Palestine: Call for UN to investigate alleged execution of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails
By Abdul Adil
(AA, Al Jazeera, Wafa, The Muslim News):
GAZA
Palestine called Monday for a UN investigation into the alleged execution of prisoners in Israeli jails.
The statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs followed announcements from Palestinian institutions that the number of known Palestinian deaths in Israeli prisons had risen to 59 since the start of the Israeli aggression on Oct. 7, 2023 after the death of a detainee from Gaza.
It marked the highest number of prisoner fatalities since 1967, bringing the total number of those who died since 1967 to 296, it said.
Earlier in the day, the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs and the Palestine Prisoner’s Society said in a joint statement that they had received confirmation from the Israeli military that detainee Mus’ab Hani Haniyeh, 35, had died in an Israeli prison on Jan. 5.
Haniyeh, originally from Khan Younis in Gaza, had been detained since March 3, 2024. According to his family, he had no health issues prior to his arrest.
With Haniyeh’s death, the number of Palestinian prisoners who have died in Israeli custody since the start of the genocide on Oct. 7, 2023 has risen to 59, with at least 38 of them from Gaza, the statement affirmed.
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry expressed grave concern over the rising number of deaths among prisoners.
Meanwhile, Palestinian medics and rescue teams retrieved five more bodies from the rubble in the Gaza Strip, pushing the overall death toll from Israel’s genocidal war since October 2023 to 48,346, the Health Ministry said on Monday.
A ministry statement said that the toll also included two Palestinians killed by Israeli army fire in the last 24 hours.
Some 111,759 others were injured in the Israeli onslaught on Gaza since October 2023, the Health Ministry added.
“Many victims are still trapped under the rubble and on the roads as rescuers are unable to reach them,” the ministry said.
The Government Media Office updated its death toll to at least 61,709, saying thousands of Palestinians missing under the rubble are presumed dead.
Palestinian authorities warned of a health and environmental crisis in Gaza City on Monday as mountains of garbage were piling up amid Israeli restrictions.
“Gaza City is faiing a major health and environmental disaster due to the accumulation of about 170,000 tons of garbage in the streets and temporary landfills,” Gaza Municipality said in a statement.
It accused Israel of preventing municipal teams from reaching the main landfill east of the city following the destruction of 80% of the municipality’s machinery in Israeli bombardment.
The municipal authority explained that waste was being transferred by its teams from streets and residential areas to temporary landfills inside the city.
The Gaza Strip has been reduced to a wasteland of wrecked buildings and piles of rubble by Israel’s brutal offensive that has killed more than 48,300 people, mostly women and children, since October 2023.
Several Palestinian homes caught fire on Monday after Israeli army fire in Rafah city in the southern Gaza Strip, witnesses said.
According to witnesses, Israeli drones and tanks opened fire towards central Rafah, setting several homes ablaze.
Israeli army fire was also reported in the eastern parts of Gaza City, but no injuries were reported.
The new attacks came despite a ceasefire and prisoner swap agreement that took hold in Gaza last month, pausing Israel’s brutal onslaught that killed more than 48,300 people and left the enclave in ruins.
Palestinian authorities have reported over 350 Israeli breaches of the ceasefire deal since Jan. 19, including the killing of 92 people and injury of 822 others in Israeli attacks.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday said he is “gravely concerned” over the rising violence in the occupied West Bank and the human rights violations in Gaza.
Guterres, addressing the 58th session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, said: “I am gravely concerned by the rising violence in the occupied West Bank by Israeli settlers and other violations, as well as calls for annexation.”
“In the Occupied Palestinian Territory, violations of human rights have skyrocketed since the horrific Hamas attacks of October 7 and the intolerable levels of death and destruction in Gaza,” he said.
Describing the ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas as “precarious,” he urged: “We must avoid at all costs a resumption of hostilities. The people in Gaza have already suffered too much.”
“It’s time for a permanent ceasefire, the dignified release of all remaining hostages, irreversible progress towards a two-state solution, an end to the occupation, and the establishment of an independent Palestinian State, with Gaza as an integral part,” he added.
WEST BANK
The Israeli army withdrew early Tuesday from Qabatiya, a town near Jenin city in the northern occupied West Bank, leaving homes and shops destroyed and infrastructure damaged in their wake.
Eyewitnesses told Anadolu that the army forces completely evacuated Qabatiya after arresting several people and destroying shops and infrastructure.
The Qabatiya municipality reported that the Israeli army destroyed wastewater, electricity, water, and communication networks before leaving town.
On Sunday, the Israeli army imposed a 48-hour curfew in Qabatiya, during which its bulldozers destroyed the town’s infrastructure, as well as public and private property.
In addition, Israeli army demolished a new Palestinian home on Tuesday in the northern West Bank amid military escalation in the occupied territory, according to witnesses.
Witnesses said the house was bulldozed in the village of Kafr al-Dik, west of Salfit city for the alleged lack of a building permit.
The Israeli army has demolished four buildings in the same village since the start of this year.
The demolition came as the army continued deadly raids in the northern West Bank, where over 60 people have been killed and thousands displaced since last month.
According to Palestinian figures, the Israeli army demolished 126 Palestinian structures in January, including 74 inhabited homes and 29 agricultural facilities in the West Bank.
In addition, Israeli military arrested at least 365 Palestinians from the Jenin and Tulkarem governorates since the beginning of its offensive in northern West Bank on Jan. 21.
Israel “continues to escalate its operations of arrests and on-site investigations, particularly in the Jenin governorate and its refugee camp, as well as in Tulkarem and its camps, since the beginning of the current aggression,” Palestinian Prisoners Society said in a statement.
The group described the Israeli operations as “an extension of the systematic policy of arrests, which has escalated in intensity since the genocidal war.”
