Palestinian Prisoner’s Day

Palestinian Prisoner's Day

Date: 17 April 2024
Palestinian Prisoner's Day
On the Day of the Palestinian Prisoner, the State of Palestine reaffirms its commitment to secure the release of thousands of Palestinians unlawfully held captive by Israel, including a number of men, women, and children who have forcibly disappeared from Gaza in the past six months. Palestine also renews its unwavering determination to ensure accountability for the widespread and systematic use of torture against Palestinian captives, including the use of sexual violence and rape against Palestinian men, women, and children.

Over the decades, Israel, the illegal occupying power, had detained, imprisoned and tortured over one million Palestinians, including women and children. It also persists in its inhumane policy of detaining the bodies of Palestinians murdered by Israeli occupation forces or tortured to death by Israeli officers.

The well-documented, ongoing, and atrocious occupation policy on Palestinian prisoners and detainees has reached unparalleled levels over the past six months. Sixteen Palestinian captives have been killed by their torturers in unlawful Israeli detention centers. An untold number of forcibly disappeared Palestinians from the Gaza Strip have lost their lives, limbs, and mental faculties in secret torture camps. Torture, starvation, deliberate denial of medical attention, sexual violence as part of its policy, are all features of the brutality against Palestinian captives in Israeli detention centers, with unreserved impunity.

The Palestinian people have struggled to realize their inalienable right to self-determination for nearly a century. Throughout this long and painful march to freedom, international actors have accorded Israel, the illegal occupying power, full impunity and lack of accountability, encouraging successive governments to escalate its brutality and criminality. These failures and complicity have enabled Israel to carry out an ongoing genocide in Gaza for the past six months, and intensify its violations against Palestinians in the west Bank including East Jerusalem. There are over 8270 Palestinians detained by Israel since October 7th 2023.

The status quo is an assault on humanity that is quickly unraveling the international system of laws and values devised over the past seventy-five years to maintain international peace and security. Palestine renews its call on all partners to increase their efforts to end this stain on humanity, achieve accountability, and establish a reality of freedom, peace, and justice in the region. Palestine will continue its legal and political efforts to achieve its independence, sovereignty including on East Jerusalem, freedom and justice for all Palestinian captives.