Ramzi Mahmoud:
The death of the 75-year-old Palestinian prisoner Saadi Al-Gharabally , within Israeli prisons, reminded the issue of “old” Palestinian prisoners, who spent 20 years or more behind bars.
On Wednesday, the Palestinian “Prisoners and Editors Affairs Authority” (official) announced the death of the prisoner, “as a result of the“ medical negligence policy ”, two days after he was transferred to the hospital due to his deteriorating health.
Al-Gharably spent more than 26 years in Israeli prisons until his death. He was arrested in July 1994 and sentenced to life imprisonment, according to the Palestinian official news agency, Wafa.
And held the Palestinian factions and bodies (in separate statements), Israel, the responsibility for the martyrdom of “Al-Gharably” in its prisons, and for intentionally neglecting him medically.
A haunting humanitarian file
The Palestinians call the term “deans of prisoners” the prisoners who have spent 20 years or more in Israeli prisons and are still in detention.
And this issue constitutes a humanitarian file, a disturbing result of long decades between prison walls, due to the high sentences imposed on them, in light of the diminished opportunities for their release.
According to the Prisoners and Editors Affairs Committee, 51 prisoners have spent more than 20 years, 14 of whom have spent more than 30 years, and 26 prisoners have been detained since before the signing of the Oslo agreement, meaning that they spent more than 27 years.
According to the commission, more than 5,400 Palestinian prisoners are currently in Israeli prisons, including 42 female prisoners, nearly 200 children, and 450 administrative prisoners (without trial).
And he died from the prisoners inside the prisons from 1967 to the present, 224 prisoners, of whom 73 were martyred as a result of torture, 69 due to medical negligence, in addition to 75 as a result of the intentional killing after the arrest, and 7 others after they were hit by dead bullets while they were inside the prison, according to the commission.
Over the past decades, numerous Palestinian attempts have emerged to release the old prisoners, whether through negotiations between the Palestinian Authority and Israel, or through kidnappings of Israeli soldiers and an attempt to exchange them for Palestinian prisoners.
Some of those attempts succeeded in releasing dozens of “Deans of Prisoners” and hundreds of highly sentenced prisoners, but many of them are still languishing in prisons due to the Israeli intransigence.
Prisoners before Oslo
On the “Deans of Prisoners” list, 26 prisoners have been detained since before the signing of the “Oslo” agreement (between the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel) in 1993, demanding the Palestinian Authority to release them.
In 2013, Israel released 78 of the “pre-Oslo” prisoners (out of 104 agreed to leave in 4 waves), on the sidelines of negotiations with the Palestinian Authority under American sponsorship.
Later, Israel refrained from releasing the remaining fourth batch under the agreement, the remaining 26 prisoners.
The “Shalit Deal – Wafaa Al-Ahrar” (October 2011) is the most prominent exchange of prisoners that took place during the past two decades within the Palestinian territories between the Palestinian factions and Israel, according to which 1027 Palestinian prisoners were released in exchange for the handover of the Israeli soldier, “Gilad Shalit.”
Shalit was kidnapped in June 2006 during a military operation by military factions, most notably the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military arm of Hamas, against an Israeli military position adjacent to the border strip in the southern Gaza Strip
Of those released in the “Shalit Deal”, 477 were serving life sentences.
The most prominent deans of prisoners
At the top of the list of old prisoners, “Karim Younis” (62 years old), nicknamed “Palestinian Dean of Prisoners”, who spent more than 37 years, and still, sits under a life sentence for the murder of an Israeli soldier in 1983.
In addition to the dean of the prisoners, his cousin, Maher Younis, 61, has passed his thirty-seventh year in prison, which is serving a life sentence on the same charge.
The prisoner, Nael Al-Barghouthi, 63, is close to ending four decades of detention. Israel arrested him in 1978 and was sentenced to life imprisonment for killing an Israeli soldier, and he spent 34 years in prison.
Barghouti was released as part of the “Shalit Deal” in 2011, to be re-arrested again after three years, accompanied by 70 other editors of the “deal.”
Barghouti is currently completing the life sentence he was serving before his release in 2011.
Difficult conditions
The Palestinian prisoners, especially the old prisoners, face complex humanitarian conditions that combine the separation of families for decades, and deteriorating health conditions as a result of chronic diseases and old age, in contrast to Israeli violations against them.
In the context, Abdel Nasser Farwana, head of the Studies and Documentation Unit of the Prisoners and Editors Affairs Authority, said that the most prominent aggravation of the prisoners ’suffering is“ deliberate medical negligence by the Israeli prison administration, refraining from providing medicines and providing necessary medical care for them. ”
Farwana added that the Israeli prison administration practices torture and psychological and physical pressures against Palestinian prisoners, and deprives them of visits by family and relatives, which causes their suffering to increase.
He said that in the midst of the Corona virus crisis, several calls were made to Israel to release the old, sick and elderly prisoners. In an effort to spare them the risk of contracting the virus, they were all ignored.
Farwana, a former prisoner, called for redoubling political, legal and human rights efforts, both domestically and internationally. And work to “provide protection for Palestinian prisoners from the risk of Israeli violations,” as well as demanding their release.
He called for more serious steps in international forums; In order to try and deter Israel from its practices against the prisoners, “considering that hinting at this step as a pressure card (by the Palestinian Authority) is not enough yet.
