On Wednesday 3rd April nine people, including six Palestinians and three internationals were arrested by Israeli soldiers and were then held in custody for over 24 hours where they were beaten and abused. One Palestinian woman remains in Israeli police custody.

 

The group were on a walk in the Jordan Valley starting in the morning from the village of Ein Al-Heloue and ending near Route 90 when they were interrupted by Israeli soldiers who surrounded the group and threw stun grenades and tear gas at the walkers. Three Israeli army jeeps arrived to stop the walkers, who were part of a larger party of around 40-50 walkers from the local area. Two Palestinian women were injured in the violence, and required medical treatment for tear gas inhalation. After leaving the scene where the Israeli military had gathered to confront the walking group, 6 Palestinians and 3 internationals, from France, Italy and Canada, were arrested by another Israeli soldier, blindfolded and taken to a military base nearby.

Their hands were bound with zip ties, and they remained blindfolded for the rest of their time in custody. They believe they were taken to Hamdat military base in the Jordan Valley. Their passports, phones and other possessions were seized by the soldiers and they were not allowed any outside contact for 24 hours. The Israeli soldiers then beat the Palestinian men and one woman in the same room that the detainees were all held together. Lina, a 25 year-old woman from France who was amongst those arrested said that one of the older men, Abu Nasser from Nablus, was taken to another room and beaten viciously. He protested and sang at the soldiers. The other detainees heard him screaming as he was aggressively beaten until he fell unconscious for half an hour. When he was returned to the room his face had been completely covered. During this time, none were given medical treatment. One of the Palestinian men was released over night but the rest remained in detention. Meanwhile they were given no food or blankets, and were still blindfolded with their hands bound.

 

As the Palestinian prisoner’s rights organisation, Addameer notes in this report, Israeli forces continue to routinely use torture of detainees in their custody, despite international prohibitions against the use of torture. The grassroots human rights groups Al-Haq and B’tselem as well as Addameer, have documented abuse and torture in Israeli detention. Today Palestinian prisoner held in Israeli prisons announced a coordinated hunger strike to bring attention to repression, violence and poor conditions in Israeli prisons. There are currently over five thousand political prisoners in Israeli prisons. Palestinians living in the Jordan Valley are frequently targeted by Israeli forces for harassment and violence, including arrest, in an attempted demoralisation of peaceful Palestinian resistance to the occupation in the valley, most of which falls under Area C, or full Israeli military and civil control. Recently, a peaceful action of tree planting in the Jordan Valley was met with Israeli violence from the army.

 

Furthermore, it is illegal for the Israeli military to detain internationals for longer than 4 hours, and the French, Italian and Canadian held at the military base were not in legal custody and should have been transferred to the Israeli police, who can legally hold foreign nationals. The group of detainees were not taken into police custody until around 12 hours after the arrest, where after some more hours had passed the internationals were allowed to speak to a lawyer for the first time. The Palestinian detainees were given no access to a lawyer. The system of legal apartheid in the occupied West Bank means that while Palestinians are under Israeli military law, Israeli settlers and foreign nationals are covered by Israeli civil law. Furthermore, it is unclear why any of the group was being held, and they were not told what the charges were they were arrested for. Also during the detention both with the army and police the group were not given any food. Towards the end of the detention with the police, after a day in detention, they were offered food, but were not allowed to remove the zip ties binding their hands, and so refused the food in protest at this maltreatment. Most of the group was released after 27 hours without charge, and for the first time, they could remove their blindfolds and zip ties . One Palestinian woman remained in police custody without charge for several days, and has now been released after paying the Israeli occupations 10,000 Israeli Shekels.

 

More resources here:

 

https://www.btselem.org/topic/jordan_valley

 

http://www.addameer.org/

 

https://samidoun.net/