Statement by the Global Movement for the Defense of Children/ the Palestinian Section& Health Work Committees & Al Dameer organizations on the Palestinian Prisoners Day & the Arab Prisoners Day

The Palestinians celebrate the Palestinian Prisoners Day on April 17 and the Arab Prisoners Day on April 22nd in expression of solidarity of all Palestinians from all sectors and with the prisoners' cause and their right of unconditioned freedom. It is a day for rejecting injustice and for stressing.  It is a day dedicated for their freedom and for rejecting the injustice and to assert loyalty to the Palestinians and Arab prisoners and for solidarity with their cause and just issues that they fought for. 

The Day of Prisoners comes this year while the Israeli occupation still continues its forced aggression against our people and our land and our just cause. There is the continuous aggression against our people and children in Gaza. Israel is forcefully practicing settlements, Judaization of land, and detention campaigns in all Palestine at the same time while what is called the "Directorate of Prisoners Department for Palestinian Prisoners in Israeli Jails" is practicing torture, repression, isolation, and deprivation of the simplest rights, the first of which is the right to health. All this comes in clear violation by Israel of all international norms and charters, in particular the Fourth Geneva Convention. 

This occasion also comes at a time where our people are in most need to regain its national unity and to end its state of internal state of division which only benefits the occupation. Since 1967, more than 700 thousand Palestinians were imprisoned for different periods of time. This comprises 20% of the Palestinian population, 11 thousand of whom are still in prison including 80 female prisoners and 327 children; the youngest is Yousef the child of prisoner Fatima Al Zuk who was born in prison in last January. There are also around 900 administrative détentes and 237 prisoners whom have been detained for more than 15 years of whom 13 have been imprisoned for more than 25 years.

 1,300 prisoners suffer chronic disease as heart and kidney disease, cancer, arthritis, diabetes and other chronic medical conditions. There are also disabled prisoners and paralyzed ones whom the Israeli prisons administration procrastinate in allowing the provision of needed surgery procedures. 194 prisoners have died in the Israeli prisons since 1967 as a result of torture, medical negligence, and direct killing. 

Our male and female prisoners not only suffer, but also our children prisoners are subjected to double violations contrary to article 37 of the International Convention on the Rights of the Child which emphasizes on "no child is to be subjected to cruelty, torture, or inhumane unprofessional treatment, and no child is to be deprived of his/her freedom in unlawful or arbitrary way. Children should be arrested or detained according to the law which is only to be exercised as a last resort and for the shortest possible period of time. 

The systematic attack on our male and female prisoners has affected all aspects of their lives. The different ways of torture during interrogation (including tormenting families for extraction of confessions from their children as stated in the report of the Israeli Public Committee Against Torture) to the daily oppression and repression, the strip searches, financial penalties, restriction and denial of movement between wards, denial of family visits, the bad food (quality and quantity), and solitary confinement in cells. 

The reality of prisoners' conditions and life these days requires the concerted efforts of all official and popular activists at all levels; national, regional and international, for championing their cause and put an end to the Israeli violations and to ensure their right to unconditioned, non discriminated freedom. 

Our commitment to our prisoners and their just cause requires immediate action to end our state of division and to restore our national and peoples solidarity.