Jeddah: On the occasion of Palestinian Prisoner’s Day, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) expressed its concern over the intensification of arbitrary detention campaigns carried out by the Israeli occupation in the occupied Palestinian territory, which led to an increase in the number of prisoners to more than 9,500, including 80 female prisoners and more than 200 children. More than 3,600 are administrative detainees without charge or trial, and about 600 prisoners are serving life sentences. The OIC also renewed its condemnation of the practices of the Israeli occupation, which led to the martyrdom of 16 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli occupation prisons since October 7, 2023, in addition to the martyrdom of 27 prisoners from the Gaza Strip as a result of torture and medical neglect.

The OIC stressed that the plight of the Palestinian prisoners in the prisons of the Israeli occupation embodies the issue of lost justice, stolen rights, and victims who did not find anyone to do justice to them in
the face of the most heinous, systematic inhuman practices committed against them, by depriving them of the most basic human rights, and the Israeli occupation’s practice of collective punishment, abuse, persecution, neglect, and isolation, in addition to subjecting them to physical and psychological torture, in flagrant violation of all standards and rules stipulated in international humanitarian law, the Charter of Human Rights, the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, and other relevant international instruments.

The OIC called on the international community and competent human rights institutions to assume their responsibilities and work to oblige the Israeli occupation authorities to deal with Palestinian prisoners in accordance with the Geneva Conventions, international humanitarian law, and all provisions of relevant international conventions. It also called for an investigation into all crimes of the Israeli occupation against prisoners, reiterating its solidarity and support for
the rights of Palestinian prisoners, support for their steadfastness, and commitment to work to convey their message and suffering to the international community in order to achieve freedom and justice for them.

Source: Saudi News Agency