Prisoners’ Center: About 1,300 Gaza detainees still held in Israeli prisons

The Palestinian Center for the Defense of Prisoners called for intensified legal care for detainees from the Gaza Strip, and for documentation of the abuses, mistreatment and retaliatory behavior they face at the hands of Israeli prison forces.

The center said in a statement received by the Safa news agency on Tuesday that, according to current estimates, the number of Gaza detainees in occupation prisons reaches 1,300, and the vast majority of their arrests are classified under the term “unlawful combatant.”

It said that Gaza detainees have not received the necessary legal follow‑up and have been largely neglected by official and international institutions since the start of the war of extermination against the Strip.

The center warned that any delay in legal follow‑ups encourages the occupation to persist and to enact repressive laws and rulings that prolong the detention of Gaza prisoners, in addition to the harsher treatment they endure compared with other detainees.

It stressed the need to establish a dedicated legal unit within official Palestinian bodies to follow up on Gaza detainees’ files and to compel Israeli courts to release them, noting that most continue to be held under the unjust “unlawful combatant” designation.

The center said occupation forces released yesterday about 1,700 detainees from the Gaza Strip as part of an exchange deal with the Palestinian resistance.

Media have documented harsh scenes of the released detainees showing they suffered severe torture, humiliating treatment, deliberate medical neglect and a catastrophic humanitarian reality over two years of detention.