24 Palestinian women held in administrative detention in Damon prison: Samidoun group

The combo shows a number of Palestinian women held behind bars in administrative detention in Israel’s Damon prison. (Samidoun)

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network says 24 Palestinian women are behind bars in the so-called administrative detention in Israel’s Damon prison.

In a report on Wednesday, Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, which describes itself as an international network of organizers and activists who work to build solidarity with Palestinian prisoners in their struggle for freedom, said that at least 24 Palestinian women are currently kept in the regime’s Damon prison.

These women are held in administrative detention in the prison, which is located in Northern Palestine in the forests of Carmel in Haifa.

“At present, 24 Palestinian women - out of approximately 95 Palestinian women prisoners, of 9,900 Palestinians in Zionist jails, in addition to thousands more from Gaza held in colonial torture camps like that at Sde Teiman - are being imprisoned under “administrative detention” by the occupation forces in the colonial Damon prison. They include students from various Palestinian universities, journalists, activists, a lawyer, employees of Birzeit University and re-arrested former prisoners.

“Administrative detention” is a detention regime inherited from the British colonial mandate over Palestine which allows the Zionist occupation to imprison Palestinians without charge or trial for a period of 3 to 6 months, renewable indefinitely,” Samidoun said.

The report, then, identified these women and provided details about them and the circumstances of their abduction by the occupying regime.

“Freedom for all Palestinians held in Zionist, imperialist and reactionary prisons; freedom for Palestine!” the organization stated.

Testimonies gathered by rights groups and media reports, citing formerly detained Palestinians and Israeli whistleblowers reveal that Israel continues to violate all rights and freedoms granted to prisoners by the Fourth Geneva Convention and international law.

Violence, extreme hunger, humiliation, and other forms of abuse of Palestinian prisoners have been normalized across Israel’s jail system, reports indicate.

According to the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, nearly 10,000 Palestinians are currently held in detention or imprisoned on what Israel categorizes as “security” grounds, with 1,761 of them from the besieged Gaza Strip.