Horrific testimonies have emerged of cases of torture inflicted on Palestinian detainees from the Gaza Strip and West Bank by the Israeli military forces.
A joint statement by a prisoners’ affairs group on Sunday reportedly revealed that “The testimonies from recently released detainees in Gaza revealed gruesome details of torture and abuse by the occupying army upon them, with their bodies bearing signs of abuse.”
The Palestinian Prisoners Society released a video in which an elderly man is seen with bruises and wounds on his hands and feet.
The statement said “Prisoner Nael al-Barghouti, 66, had been tortured during his transfer from Ofer Prison in western Ramallah, to Gilboa Prison in northern Israel,” the Anadolu News Agency reported.
Jailed Without Charge: Nael Barghouti, 64-year-old Palestinian in jail for 42 years https://t.co/LyKR1XLNHK
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Al-Barghouti “was brutally beaten with batons and rifles and the assault on him and his fellow prisoners continued for three consecutive hours,” the report added.
The assault “was focused on the chest and rib, resulting in fractures and contusions”, according to the statement.
Al-Barghouti is one of the longest-serving Palestinian prisoners, having been released in a 2011 exchange deal between Hamas and Israel. He was re-arrested in 2014.
He was then re-sentenced to life imprisonment, serving a total of 44 years in Israeli prisons.
9/ WATCH: 'Ramzy Baroud: These Chains Will Be Broken' on @PDeepdive @MarkSeddon1962 interviews @RamzyBaroud on our Live Show about the neglected subject of Palestinian prisoners.
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Writing from prison, Al-Barghouti has said: “When a nation seeks its freedom, it will always prevail. The occupation will never succeed in planting defeat in our hearts, because we summon our courage from our faith in God and from the legacies of all the nations that sought and achieved their freedom and dignity.”
Al-Barghouthi’s story was included in Ramzy Baroud’s volume ‘These Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons’.
‘Love Behind Bars’ – The Story of Palestinian Prisoner Nael al-Barghouti
(Palestine Chronicle, Anadolu)
