https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...israeli-prison

A Holocaust survivor has chosen to mark her 80th birthday on Friday by bringing her friends together for a solidarity vigil outside an Israeli prison where hundreds of Palestinian inmates arrested after the 7 October attack are being held.

Prof Veronika Cohen, who was born in the Jewish ghetto of Budapest and was saved by what she has described as “a series of miracles”, turned her birthday into a protest in front of Neve Tirtza women’s prison in Ramla.

The protest was aimed at exposing the degrading treatment faced by Palestinian prisoners, as well as bringing attention to Israel’s systematic use of administrative detention – which allows for indefinite detention without charge or trial – during the Gaza war.

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According to the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, which has released a report alongside the organisations Adalah, HaMoked and Physicians for Human Rights, almost 10,000 Palestinians are held in Israeli detention, a 200% increase from recent years.

Among them are approximately 8,000 Palestinians classified as “security” detainees – citizens of Israel and residents of the occupied West Bank, including Jerusalem, held either under military or criminal law. More than 30% of administrative detainees are held without charge or trial, in prison facilities managed by the Israeli Prison Service (IPS). According to the report, inmates are subjected to widespread physical and mental abuses.

“As of June 2024, at least 14 detainees have died in IPS custody since October 7, with forensic evidence suggesting that at least some of these deaths were connected to instances of severe violence by IPS officers,” the report says, while at least other 40 Palestinians have died in military camps.