NABLUS, (Palestine Foundation Information Center) Palestinian prisoner Hassan Salama has revealed harrowing details of systematic assaults carried out by Israeli prison forces after he was transferred from solitary confinement in Megiddo to the newly named Ganot prison (formerly Ramon and Nafha).
In a letter relayed to his wife Ghufran Zamel, Salama described an escalation in punitive measures by the Israeli prison administration against detainees held in isolation.
He said he was brutally beaten upon arrival at Ganot, leaving him with an open head wound. He was left bleeding, shackled for more than two hours without medical treatment, a scene that, he said, reflects the extent of serious violations inside Israeli prisons.
Salama added that all prisoners transferred with him were subjected to similar assaults, particularly targeting their heads. He noted that previous conditions in Megiddo’s solitary units were even harsher, involving humiliation, dragging, stomping on heads, and other forms of abuse.
Salama, a prominent Palestinian member of the armed wing of Hamas Movement, took part in the First Intifada and later became one of the leaders of Hamas’s armed wing. Israel accused him of responsibility for a series of bombings that killed and injured dozens of Israelis. He became known among Palestinians as the “hero of the sacred revenge operations” following the 1996 assassination of engineer Yahya Ayyash.
He was arrested by the Israeli occupation forces in May 1996 after being wounded in Al-Khalil and sentenced to 48 life terms. Israel has repeatedly refused to release him in various prisoner exchange deals.
Testimonies from dozens of detainees gathered during lawyer visits to multiple prisons confirm that repression remains ongoing, including beatings, starvation, humiliation, medical neglect, and violent raids by prison forces.
As of early July, the total number of Palestinians in Israeli prisons had reached around 10,800, including 47 women and 450 children, the highest figure since the Second Intifada in 2000, according to the Palestinian Prisoner Society.V
