So, on October 10th a few hundred palestinian workers went missing in Israel, right around the time their work visas were revoked.
Haaretz and Al Jazeera have a write up on whats known so far.
Source for the following information is Al Jazeera. (click)
Lets start here:
Not clear ‘where, how many, under what legal status’
“We have been receiving hundreds and hundreds of phone calls from family members of people who were working in Israel prior to the [October 7] attacks,” Jessica Montell, executive director of HaMoked, told Al Jazeera.
So far, Montell says, more than 400 families and friends of missing people have got in touch with the organisation, trying to trace their loved ones as they simultaneously struggle to survive Israel’s bombardments and “total” siege. Those calls have been dwindling in the past week as residents of Gaza are increasingly cut off from communications.
Then this surfaced:
Walid [name changed by Al Jazeera], a Palestinian worker born in Gaza, had lived in the occupied West Bank for more than 25 years when Israel launched its relentless bombardment of Gaza which has so far killed more than 7,000 people and has lasted for three weeks. On October 8, he was arrested as he headed for work and detained in a facility in the Almon area, also known as Anatot, built on the ruins of the Palestinian town of Anata that Israel confiscated in occupied East Jerusalem.
The facility, human rights organisations say, is among those repurposed by the Israeli government to hold hundreds of workers in arbitrary detention, in breach of international law.
Walid, whose real name and personal details are being withheld to avoid reprisals, described being kept in a “cage” without a roof, under the sun and without food, water or access to the toilet for three days, according to a written testimony given to the Israel-based human rights organisation HaMoked and seen by Al Jazeera.
He was then moved to an area of about 300 square metres where hundreds of labourers shared a chemical toilet cubicle. When he asked to contact the Red Cross, he was cursed and beaten up by soldiers.
Walid was released after Israeli officers ascertained that, although he was born in Gaza, he is a resident of the West Bank. His testimony is among the few accounts to have so far emerged from the detention centres where Gaza workers have been held incommunicado and without legal representation since October 7.
Then this happened:
As part of its work, HaMoked regularly submits the names of detainees to the Israeli authorities to find out where they may be held.
“The Israeli military is supposed to inform us within 24 hours of who they are holding, which location they are being held in,” Montell said. “But for all those Gazans, they told us [they]’re not the right [authority to] address.”
Then this happened:
A group of six local organisations, including HaMoked, have petitioned Israel’s High Court to disclose the names and locations of the detainees and to ensure humane holding conditions.
According to the petitioners, some of the Palestinians have been detained in the Almon area – where Walid was detained – as well as in Ofer, near Ramallah, and in Sde Teyman, near Beer al-Sabe (Be’er Sheva), in the southern Naqab or Negev desert.
Then the first human rights NGOs started commenting:
‘Unparalleled’
Miriam Marmur, advocacy director of Gisha, an Israeli human rights organisation which calls for the freedom of movement of Palestinians, said the situation was “unparalleled”.
“Of course, at any given point, there are thousands of Palestinians that are being held in administrative detention by Israel,” she told Al Jazeera. “But these are the first Palestinians to be held en masse. The nature of their detention, the revocation of people’s permits and the fact that Israel is so far refusing to divulge any information about where they are … that is not something I have seen before,” she said.
Then this surfaced:
According to Walid’s testimony, one of the officers at a detention camp told detainees there would be no chance of them being released as long as there were Israeli hostages in Gaza.
“This isn’t an official statement, but certainly it’s an indication that, at least to some of the people involved in this, there is a kind of desire to use these workers as bargaining chips,” Marmur said.
Then the word camps started making the rounds:
Human rights groups are concerned about further arrests amid continuing raids in the West Bank, including in areas nominally under the full control of the Palestinian Authority.
“We never had a situation like that, where people are trapped and can’t go home, and are put in a sort of camp,” said Hassan Jabareen, the director of Adalah, the legal centre for Arab minority rights in Israel. “These were just workers. The only comparison is perhaps with [undocumented] refugees.”
Then the number grew from a few hundred to 4500.
Mass arrests
The Minister of Labour for the Palestinian Authority estimated that about 4,500 workers are unaccounted for and are believed to have been detained by Israeli forces. Israeli media outlet N12 reported that 4,000 Palestinians from Gaza were being interrogated in Israeli holding facilities over their possible involvement in the attack.
Then eight days later this happened:
On October 18, the Israeli parliament, known as the Knesset, approved a temporary plan that strips Palestinian prisoners of the right to at least 4.5 square metres of space, enabling cells that used to hold five people to hold more than twice as many.
Then this surfaced:
According to Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI), authorities also disconnected access to power and water supplies, limited the number of meals per day, restricted prisoners to their cells and prevented access to medical clinics and visits by legal representatives and other officials. At least two prisoners have died while in custody since the beginning of the latest round of hostilities.
“We are calling on the Israeli authorities to abide by international law and allow food, water and visitations,” Naji Abbas, case manager at PHRI, told Al Jazeera. “And to stop taking revenge on Palestinian prisoners.”
And thats about it.
Der Standard hat das zwar nicht berichtet, aber anstattdessen wieder etwas Tolles erfahren!
Der Israelische Armeechef hält eine Bodeninitiative für unbedingt erforderlich!
Ich würde sagen, die Wiener Polizei verbietet ab morgen wieder alle pro-palestinensischen Demos, oder?
Da Österreich ja als einer von 14 Staaten für die Ablehnung einer Waffenruhe im UN General Assembly gestimmt hat.
