NOVANEWS
The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) condemns the deportation of a Palestinian detainee, Ayman al-Sharawna, by the Israeli forces to the Gaza Strip on Sunday, 17 March 2013, under a deal whose details have not been unveiled. According to reports about the deal, al-Sharawna would stay in Gaza for 10 years, and then return to her home in Hebron, in exchange for ending his hunger strike which had lasted for 260 days sporadically. PCHR believes that the decision to deport al-Sharawna to Gaza amounts to a forcible deportation, and reminds that deportation of protected persons is prohibited under Article 49 of the Geneva Convention Relative of the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War (Fourth Geneva Convention).
Once she arrived in Gaza, al-Sharawna was transported to Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, and was admitted into the intensive care unit, as his health condition deteriorated consequent to 260 days of hunger strike. According to representatives of human rights organizations who had visited al-Sharawn in Elia Prison in Israel, where she was detained, his health condition deteriorated and he suffered from pains throughout the body, temporary loss of his eyesight and weight loss.
IOF arrested Ayman al-Sharawna, 36, from Dura village near Hebron in the southern West Bank, from his house in January 2012. He declared a hunger strike on 01 July 2012 in protest against re-arresting after he had been released in the Shalit prisoners swap deal. He had served 10 years of his 38-year imprisonment sentence. When he was released he was forced by the Israeli forces not to leave Hebron and to refer to the Israeli intelligence every other month. In February 2012, al-Sharawna was placed in solitary confinement in Elia Prison, while the Israeli Supreme Court refused to intervene into his case. In mid March 2013, the Palestinian Ministry of Prisoners’ Affairs stated that he lost 80% of his eyesight. On 17 March 2013, following 260 days of two stages of hunger strike, he was deported to the Gaza Strip for 10 years under a deal with the Israeli authorities.
A court hearing was scheduled to be held today to confirm the remaining 28 years of his previous imprisonment, but as his heath condition deteriorated, hearings were held in the prison to consider his health conditi.
PCHR expresses utmost concern over the policy of forcible deportation practiced by IOF against Palestinian civilians. PCHR reminds of similar cases that took place recently, including the deportation of 40 Palestinian prisoners to other countries, and 163 others to the Gaza Strip in the context of the prisoners swap deal between Palestinian resistance groups and IOF, under which 1,027 Palestinian prisoners were released, in exchange for the release of an Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, who had been captured by Palestinian resistance gr.:
PCHR condemns the deportation of al-Sharawna by Israeli authorities to the Gaza Strip, an
1. Stresses that forcible deportation if a form of collective punishment and reprisals prohibited under the Fourth Geneva Convention, particularly Article 49 which prohibits “individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not;”
2. Calls for allowing al-Sharawna and other Palestinian deportees to return to their homes.