The occupation has arrested 86 Palestinians from Gaza since the beginning of this year, noting that more than half of them were arrested before the eastern border of the Strip. As reported by the Palestine Center for Prisoner Studies.
The Palestine Center for Prisoner Studies explained, in a statement, that “arrests from the Gaza Strip did not stop during the years following the withdrawal, despite the fact that there is no direct occupation in the Gaza Strip as is the case in the occupied West Bank, as the occupation arrests a number of citizens and fishermen every month, while August witnessed the highest number of arrests, reaching 19 cases, followed by September, during which 16 Palestinians, including 4 fishermen, were arrested.
He pointed out that “the occupation intelligence continued to use the Beit Hanoun (Erez) crossing as a trap to trap the civilian population in the Gaza Strip, blackmail them, and exploit their humanitarian needs and their need for movement, whether for work or treatment in the hospitals of the 48 and the West Bank, or for trade, to arrest them or bargain with them in exchange for allowing them to cross, as arrests were monitored.” 3 citizens at the crossing, including a cancer patient since the beginning of the year.”
The director of the Palestine Center for Prisoner Studies, researcher Riyad Al-Ashqar, said, “The occupation warships continued to target fishermen while they were doing their work off the shores of the Gaza Strip, by pursuing them, shooting at them, confiscating their nets and boats, and arresting them. The arrest of 36 fishermen was monitored during the first 9 months of the year, 4 of them They were injured by live and rubber bullets as a result of direct shooting at them, including the child Muhammad Rafi Al-Sultan (14 years old), and all of them were released after being interrogated for various periods.”
He added, “The occupation forces arrested 46 young men while they were trying to approach the eastern border towards the 48 areas of the south, center and north of the Gaza Strip. They were transferred for investigation and most of them were released after being severely beaten, including 5 young men who were arrested during a demonstration near the border to protest the raids on Al-Aqsa Mosque. They were also arrested.” Ibrahim Yousef Salman, a resident of the city of Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, while he was being treated for cancer at Al-Najah Hospital in Nablus.
The Palestine Center for Prisoner Studies called on international organizations to intervene and put pressure on the occupation to stop the policy of arrest and extortion to which Gazans are subjected, whether at the Beit Hanoun checkpoint or while they are fishing or approaching the border, and to allow freedom of movement without being subjected to arrest.
