Arab League calls for urgent international intervention to halt crime of enforced disappearance against Palestinian prisoners

Arab League has underlined the importance of urgent international intervention to ramp up pressure on the Israeli occupation authorities to halt the crime of enforced disappearance against the Palestinian prisoners and detainees from the Gaza Strip.In a statement to mark the day of solidarity with prisoners and detainees in the Israeli prisons and secret detention centers, Arab League stressed that the international community must immediately expose the Israeli secret detention facilities, disclose the names of all detainees from the Palestinian enclave, account for their whereabouts and fate, as well as shoulder the full responsibility for their safety and integrity.Arab League condemned, in strongest terms, the violations, crimes and brutal repression policies being conducted by Israel against prisoners and detainees in its secret detentions, emphasizing that such repressive policies are direct consequences of isolating the Palestinian people by the Israeli government, amid international silence.Consequently, Arab League has called on the Arab and international media, along with Arab and international human rights organizations to expose the violations being committed by Israel and its inhumane practices that include starving and depriving the Palestinian detainees of water, in addition to torturing and sexually assaulting them.The inhumane practices include medical crime, isolation and humiliation which unequivocally constitute a grave and flagrant violation of international laws and regulations, as well as all humanitarian considerations that call for treating prisoners and detainees in a manner that preserves their dignity and right to life, the statement pointed out.The statement indicated that Israel has been relentlessly pursuing the official organized terrorism and perpetration of atrocious crimes and violations against prisoners in its detentions since Oct.7, 2023, which expose the brutal nature of these practices, with the international focus being shifted to the genocidal war and devastation in the Gaza enclave, which ultimately resulted in detaining thousands of the Palestinian civilians, among them elderly, women and children from Gaza, along with nearly 10,000 arrest cases against the residents of the West Bank who are held captives in the Israeli secret detentions.These have been the widest, intense and unprecedented detention campaigns, Israel conducted, with the techniques of torture varying between intimidation and execution, amid complete obscurity surrounding the horrendous crimes and repressive practices against the Palestinian prisoners in the Israeli prisons and secret camps, including brutal sexual assaults and the policy of thirst and starvation, the statement can confirm.The statement stressed that the international community, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and human rights institutions must shoulder their responsibility toward the Palestinian prisoners and detainees. It called for compelling Israel, as the de facto power of occupation, to enforce Geneva conventions related to prisoners.In addition, Arab League has called on the international justice institutions to speak out and express their strong positions, in addition to taking practical and serious steps over the unfolding heinous torture practices that are based on collective vengeance and dehumanization against the Palestinian prisoners and detainees which have remarkably morphed into homicide, rape, other forms of sexual violence, and forcibly injecting them with unknown substance.The statement underlined the need for compelling Israel to end all torture crimes, dehumanization and enforced disappearance being practiced against the Palestinian prisoners and detainees. Also, it called on the Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, alongside the team operating in the cases of arbitrary detention to conduct an immediate and independent probe into the circumstances surrounding the detention of all Palestinian prisoners and detainees in the Israeli prisons and detention centers since the start of war on Gaza.Arab League stressed that this investigation is extremely significant to disclose the names of those who were murdered in those detention facilities and take appropriate steps to hold those responsible for these crimes to account, and to ensure justice for victims through ending the Israeli occupation and enabling the Palestinian people to retain their right to self-determination and epitomize their independent statehood as the only way to achieve peace that all nations and the entire world have been aspiring to.