The statement noted that the ongoing and escalating arrest operations are accompanied by “summary executions, direct shootings or threats thereof, as well as severe beatings and on-site investigations affecting hundreds.”
Meanwhile, the Israeli military has arrested Palestinians as hostages by surrounding homes with military barracks. The military targeted other homes for demolition, dynamiting, and burning, in addition to deliberate destruction of infrastructure, according to the society.
It also said that Israel has arrested nearly 14,500 Palestinians from the West Bank since Oct. 7, 2023.
The Israeli army has been conducting military operations in the northern West Bank since Jan. 21, killing at least 61 Palestinians and displacing thousands.
Israeli forces have blown up an agricultural facility in Qabatiya town, south of Jenin, the Wafa news agency reports.
Citing local sources, Wafa said a loud explosion was heard, followed by columns of smoke rising from the Jabal al-Zakat area. No injuries were reported.
Several Palestinians Monday evening suffocated in an Israeli army raid in al-Khader town, south of the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem, according to a WAFA correspondent.
He said that Israeli occupation forces barged their way into the town and fired heavy barrages of gunfire and tear gas canisters toward local stores and houses, causing several residents to suffocate from excessive tear gas inhalation.
Illegal Israeli settlers Monday evening attacked a Palestinian-owned herd of sheep in the Kisan wilderness, east of the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem, according to a local official.
Ahmad Nazzal said that Israeli settlers barged their way into Kisan wilderness (Bariyat Kisan) and used a tractor motorcycle to attack a herd of sheep belonging to Ahmad Nassar Rashaydeh, a shepherd, injuring a number of sheep.
He added that the assailants threatened Rashaydeh that they would attack him should he graze his cattle in the area once again.
Settlers’ violence against Palestinians and their property is routine in the West Bank and is rarely prosecuted by Israeli authorities.
Settlers’ violence includes property and mosque arsons, stone-throwing, uprooting of crops and olive trees, and attacks on vulnerable homes, among others.
Over 700,000 illegal Israeli settlers are living in colonies in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in violation of international law.
Israeli occupation forces Monday vandalized Palestinians’ vehicles in Beita town, south of the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, according to local sources.
They said that the occupying forces barged their way into the town, and smashed the windows of a number of vehicles.
Israeli occupation forces Monday evening detained at least five Palestinians from the occupied West Bank, according to security sources.
They said that special Israeli forces sneaked their way to Tunisia Street, west of the Nablus, and rounded up a youth from his store.
Also in the Nablus governorate, Israeli soldiers manning a checkpoint near Sarra town rounded up a girl after inspecting the vehicle she was riding.
Meanwhile, the occupying forces rounded up three Palestinians, including two brothers, after ransacking their houses in the Jenin refugee camp, which has been the target of Israeli aggression for 35 consecutive days.
Earlier Monday, the occupying forces detained another Palestinian, beat up his son, and seized his vehicle in the town of Sa’ir, northeast of Hebron.
In the predawn hours of Monday, the occupation forces detained three young men in separate raids in the Ramallah governorate.
One of the three detainees was identified as a resident of Silwad town, another as a resident of Kobar town, and the third as a resident of Beit Rima village.
In the city of Nablus, the occupation forces showed up at several houses, muscled inside, conducted thorough searches, and rounded up two brothers.
The heavily armed soldiers broke into the Al-Quds Open University campus and confiscated the video recorder of the CCTV camera system.
Estimates indicate that since the onset of the Israeli aggression on the Jenin governorate, the occupation forces rounded up approximately 160 Palestinians.
The occupying forces showed up at a store in Silwad town, east of Ramallah, and rounded up four residents; two fathers along with their sons.
The occupation forces barged their way into Surda town, north of Ramallah, and rearrested a former prisoner.
According to the latest figures from Addameer, the Palestinian Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, there are currently 10,000 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli prisons and detention centers, including 365 child prisoners and 15 female prisoners.
This number includes approximately 3,369 Palestinians placed under “administrative detention”, which allows the detention of Palestinians without charge or trial for renewable intervals ranging between three and six months based on undisclosed evidence that even a detainee’s lawyer is barred from viewing.
In a fresh escalation of their ongoing aggression for the 29th consecutive day, Israeli occupation forces intensified their assault on the city of Tulkarm and its refugee camps, targeting critical infrastructure with heavy bulldozers.
According to local sources, Israeli bulldozers razed part of the western street of the city, causing extensive damage to roads, sidewalks, water networks, and nearby utilities.
Israeli occupation forces also continued their destruction of infrastructure along Nablus Street, which serves as the main entrance to the city, particularly at the northern entrance to the Tulkarm refugee camp. Here, the entire infrastructure, including both water supply and sewage systems, have been destroyed.
Additional reports indicate that bulldozers further destroyed sections of the streets in the district of Al-Muqata’a in the refugee camp, extending towards the Qaqoun neighborhood, leaving widespread destruction in their wake.
Simultaneously, Israeli forces reinforced their presence in the area, sending additional troops to the city and its refugee camps of Tulkarm and Nour Shams.
During the offensive today, Israeli soldiers stationed stopped vehicles on Nablus Street, conducted intensive searches including identity and mobile phone checks of passengers, and interrogated them. The forces also confiscated vehicle keys before discarding them.
Meanwhile, Israeli settlers stormed Al-Aqsa Mosque Monday morning under the protection of the Israeli occupation forces.
Local sources reported that dozens of settlers stormed the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque, from the Al-Maghariba Gate, and performed Talmudic rituals.
[Photo: Palestinians struggle to survive their daily lives amid the rubble of buildings destroyed by Israeli attacks, compounded by harsh weather conditions, on February 23, 2025, in Jabalia refugee camp, Gaza. Photojournalist: Mahmoud Hamda/AA]
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