Iran blasts 'deafening silence' on Israeli violations of Palestinian rights

Iran has deplored certain Western governments’ fake advocacy for human rights, saying they have maintained a deafening silence on the rampant and systematic violations that the Israeli apartheid regime is perpetrating against oppressed Palestinians.

“The deafening silence of the so-called advocates of human rights in Western countries continues in the face of the wholesale and systematic violations of Palestinians’ rights by the Zionist entity,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kan’ani wrote in an Arabic tweet on the occasion of the Palestinian Prisoner Day.

“Do they know about the fate of about 5,000 Palestinian prisoners, including 31 women and 160 children, [being incarcerated] in the prisons of the Zionist apartheid regime? History and awakened human consciences will judge.”

The remarks come as the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society (PPS) has warned about the health condition of the senior Islamic Jihad official Khader Adnan, who has been on hunger strike for the past 71 days in protest at his imprisonment.

This is the longest time in the six hunger strikes Adnan has observed during his incarceration, the PPS said.

The advocacy group added that Adnan is currently being held at the infamous Ramla Prison Clinic, even though he is in dire need of hospitalization. It noted that Israel’s refusal to rush him to a general hospital is aimed at inflicting chronic diseases on him – something which is difficult to treat later on.

Adnan was detained on February 5 and immediately went on hunger strike in protest against his illegal detention.

He is already suffering from very serious health problems as a result of the strike, including frequent vomiting of blood, severe weakness, frequent loss of consciousness, difficulty in speaking, movement, sleep and concentration as well as severe pain all over his body. 

Israel systematically subjects Palestinian inmates to ‘torture’: Rights groups

Two prominent Palestinian rights groups say Israel enjoys a culture of impunity.

Over the past 20 years, Adnan has been arrested 12 times by Israeli forces for his political and anti-occupation activities. He has spent a total of eight years behind bars.

He has gone on hunger strike four times during his detention, the longest of which was a 67-day period in 2012 that resulted in his release and inspired other Palestinian prisoners held under administrative detention to follow suit.

In 2015, he once again went on hunger strike for 56 days to protest his detention. He did the same in 2018 for 58 days.

Adnan was also arrested in 2021 and was transferred to administrative detention. He went on hunger strike for 25 days at the time.

Hundreds of the inmates have been apparently incarcerated under the practice of administrative detention.

Palestinian prisoners begin major hunger strike at Israeli jails

Palestinian inmates are all in all denied access to basic medical care in Israeli jails.

Human rights organizations say Israel violates all the rights and freedoms granted to prisoners by the Fourth Geneva Convention. They say administrative detention violates their right to due process since the evidence is withheld from prisoners while they are held for lengthy periods without being charged, tried, or convicted.

Palestinian detainees have continuously resorted to open-ended hunger strikes in an attempt to express outrage at their detention.

Israeli jail authorities keep Palestinian prisoners under deplorable conditions without proper hygienic standards.

Palestinian inmates have also been subject to systematic torture, harassment, and repression.

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