News / Palestine

Palestinian prisoners enter day 185 of boycotting Israeli courts

Monday, 04 July 2022 5:49 PM [ Last Update: Monday, 04 July 2022 5:49 PM ]

The file photo shows Palestinian prisoners in the yard of Israel's Megiddo prison. (Photo by AFP)

Day 185. Palestinian prisoners keep boycotting Israeli military courts. They are protesting against the so-called policy of administrative detention.

The boycott includes initial hearings to uphold the administrative detention order, as well as appeal hearings and later sessions at Israel’s ‘supreme court’.

Nearly 500 inmates have been refusing to show up for their military court hearings since the beginning of the year.

The detainees say the move is a continuation of longstanding efforts to end the unjust administrative detention practiced by the occupying forces.

They also say the courts are a barbaric, racist tool that has consumed hundreds of years from the lives of Palestinians under the banner of administrative detention, through nominal and fictitious courts, the results of which are predetermined by the military commander of the region.

Israel’s use of administrative detention, the prisoners believe, has expanded in recent years and many women, children and the elderly have been incarcerated under the thorny policy.

On Monday, a 27-year old Palestinian prisoner from a village near occupied al-Quds was in a critical stage after more than seven weeks of hunger strike in a similar protest action. Ra’ed Rayan, held in Ofer jail, was abducted from his home in Beit Duqqu village on December 3, 2021. He now suffers from multiple health conditions as a result of his prolonged hunger strike.

The Israeli Prison Service (IPS) keeps Palestinian prisoners under deplorable conditions lacking proper hygienic standards. They have also been subjected to systematic torture, harassment and repression all through the years of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories.

According to the Palestine Detainees Studies Center, about 60% of the Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails suffer from chronic diseases, a number of whom died in detention or after being released due to the severity of their cases.

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