“When I got out, I weighed 25 (55.2 lbs) kilos less. My family didn’t recognize me”. – Firas Hassan, former Palestinian prisoner

Testimony from released Palestinian prisoners shows how Israeli authorities have turned more than a dozen prison facilities into places where Palestinian detainees waste away, with food rations cut to starvation levels. 

A freed Palestinian prisoner reported that Israeli guards in the prison said they would only provide “enough food to stay alive,” Anadolu news agency reported. 

“For 11 prisoners, two plates of rice” were given, said Atef Awahdeh in an interview on social media that is going viral.

“Three spoonfuls of rice a day, exactly,” said Sami Khalili, a freed Palestinian prisoner from Nablus.

“For 11 prisoners, two plates of rice” were given, freed Palestinian prisoner Atef Awahdeh says in an interview on social media that is going viral
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Saying that he lost eight kilos (17.63 pounds) during 10 days in an Israeli prison, lawyer Sari Hurriyah stated that five people had to share a plate and eat the food with their bare hands.

“When I got out, I weighed 25 (55.2 lbs) kilos less. My family didn’t recognize me,” said Firas Hassan, another prisoner.

10,000 Prisoners 

Meanwhile, the Israeli occupation army on Wednesday detained 26 more Palestinians in military raids across the occupied West Bank, prisoners’ affairs groups said.

According to a joint statement for the Commission of Detainees’ Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoner Society, the new arrests bring the total number of Palestinians detained by the Israeli army in the West Bank since October last year to 10,000. The number includes those who were released after being arrested. 

The statement noted that the figure doesn’t include those arrested from the Gaza Strip whose numbers are estimated to be in the thousands.

Starting October 7 – Number of Palestinians Detained in West Bank Reaches 10,000

Over the past few years, the Israeli military has conducted regular raids in the West Bank, which have escalated with the beginning of the war on Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023. 

Palestinians have also been violently attacked by illegal Israeli settlers through pogroms that were often carried out jointly with the Israeli army.

In a landmark opinion on July 19, the International Court of Justice declared Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestinian land “illegal” and demanded the evacuation of all existing settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

(Anadolu, PC)