Palestinian prisoner Hassan Salameh has described what he called “extremely harsh” detention conditions, saying prisoners held in solitary confinement are subjected to repeated crackdowns, beatings, starvation and ongoing medical neglect.
In a message sent from the Janot solitary confinement section of an Israeli prison and published by his fiancée, Ghufran Al-Zamel, on Sunday, Salameh said prisoners had faced four raid and search operations in less than ten days, during which they were beaten.
He said they were also assaulted while being transferred from Megiddo Prison’s solitary confinement unit to Janot, and were beaten every time they were taken out to meet their lawyers.
Salameh added that the amount of food provided in the Janot solitary confinement unit was significantly less than at Megiddo Prison, saying the rations were barely enough to survive, leaving prisoners in a constant state of hunger.
He said prisoners are allowed only one hour of outdoor exercise each day for each cell, in a confined area that receives no sunlight. He added that prison authorities had marked a line in the exercise yard that prisoners are not allowed to cross.
Salameh also said prisoners held in solitary confinement are completely barred from communicating with one another. He said he only knew that Bilal Barghouti, Muhannad Shreim, Jamal Al-Hour, Marwan Barghouti, Mahmoud Attallah and Abbas Al-Sayed were being held in the same solitary confinement unit, adding that he had no information about the fate of the other isolated prisoners because all contact between them is prohibited.
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