From Khalid Amayreh in Occupied Jerusalem
"The Israeli prison authorities at the Treblinka-like Kitziot detention camp have stepped up repressive acts against thousands of Palestinian political detainees, prisoners reported Monday.
According to “abu Muhammed,” a prisoner at Kitziot, the Israeli authorities have been using “every conceivable act of repression and coercion” against Palestinian political detainees, including withholding medicine, host water, and food salt from them. “When the prison authority carried out the segregation several weeks ago, they hoped the prisoners would fight with each other and the sullen atmosphere between Fatah and Hamas in the West Bank and Gaza would also prevail in the prisons and detention camps". “However, when this nefarious goal failed to materialize among the prisoners, and when the Fatah and Hamas detainees continued to maintain fairly good relations, the Israeli prison authorities got furious. Hence the latest acts of repression,” said Abu Ahmed in a telephone conversation with this reporter.
Abu Ahmed (he wouldn’t give his real name for obvious reasons) said inmates have of late been subjected to extreme medical negligence, including withholding from them essential medicine. “We have patients with hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, and other chronic illnesses. These people are being denied medicine and medications and are only given analgesics and tranquilizers, and that is all.”
Asked why he thought the Israeli prison authorities were behaving in such manners, Abu Ahmed said “the Israelis simply want to torment and humiliate us because they failed to spread the tension between Fatah and Hamas to the prisoners who have maintained a semblance of brotherly relations.”
The Fatah-affiliated prisoner leader said the quality of food being given to the estimated 2500 Palestinian inmates at the Kitziot detention vamp “was very very bad.” “Our food is very unhealthy, it lacks variations and essential nutritional components. We have a lot of carbohydrates, but little meet and vegetable.”
Israel in late June, following the takeover by Hamas of the Gaza Strip to forestall a looming civil war, the Israeli prison authorities segregated prisoners according to their political affiliation. The measure was taken against the prisoners’ will and enforced through physical coercion. Israeli officials said then the draconian act was aimed at preventing violence between Hamas and Fatah supporters. However, the prisoners themselves denounced the forced segregation, calling it an attempt to incite prisoners against each other and give the false impression of a deep chasm between Fatah and Hamas.
Moreover, Israel was apparently apprehensive about the political contacts among prisoners which could lead to reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas.
Israel is holding as many as 11,000 Palestinian political and resistance activists in many detention camps and prisons throughout the Zionist state. Many of the detainees are held without charge or trial for prolonged periods of time.
Last month Israel released 255 Fatah-affiliated prisoners as part of “measures” aimed at “strengthening” the Ramallah-based government of Mahmoud Abbas against the democratically-elected Hamas-led government. However, ever since, the Israeli occupation army has arrested twice as many Palestinians."
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