Utterly Forbidden: The Torture And Ill-Treatment Of Palestinian Detainees 
B'Tselem & HaMoked - In recent years, Israel has openly admitted that ISA (formerly the General Security Service) interrogators employ "exceptional" interrogation methods and "physical pressure" against Palestinian detainees in situations labeled "ticking bombs". B'Tselem and HaMoked - Center for the Defence of the Individual have examined these interrogation methods and the frequency with which they are used, as well as other harmful practices. The report's findings are based on the testimonies of 73 Palestinian residents of the West Bank who were arrested between July 2005 and January 2006 and interrogated by the ISA. Although it is not a representative sample, it does provide a valid indication of the frequency of the reported phenomena. more

 Palestinian Children Do Not Have the Right to a Fair Trial Under the Israeli Military Court System 
Defence for Children International - In the 40th year of Israel's military occupation of the Palestinian territories, Tuesday 17 April 2007 marked Palestinian Prisoner's Day. Currently there are approximately 380 Palestinian children in Israeli custody, many of whom are awaiting trial or sentence, and others who are serving lengthy periods of imprisonment for such minor offences as stone throwing. more

 Israel’s Attorney General receives 40 torture complaints in past year, investigates none 
Nir Hasson in Haaretz - Twenty-four hours before the abduction of Corporal Gilad Shalit, Israel Defense Forces soldiers broke into the home of Mustafa Abu Ma'amar in Rafah. Special forces soldiers arrested him and his brother in their respective homes. more

 Detainee Paralyzed During Torture in Israeli Prison 
Mustafa Sabri in PNN, translated by Saed Bannoura in IMEMC - Every Palestinian detainee has his own story of the horrors of being held in Israeli detention facilities, but in the case of detainee Luay Al Ashqar, 28, from Saida village, near Tulkarem (in the northern part of the West Bank), the result and the outcome are clearly apparent on his body, which has been paralyzed due to Israeli torture. Al Ashqar is currently in Majeddo prison after the Israeli Salim military court sentenced him for 26 months. more

 Video - Captured Prisoners 
If Americans Knew - 15-minute video about the prisoners in Israel, Palestine, and Lebanon. Watch!

 Israel captures pair in Gaza raid 
BBC, June 24, 2006 - Israeli soldiers have seized two Palestinian men in an overnight raid into the southern Gaza Strip. more

 Israeli troops arrest two in Gaza raid 
Al Jazeera, June 24, 2006 - Israeli forces detained two Palestinians, who the army said were Hamas members, in the Gaza Strip on Saturday. more

 Report: IDF doctor says Dirani rape claim backed by evidence 
Haaretz - Channel 1 television on Wednesday reported than Israel Defense Forces doctor who examined kidnapped Lebanese guerrilla leader Mustafa Dirani found physical evidence to back his charge that he was raped. more

 Administrative detention: Despair, uncertainty and lack of due process 
Amnesty International Report - Thousands of people have been detained under administrative detention orders in Israel and the Occupied Territories. In practice, this means the detainee spends months and sometimes years in prison without having been tried and without knowing the details of the charges against him. It means shattered hopes as detention orders come up to their expiry date, but are then renewed for another term. Families and detainees alike despair, never knowing when release will occur. This procedure causes such suffering that the use of administrative detention has been referred to by one administrative detainee as "another form of torture". more

 Severe shortages stymie life in Gaza 
Ilene R. Prusher in The CS Monitor - As the Palestinian conflict with Israel over a kidnapped soldier drags on, most crossings out of Gaza have been closed. Hardly a trickle of goods and people goes in or out. At least half the electricity has been knocked out, slowing sanitation, sewage treatment, refrigeration, communication, and transportation. more

 Palestinian Detainee Talks About Extreme Torture and Abuse 
Saed Bannoura, IMEMC - Palestinian detainee Baha’ Ahmad Al Arameen, 23, from Al Ezariyya town, near Jerusalem, said that he was extremely clubbed and hit by the soldiers after arresting him from his home on December 15, 2005, and was subjected to torture during interrogation in Al Maskobiyya detention facility in Jerusalem. more

 Letter from Prison: My Interview with Israel’s Shin Bet Intelligence Agency 
Patrick O’Connor in Electronic Intifada - Recently the Israeli authorities have begun searching for and arresting experienced International Solidarity Movement (ISM) and international activists. My arrest and attempted deportation is another example of this. Evidently the Israeli authorities find nonviolent resistance and active support of Palestinian rights to be threatening. Despite claims to the contrary, they have adopted an unstated goal of breaking down and eliminating the ISM and other groups using nonviolence to support Palestinian rights. more

 177 Palestinian Prisoners Killed Since 1967 
International Press Center (PNA) - Figures released by the Prisoner and Ex-Prisoner Ministry showed that 177 Palestinian detainees were killed inside the Israeli jails since 1967. Planning and Statistics Department of the Ministry said, in a statistical report, 69 Palestinian prisoners (39%) were killed due to being liable to severe torture whilst 37 prisoners (20.9%) died due to the lack of medical health care. more

 Fact Sheet – Palestinian Prisoners in Israeli Detention 
Palestine Monitor - Since the beginning of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories in 1967, over 650,000 Palestinians have been detained by Israel. This forms approximately 20% of the total Palestinian population in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). As the majority of those detained are male, the number of Palestinians detained forms approximately 40% of the total male Palestinian population in the OPT. more

 Arab-Americans in Israel: What ‘Special Relationship’? 
Founder of Partners for Peace Jerri Bird - The Department of State’s annual human rights reports have documented for many years a depressing litany of extra-legal human rights abuses perpetrated against the Palestinian people by Israel: countless home demolitions, land confiscations, arbitrary arrests, and widespread torture. Similar practices have also been reported in detail by numerous Israeli, Palestinian and international human rights organizations for years. But it may come as an unpleasant surprise for the American public to learn that for over 30 years, Israel has also repeatedly detained, tortured and incarcerated Americans of Arab origin, without suffering any sanctions or even a public reprimand from Washington. more

 Israel’s Common Use of Torture Must Be Exposed 
Mustafa Barghouthi in The Daily Star - The pictures of American soldiers torturing prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq have shocked the world. To the Palestinian people however, these photographs of hooded or naked figures come as no surprise. For the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have served time in Israeli prisons, the pictures only bring back memories of their own torture. more