Prisoner suffer in the oven-like Al Naqab Prison in Ramadan

Prisoners in Al Naqab Desert prison have appealed to human rights organizations to intervene in their current living conditions and pressurize the Israeli authorities into permitting the entry of groceries and dates into the prison seeing that it is Ramada, in addition to releasing 70 prisoners whose sentences have ended already. In a letter sent to the Ministry of Prisoners and Former Prisoners, of which Arabstoday received a copy, the prisoners said: “the prison management has prohibited the entry of groceries and dates sent by the Ministry of Prisoners and Former Prisoners this Ramadan as arbitrary punishment against inmates. Shadi Ghanameh, a prisoner in Al Naqab said that yesterday they were “waiting for the release of 70 prisoners who were due to be released a month ago; however the prison management has delayed their release.” He added: “the management has deducted 100 Shekels from the 450 Shekels dedicated to each prisoner for the Month of august by the Ministry of Prisoners.” Prisoners said that wild cats and snakes are spread all over the prison and were scaring the inmates. They assured Prison Society lawyer Louai Akka who visited recently that there are snakes all over the prison cells, which drove prisoners into taking night shifts in order to guard each other. This has caused real exhaustion among inmates as they are unable to sleep due to fear. Akka confirmed what prisoners had said about the snakes and validated their complaints regarding the wild cats that spend their mornings in bins and nights in the prison, which may expose prisoners to serious diseases.   In addition, prisoners complained about the meager quantities of food provided especially during Ramadan, which is a time where a lot of food is needed. This is in addition to the terrible living conditions which they said “are not even suitable to be inhabited by humans.” Furthermore, the Ahrar Centre for Prisoners’ studies and Human Rights confirmed that the prison management cut off electricity in Al Naqab Prison block and surrounding camp. The centre considers this a new Zionist crime aiming to increase hardship on prisoners and killing them, without any consideration for their medical health or the fact that it is Ramadan.   In a statement the Centre said: “prisoners have appealed to anyone with a conscience in the world to save their souls from the calculated environment the prison management has put in place with official supervision from the Israeli government. Because of the increasingly high temperatures inside the prison, they described as an ‘oven.’” Prison Society said that they are currently in the process of taking legal action against the presence of snakes and wild cats and the terrible unhygienic living conditions in the prison. They described what is happening in this and similar prisons as “something that crossed a limit that no one could imagine.”   A symbol of Torment Israeli Al Naqab Desert Prison is a symbol of torment to prisoners in all Israeli prisons; it has been connected to the Palestinian Intifada since it was opened in 1988. In March of that year, the Israeli Army built this camp near Egyptian borders, in order to imprison as large a number of Palestinians as possible, who they captured in Gaza and the West Bank as the first Intifada erupted between the years 1987-1994.    Israel closed the camp in 1996 in the wake of a self-governing authority but it did not take long before it reopened it in April 2002 to imprison the thousands of Palestinians it arrested after the second Intifada in 2000. Transfer of supervision of the prison went from the control of the Israeli army to the Prison Management in 2006.   According to the Palestinian Ministry of Prisoners statistics; 2300 prisoners are currently held captive in Al Naqab, out of 11,000 prisoners detained in different prisons around Israel. The detainees belong to various Palestinian factions, especially first-class leaders, 700 of whom are administrative detainees who were arrested by the occupation army in accordance with a law dating back to the era of the British Mandate, particularly those who do not have any evidence against them for trial. Also according to those statistics, 100 thousand Palestinian prisoners have entered Al Naqab prison between 1988 and 1996. Palestinians say that Israel has captured over 700 thousand Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza since their occupation in 1967.