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Palestinian MP suffers brutal torture in Israeli jail, Hamas says

Wednesday, 21 February 2018 1:38 PM [ Last Update: Wednesday, 21 February 2018 2:22 PM ]

Palestinian Hamas-affiliated lawmaker Abdel Nasser Abdel-Jawad (file photo)

The Palestinian Islamic resistance movement, Hamas, has roundly criticized the Tel Aviv regime for subjecting a lawmaker affiliated to the group to various forms of torture as he is being kept in Israeli jails without trial or charge.

Hamas, in a statement released on Wednesday, announced that 50-year-old Palestinian Legislative Council member Abdel Nasser Abdel-Jawad has been behind bars at the high security Kishon (al-Jalameh) prison in northern West Bank for the past 50 days.

The statement added that the legislator has been “subjected to severe torture, pressure and threats since his arrest.”

Hamas noted that an Israeli military court has extended Abdel-Jawad's detention several times “without allowing him to meet his lawyer.”

Abdel-Jawad was arrested on January 1 as Israeli military forces stormed his home in Deir Ballut town, located 41 kilometers (25 miles) southwest of Nablus.

He is a member of the Hamas-affiliated Change and Reform parliamentary bloc, and has previously spent over 16 years in Israeli prisons.

On January 22, Israeli military forces detained a legislator linked to the Gaza-based Hamas resistance movement along with more than a dozen other Palestinians during separate raids across the occupied West Bank.

Local sources, who asked not to be named, said Israeli forces raided the central West Bank city of Salfit, broke into the home of Omar Abdul-Razeq and detained him.

This file picture shows Palestinian prisoners at Megiddo prison in northern Israel. (Photo by AFP)

More than 7,000 Palestinians are reportedly held at Israeli jails. Hundreds of the inmates have apparently been incarcerated under the practice of administrative detention, a policy under which Palestinian inmates are kept in Israeli detention facilities without trial or charge.

Some Palestinian prisoners have been held in administrative detention for up to 11 years.

Palestinian inmates regularly stage hunger strikes in protest at the administrative detention policy and their harsh prison conditions in Israeli jails.

According to reports, at least 13 Palestinian lawmakers are currently imprisoned in Israeli detention facilities. Nine of them are being held without trial under administrative detention.

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