for prisoners held in isolation or solitary confinement, who are disconnected from the prison population as well.

Addameer continues to receive complaints from both adult and child detainees about the conditions in which they are being held in Israeli interrogation and detention centres and prisons. Prison conditions in Israeli military detention camps are appalling. Detainees are held in overcrowded prison tents that are often threadbare and do not provide for adequate shelter against extreme weather in the winter or summer.  Hygiene facilities are dire.  Toilets are located inside prison cells with sewage often coming through the drains. The Israeli Prison Authority (IPS) does not provide essential hygiene products, such as toothpaste; only prisoners whose canteen accounts have been closed receive essential personal hygiene products and cleaning products for their cells. Prisoners report that personal hygiene products were provided up until 2002 but from that year on were significantly limited. All prisoners reported that IPS provided only half a liter of floor cleaning liquid and that the rest of their personal products, including all products used for cleaning their cell, were bought at their own personal expense.

Most prisoners reported that the food provided by the IPS was insufficient in terms of quality and quantity alike. The prisoners buy most of their food from the canteen and recook the cooked food they get from IPS. However, the purchasing power of prisoners is radically divergent, and such encouragement by the Israeli authorities is immoral as they are ultimately responsible for providing sufficient food for prisoners. In most cases, it is the prisoners’ responsibility to provide more than half of their necessary food, which is problematic as most prisoners come from poor families. Sometimes, a prisoner’s canteen account is closed, as has occurred to tens of prisoners, especially those who have been identified with Hamas over the past year. Prisoners report that IPS food is inappropriate for the medical needs of those who require a special diet.

Health Conditions
The prison authority adopts a systematic policy in all detention centers. This policy is a deliberate form medical negligence which involves delays in providing medical treatment. Israel avoids its duty and fails to comply with the international standards that require holding detainees in places under healthy conditions, with provision of medical treatment and specialised medical care for sick detainees. There is a clinic with one nurse in all Israeli prisons. The doctor comes to the clinic once or twice a week for no more than four hours. If the specified time is finished, he leaves the prison and the sick prisoners are not treated until the next week.  The medical team deals with the cases that require medical services slowly and with deliberate negligence. If a detainee requires medical care and the prison’s doctor decides to refer him to the hospital, it takes months, under the pretext that the Ar-Ramleh Prison’s hospital can only take a limited number of patients. If it turns out, after the medical examinations, that the patient is required to have a surgery, he has to wait for his turn, which may take months or years, thus causing severe complications and deterioration in the patient’s health and psychological condition.  The only medicine given for the treatment of all diseases is painkillers.  In addition, the prison administration denies access of medicines from outside the prison, either from the family or Palestinian organizations. Sick detainees inside Israeli prisons live on painkillers and tranquilizers.

As a result of the sub-standard conditions of detention, detainees who are released are often faced with chronic health problems such as skin diseases, fatigue and weakness, kidney problems and ulcers. The medical system and clinics are also unprepared to receive Palestinian detainees, some of whom arrive with a wide variety of illnesses, often requiring further investigation and close medical supervision.  The system is not prepared to screen sick detainees and has no contact with the detainee’s family or attending physician.  In some cases, the lack of proper attention to medical needs has led to deterioration in the detainees’ health.

A further problem is the lack of communication between the detainees and the physician in the detention facility, both because of language difficulties and because the physician is inevitably seen as part of the military machine responsible for the detainee’s incarceration.  In such conditions, it is difficult for detainees to develop relationships of trust with the physician, who is supposed to see to their welfare and represent their interests as patients.

Discrimination
Severe discrimination exists in the conditions of confinement of Palestinians classified as security detainees within the Israeli prison system. Pre-trial detainees alleged to have committed offences defined as security offences under section 35(b) of the Criminal Procedure (Enforcement Detention) Law – 1996 are confined in separate prisons under separate, harsher conditions than “criminal” detainees, under order 22 of the (Powers of Enforcement – Detention) (Conditions of Holding in Detention) – 1997. None of these detainees have been convicted of any offence.  Security detainees are not entitled to a daily walk in the open air or to use the telephone, even to call their attorney. Criminal detainees, by contrast, are permitted a daily hour-long walk and are allowed to make a daily telephone call to their attorneys, family and friends. Criminal detainees are provided with a bed, while security detainees are provided a thin mattress; criminal detainees, but not security detainees are provided newspapers, books, TVs, radios, a razor and mirror, an electric kettle, wall light, fan and heater. Some of the discriminatory conditions are hygiene-related: for example, the cells of security detainees do not contain a basin, and while criminal detainees’ cells must be sanitised and disinfected annually and provided with detergents, this is not the case for political detainees.

These discriminatory conditions severely violate the fundamental rights of thousands of detainees, including their right to dignity, to personal freedom and to fair and minimal living conditions in detention centres, and may amount to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.  Israeli interrogation and detention centres are meant as temporary holding facilities. However, some detainees, including children, who are sentenced to less than three months imprisonment, end up serving their entire sentence at these facilities due to a lack of space in Israeli prisons. This results in poor conditions and overcrowding.

Education
Palestinian prisoners can receive books via the ICRC and their families during visits, but restrictions are always imposed by the prison on the kinds and number of books they are allowed to receive. They receive newspapers in Arabic, such as Alquds, free of charge, but other newspapers, in Hebrew or English, are distributed only to those holding a subscription. The newspapers are always distributed after a delay and are not up to date.

Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons are allowed to study only at the Open University of Israel. They may not continue their studies at any institution they studied at prior to their arrest, even if the university so approves. A years-long struggle to change this practice has been unsuccessful. The IPS claims that prisoners are barred from participating in study programs of Arab universities for security reasons. Many prisoners are unable to register at Israeli universities because of financial and language restrictions. Additionally, detainees being held at military detention centres, as opposed to prisons, are prohibited from registering at any university. Prisoners who are held in isolation are also not allowed to study even at the Open University of Israel.

In some Israeli prisons, limited provisions are made for the education of Palestinian minors who are detained. At Telmond Prison, for example, Palestinian child prisoners receive daily instruction, but study an Israeli curriculum. Child detainees, both male and female, held in Megiddo and Ketziot have absolutely no access to education. The administration often does not allow books in to the prison for independent study, and even when they are allowed, time for study is often prohibited or taken away as a form of punishment. In June 2007, the Israeli authorities banned all prisoners from taking their final high school year tawjihi exam.  Israeli criminal juvenile offenders are, however, allowed to continue their formal education uninterrupted while in detention.