*A U.N. office said Israel’s detention and treatment of detainees might amount to torture. It estimated thousands had been detained and held in “horrific” conditions. Some were freed wearing only diapers.* by Raja Abdulrahim, NYTimes, *January 23, 2024* https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/23/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-palestinian-detainees.html . . . Cold, almost naked and surrounded by Israeli soldiers with M16 assault rifles, Ayman Lubbad knelt among dozens of Palestinian men and boys who had just been forced from their homes in northern Gaza.
It was early December and photographs and videos taken at <https://twitter.com/kann_news/status/1732764693909864553> the time showed him and other detainees in the street, wearing only underwear and lined up in rows, surrounded by Israeli forces. ... . . . Palestinian detainees from Gaza have been stripped, beaten, interrogated and held incommunicado over the past three months, according to accounts by nearly a dozen of the detainees or their relatives interviewed by The New York Times. Organizations representing Palestinian prisoners and detainees gave similar accounts in a <https://www.addameer.org/news/5252> report <https://www.addameer.org/news/5252>, accusing Israel of both indiscriminate detention of civilians and demeaning treatment of detainees. Israeli forces who invaded Gaza after the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack have detained men, women and children by the thousands. Some were ordered out of their houses and seized while others were taken as they fled their neighborhoods on foot with their families, trying to reach safer areas after the Israeli authorities ordered them to leave. . . . “So far, Israel has concealed the fate of detainees from Gaza, has not disclosed their numbers, and prevented lawyers and the Red Cross from visiting detainees,” the report added. . . . During the first month of the war, <https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/22/world/middleeast/gaza-ride-south-evacuees.html> Israel warned those who did not flee areas under evacuation orders that they “may be considered a partner in a terrorist organization.” Last month, an Israeli government spokesman, Eylon Levy, said Israeli forces were detaining “military-age men” in those areas. Hamas was estimated to have 20,000 to 40,000 fighters before the war, according to American and other Western analysts, among a population of more than two million people in Gaza. “The presumption that military-aged males are combatants is troubling,” Mr. Finucane said. Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories, said <https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/22/world/middleeast/gaza-ride-south-evacuees.html> in October that designating civilians who did not evacuate as accomplices to terrorism was not only a threat of collective punishment, but could constitute ethnic cleansing. . . . -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#29664): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/29664 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/105146521/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
