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Herald Reporter

Palestinian Ambassador to Zimbabwe Dr Tamer Almassri has condemned the accounts of torture, rape and human rights violations against Palestinian prisoners and detainees in Israel’s Sde Teiman Prison in Gaza and other detention centres in the West Bank.

In a statement today, Ambassador Almassri said over 9 500 Palestinians, including hundreds of children and women, are imprisoned with about one-third without charge or trial.

“Another unknown number are arbitrarily being held in detention facilities and ad-hoc camps following a wave of arrests and abduction campaigns across Palestinian territory that targeted men, women and children, particularly since October 2023 ” said Ambassador Almassri.

“Hundreds of Palestinian detainees are kept in cage-like enclosures, tied to beds blindfolded and in diapers, stripped naked, deprived of adequate healthcare, food, water and sleep, electrocutions including on their genitals, blackmail, cigarette burns, playing of loud music until their ears bled, attacks by dogs, waterboarding, suspension from ceilings and severe sexual and gender-based violence.

“Torture practices are irredeemably unlawful and constitute international crimes, yet form part of the modus operandi of Israel’s notorious detention and torture system intended to punish Palestinians for resisting occupation and seek to destroy them individually and collectively.”

Ambassador Almassri implored United Nations member States to intervene and the International Criminal Court to promptly investigate all the consolidated crimes against humanity.

He also condemned the massacre of over 150 people by Israeli forces at al-Tabin School in central Gaza, which he said was clear evidence that the occupation State was committing the massacres in its efforts to exterminate Palestinians “through the policy of cumulative killing and mass massacres that make living consciences tremble”.

“The massacres reflect an unprecedented disregard for international law by the occupation State, especially with the absence of a decisive international stance to restrain Israeli aggression and compel it to respect international law and stop its aggression against Gaza resulting in unprecedented killings, deaths and human catastrophe.

“The international community cannot simply watch as the Israeli occupying force continues to kill women, children, and the elderly without facing any consequences.

“The international community should no longer tolerate and accept the belligerence of Israel,” he said.

Since October last year, Israeli forces have killed nearly 40 000 Palestinians while 92 240 others have been injured.

The majority of victims are women and children.

Israeli forces are killing people including those living in “safe places”, a development that has alarmed the world except the United States which is supplying more weapons to Israel.