Israeli force unexpectedly raids cells of prisoners in Hadarim jail

A human rights source told the Palestinian information center (PIC) that Israeli troops carried out a sudden raid on section three in the prison and searched the cells of three prisoners from Hamas and four others affiliated with  the Islamic Jihad and Fatah factions.

Senior Hamas official Abdelkhaleq Natshe and Fatah official Marwan Al-Barghouthi are currently  the most prominent figures imprisoned inside Hadarim jail.

The Wa’ed society for prisoners  and ex-prisoners reported that the Israeli notorious Nahshon unit stormed  the prisoners’ wing in Hadarim prison, ransacking cells  and searching the detainees.

In a press release, the society warned that there was evidence that the Israelis intend to step up arbitrary measures against both female and male prisoners. They  called on the Arab and Muslim worlds to interact with the initiative made by Palestinian premier Ismail Haneyya who declared 2010 a year for the support of prisoners and called for pooling the efforts at all levels to serve this issue.

It outlined some of the major violations committed against the Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, especially to women, saying that the administrations of prisons escalated their strip search policy against them and forced some of them to give birth while handcuffed.

In a related context, the Palestinian ministry of prisoners’ affairs stated Tuesday that the prisoners in Israeli jails managed to keep up their high morale despite the unprecedented decline in their imprisonment conditions which started a year ago since the Israeli government decided to form a special committee to find possible ways to impose more restrictions on Palestinian detainees after the failure of the swap deal talks.

The ministry’s information office director Riyadh Al-Ashqar said Tuesday that Israel formed the committee in an attempt to pressure the Palestinian resistance factions in Gaza to alter  their stance  towards the swap deal and accept its criteria in this regard.

Ashqar affirmed that since the committee’s establishment , a number of punitive and restrictive measures have taken place against prisoners, creating  a new reality much worse than before.