Gideon Levy: Release All Prisoners, Israelis and Palestinians

SadaNews - Israeli writer Gideon Levy points out that when Israel mistreats Palestinian prisoners and detainees in an humiliating manner, it thereby forfeits any moral right to demand the release of its hostages, as those who violate human rights cannot demand respect for them.

Levy clarified - in his column in Haaretz - that the most urgent emergency measure required now, alongside ending the massacres in Gaza, is to rescue all prisoners, Israelis and Palestinians, from the miserable conditions in which they are held, whether in the tunnels of Gaza, or in Megiddo Prison, whether by the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), or by the internal security agency (Shin Bet), all of which is indescribable evil.

The writer expressed regret that none of the relatives of the detained Israelis have called for the release of Palestinian prisoners, nor even for the improvement of their detention conditions, despite numerous reports about the poor conditions of their detention in Israel, which should have awakened a shred of humanity and compassion, especially among those who are deeply concerned about the fate of their loved ones.

Levy noted that there is no point in comparing the detention center at the Israeli military base of Sde Teiman with the tunnels under Khan Yunis, but the correct comparison is between those he described as aggressors in Gaza and a state that claims democracy, because only a person without a conscience would not be moved by Hagar Shizaf's description - in Haaretz - of the conditions under which the Palestinian detainees and hostages are held, especially the administrative detainees held without trial, of whom there are thousands.

According to the writer, the investigative report, authored by Lofdai Morris and Sufyan Taha in the Washington Post last week, should have shaken this country to its core, as 73 Palestinian prisoners and detainees have died in Israeli jails, a shocking number, made even worse by the indifference with which it has been met. The writer wonders where those days went when the death of a detainee in prison was considered a scandal? He points out that the number of fatalities among Hamas prisoners is not close to this number.

Shizaf described a troubling story about torture, starvation, lack of medical care, and violence, all perpetrated by the state. By what right can 2800 prisoners suffering from the scourge of scabies, or thousands of others suffering from intestinal diseases in these sites suffering from famine and epidemics, be deprived of medical care?

The images of emaciated and crippled Palestinians emerging from Israeli prisons tell the whole story and form a serious indictment against Israel.

Levy recalled the case of the prisoner Walid Ahmad (17 years old), who had no fatty or muscular tissue left in his body, and who suffers from an intestinal infection and scabies, having been starved to death due to a Molotov cocktail and stones he threw, similar to those thrown by settlers in Kafr Malik, thus he was executed by the Israeli prison service without trial.

The Washington Post spoke with detainees who emerged from that hell, and with lawyers who visited the prisons, and the picture was the same. They described a systematic policy of starvation and deprivation of medical care, with one saying "It is Guantanamo."

The writer commented that the images of emaciated and crippled Palestinians emerging from Israeli prisons over the past year and a half tell the whole story and form a serious indictment against Israel.

However, the terrible thing - according to Levy - is that Israel used to feel shame for the violations and tried to hide them, but now it is proud of its sadism and displays it to everyone, turning sadism towards Palestinians into part of public relations, even garnering votes in Knesset elections.