BEIRUT (Palestine Foundation Information Center) Member of the Hamas Political Bureau, Osama Hamdan, said the Palestinian prisoners issue is one of the central national issues of the Hamas Movement and the Palestinian people.
It is a just humanitarian cause. We cannot accept their continued suffering and the Israeli escalation against them, he said in a press conference held in Beirut.
Hamdan emphasized that “one of the main causes of all the uprisings and revolutions against the Zionist enemy was and still is the occupation’s horrifying crimes and systematic violations against both male and female prisoners in its prisons.”
He went on to say, “This criminal escalation is directed at Palestinian hostages and abductees from the Gaza Strip as well as prisoners and detainees from the West Bank and Occupied Jerusalem, all under the control of a Zionist government that is the most extreme and Nazi.
In addition, Hamdan brought up “the crime of Zionist-perpetrated enforced disappearance, the ongoing systematic suppression of information regarding the true state of Palestinian detainees, prisoners, and abductees from the Gaza Strip in its camps, detention facilities, and prisons since the start of Zionist aggression and genocidal warfare on the Gaza Strip on October 7.”
“What is being overlooked is the tragedy and suffering of Palestinian prisoners and detainees, which has been ongoing for 76 years and has intensified since October 7, 2023,” Hamdan stated. “This is in exchange for the US administration and some Western countries’ intense interest in the Israeli captives held by the resistance.”
He made notice of the fact that the Israeli occupation is still abusing its power and abducting people from the Gaza Strip, executing them in the open, torturing them both physically and psychologically, slow-killing them, denying them access to food and medicine, violating their most basic human rights, and abducting people from the Gaza Strip and holding them in detention centers.
He emphasized how terrible and heartbreaking the testimonies of those who have been released from the Gaza Strip are, detailing the atrocities and horrible crimes committed against them while they were being held in detention.
The Hamas official also pointed out that the number of Palestinian prisoners who lost their lives behind Israeli bars has risen unprecedentedly.
“Since October 7, 18 prisoners, from the West Bank and Occupied Jerusalem, have died in Israeli prisons, while 37 prisoners from the Gaza Strip died in Israeli detention camps.”
“Since October 7, there have been an unprecedented number of Zionist violations, resulting in approximately 9,500 Palestinian detainees. These individuals endure abhorrent conditions such as starvation, abuse, and the breaking of bones and limbs. Several of them have died as a result of torture, deliberate medical negligence, or deprivation of food and medicine.”
