Human Rights and Democracy Media Center- SHAMS, affirms that executing prisoner Abdul-Rahman Al-Bahsh (23 years old) from Nablus, in Megiddo Prison, on Monday 1/1/2024, comes within the systematic execution process of Palestinian prisoners in the Israeli prisons. The crime indicates the level of criminality, revenge, and hatred practiced by the occupation against the Palestinian prisoners. SHAMS Center urged the International Commission of the Red Cross to take serious actions immediately to stop executing the Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons and jails. Prisoner Al-Bahsh was arrested on 31/5/2023 and was sentenced to 35 months imprisonment
SHAMS Center stresses that executing prisoner Al-Bahsh is a profound violation of International Law and International Humanitarian Law, mainly the Geneva III Convention. Article 13 of the given Convention states: “Prisoners of war must at all times be humanely treated. Any unlawful act or omission by the Detaining Power causing death or seriously endangering the health of a prisoner of war in its custody is prohibited and will be regarded as a serious breach of the present Convention. In particular, no prisoner of war may be subjected to physical mutilation or to medical or scientific experiments of any kind which are not justified by the medical, dental, or hospital treatment of the prisoner concerned and carried out in his interest. Likewise, prisoners of war must at all times be protected, particularly against acts of violence or intimidation and against insults and public curiosity. Measures of reprisal against prisoners of war are prohibited”. Additionally, it violates Article 15 of the same Convention, which states: “The State detaining prisoners of war is responsible for providing them with sustenance without cost and for offering the necessary medical care required by their health conditions free of charge”. The Israeli crime violates the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners- Mandela Rules, which affirmed the necessity to provide prisoners in the prisons and interrogation centers, with all the appropriate circumstances to protect their dignity and fulfilling their needs. All the related international conventions and treaties affirmed the right to protect prisoners and provide them with health care, including periodical medical check-ups. Prisoners are entitled to the right to have a special health clinic and monitor their health status regularly and provide them with any health services they might need.
SHAMS Center deplores the policy of the occupation, which avoids terming arrested Palestinians, from the West Bank, Gaza Strip, or Jerusalem, as prisoners and uses, instead, the term security prisoner. The purpose is to come around the legal, ethical, and rights protection responsibility, according to International Law, and to escape any responsibility in front of the International Community, where it deals with the Palestinian prisoners as if they were criminals associated with criminal felonies but not war prisoners. Although the legal status of the Palestinian prisoners has not been recognized or identified by any international institution, yet, the Geneva Fourth Convention applies to them as they are citizens from an occupied territory who are involved in a national struggle to be liberated from occupation.
SHAMS Center places the responsibility of killing prisoner Al-Bahsh, on the Israeli government as well as the responsibility of the other martyrs who were killed in the Israeli prisons due to the practices of the occupation against them. In this regard, SHAMS Center reminds that three prisoners were also killed in Megiddo Prison since October 7, 2023, before prisoner Al-Bahsh was killed. Such crimes indicate that the occupation is going on in torturing Palestinian prisoners and executing them as revenge with no respect to legal or human ethics and values.
SHAMS Center denounces the collective punishment policy applied by the Israeli occupation against Palestinian prisoners. The collective punishments include ill-treatment and confiscation of medical equipment such as glasses and hearing devices within the ongoing mental torture crimes, to which Palestinian prisoners are subject. In addition to that, prisoners are deprived of blankets and appropriate mattresses, especially at the start of Winter and cold weather. Likewise, there is a decrease in the provided meals, medical negligence, solitary confinement, undressed investigation, ban of family visits, (Shsbih- tiding the legs and hands in a hurting situation) for a long duration, physical assault, and depriving prisoners of purchasing their needs from the Cantine[1].
SHAMS Center calls on the United
Nations and its affiliated organizations, the International Red Cross Committee,
Amnesty International, and the high contracting parties to the Geneva
Conventions, to urgently take action and fulfill their humanitarian and ethical
duties. It urges the Israeli-occupying government to cease its crimes against
Palestinian prisoners and obliges it to adhere to the principles of
international humanitarian law.
[1] Cantine is a kind of cafeteria or a shop, from where prisoners can purchase their needs inside the prison, mainly those that the prisons authorities do not provide or the supplied are inadequate. Families usually deposit credit to the Cantine in the names of the prisoners who can then use it to purchase needs.