CrossFireArabia
The Palestinian Center for Prisoner Studies (a research NGO) have stated 11 Palestinian prisoners have been incarcerated in Israeli prisons for more than three consecutive decades. It said this is a situation that reflects the international system’s failure to achieve justice and protect human rights.
Center’s director Riyad al-Ashqar says the world stands idly by as the lives of these prisoners slip away behind bars, under harsh conditions, threatened with illness and perpetual suffering, without any effective intervention to guarantee their freedom or improve their conditions within the prisons.
He points out Ibrahim Abdel-Razzaq Bayadsa and Ahmed Ali Abu Jaber, both from within the 1948 borders, are among the longest-serving Palestinian prisoners, having spent nearly 40 years in detention since 1986. Mahmoud Salem Abu Kharbish from Jericho and Jumaa Ibrahim Adam from Ramallah have each spent approximately 38 years in captivity since 1988.
Four prisoners from within the 1948 borders—Ibrahim Hassan Aghbaria, Muhammad Saeed Aghbaria, Yahya Mustafa Aghbaria, and Muhammad Tawfiq Jabariyeh—have spent more than 34 years in prison since 1992. Abdel-Halim Sakib Al-Balbisi from Jabalia has spent 31 years in captivity since 1995, while Akram Al-Qawasmi from Jerusalem and Hassan Abdel-Rahman Salameh from Khan Younis have each spent approximately 30 years in detention since 1996.
Al-Ashqar emphasizes that these prisoners are not mere numbers; each has a story of long suffering, and many of them have lost loved ones. First-degree relatives were separated from their loved ones during their years of detention, without being able to bid them farewell. JO24
He explained that the majority of prisoners suffer from various illnesses as a result of the harsh detention conditions and the policy of medical neglect. He pointed out that some of them are over seventy years old and require urgent medical care, given the restrictions on treatment and their denial of surgeries or assistive devices.
He also noted the deterioration of the prisoners’ conditions over the past two years, due to the tightening of prison procedures and the escalation of violations against them.
Al-Ashqar reiterated his call for the international community to assume its responsibilities and intervene to secure the release of the long-serving prisoners, emphasizing that they have spent the majority of their lives behind bars and have been subjected to various forms of torture and deprivation.
