RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories: The Palestinian Authority’s prisoners affairs minister on Monday accused Israel of waging an abusive “war of revenge” against Palestinian detainees since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.
Accounts of alleged mistreatment including torture, rape and other sexual abuses in Israeli jails have all been denied by Israeli authorities.
“Israel has been waging a war of revenge against prisoners within the walls of prisons and detention centers since the first day of the decision to go to war against Gaza,” said the PA’s Prisoners’ Affairs Authority head Qadura Fares.
Speaking at a press conference in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, he added that Palestinian prisoners were treated as “hostages” and the mistreatment was part of the “pressure.”
The authority’s lawyer Khaled MaHajjna denounced abuses which he said he had been told of when he visited detained Gaza journalists Mohammed Arab and Tariq Abed at the Ofer detention center near Ramallah.
MaHajjna said he was told how guards forced one prisoner to “lay on his stomach naked and then a fire extinguisher tube was inserted into his buttocks and the fire extinguisher was turned on.”
He said he was told how other inmates had “electric prods” used on their bodies.
In parallel to increasing complaints by Palestinians, some Israeli rights groups are fighting for a court order to close Sde Teiman, a desert detention camp just for detainees during Israel’s war with militant group Hamas.
The Israeli military said it “rejects outright allegations concerning systematic abuse of detainees in the ‘Sde Teiman’ detention facility, including allegations of sexually abusing detainees.” It also said that it acts within international law.
The lawyer said prisoners were handcuffed when they ate and that meals consisted of 100 grams (3.5 ounces) of bread or tomatoes with some milk.
MaHajjna quoted Arab as saying that he saw one handcuffed prisoner die after being beaten for demanding medical treatment. He said about 100 detainees had diseases and wounds in desperate need of treatment.
He alleged that some prisoners had their hands bound before dogs were then set upon them.
Five Israeli rights groups have gone to court over conditions at Sde Teiman.
The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), one of the five, said that the high court on Monday ordered the government to respond within three days to the original petition filed in May.
ACRI, Physicians for Human Rights, HaMoked, the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel and Gisha have demanded the closure of Sde Teiman, saying that “severe violations of detainees’ rights” make imprisonment at the facility “unconstitutional and untenable.”
The government has not commented on the case.
According to the Palestinian Prisoners Club, around 9,600 Palestinians are in Israeli jails, including hundreds under administrative detention which allows the military to keep detainees for long periods without being charged or produced in court.
The war started with Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.
The militants also seized 251 hostages, 116 of whom are still in Gaza including 42 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s military retaliation has killed at least 38,664 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to data from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.
Israel waging ‘war of revenge’ on Palestinian prisoners: PA minister
https://arab.news/52a9f
Israel waging ‘war of revenge’ on Palestinian prisoners: PA minister
- Accounts of alleged mistreatment including torture, rape and other sexual abuses in Israeli jails have all been denied by Israeli authorities
Legal cannabis blooms in Morocco but black market still beckons
The step made Morocco a forerunner among major producing countries and the first in the MENA to join a global trend
BAB BERRED, Morocco: Beneath the blazing summer sun, Abderrahman Talbi surveyed the neat rows of flourishing cannabis blooms in compact fields, reflecting on how his life has changed since he joined Morocco’s burgeoning legal cannabis industry two years ago.
Like many farmers in the northern Rif mountains who have long grown the crop illegally, Talbi is relieved that raids and seizures by the authorities are no longer a worry.
“I can now say I am a cannabis farmer without fear,” Talbi told Reuters. “Peace of mind has no price.”
Talbi’s pivot to legal farming is an example of what Morocco, one of the world’s biggest cannabis producers, hoped to achieve when it legalized cultivation for medical and industrial use, but not for recreational purposes, in 2022.
Regulating cannabis farming brought with it hopes for fresh revenue and economic revitalization in the impoverished Rif region.
The step made Morocco a forerunner among major producing countries and the first in the Middle East and North Africa to join a global trend that has seen countries like Canada, Germany and Uruguay legalize production and use.
It also hoped to lure farmers away from the illegal economy in the restive Rif mountains, where cannabis production has long been tolerated to facilitate social peace.
Al Hoceima, a major city in Rif, saw the largest protests in Morocco in 2016-17 over economic and social conditions.
BLACK MARKET’S LURE PERSISTS
Legalization efforts have gained traction, with about 5,000 farmers joining the industry this year, from just 430 in 2023, says Morocco’s cannabis regulator, or ANRAC.
And legal production surged to nearly 4,200 tons last year, a 14-fold increase over the first harvest in 2023.
Still, the black market remains dominant and lucrative due to demand for recreational use from Europe and regionally in Africa, potentially undermining efforts to fully regulate the sector.
Morocco has 5,800 hectares (14,300 acres) of legally planted land, according to ANRAC. That’s dwarfed by illegal cultivation spanning over 27,100 hectares, Interior Ministry data shows.
While many farmers still choose illicit cultivation, they face the risk of increased crackdowns by authorities, which led to the seizure of 249 tons of cannabis resin by September last year, up 48 percent from all of 2023, according to the Interior Ministry.
Mohammed Azzouzi, 52, spent three years in hiding for cannabis-related charges before receiving a royal pardon along with over 4,800 others last year.
Now, he is preparing for his first legal harvest and hopes to earn more than the 10,000 dirhams ($1,100) he used to make in the illegal economy each year.
RED TAPE
The country’s prohibition on growing cannabis for leisure use, along with bureaucratic red tape, limit legal farming, with every stage of the supply chain requiring a specific license from ANRAC, discouraging many a farmer from making the switch.
A grower who wants to cultivate legally needs to join a licensed cooperative, which buys the farmer’s product and processes it into derivatives or sells the resin to other licensed manufacturers.
Talbi’s cooperative, Biocannat, near the town of Bab Berred, 300 km (186 miles) north of Rabat, bought about 200 tons of cannabis last year from some 200 farmers, processing it into resin, supplements, capsules, oils and powders for medical and cosmetic purposes.
About 60 km east of Biocannat, in the main producing area of Issaguen, farmer Mohamed El Mourabit was initially hopeful about the legalization plan in 2021, but is less so now.
“The process is too complicated,” he said.
And money talks, as well, for many farmers, who are lured by the higher rewards of the black market, despite its risks.
While cooperatives take months to pay farmers about 50 dirhams per kilogram for the raw plant, on the illicit market, processed cannabis resin can fetch up to 2,500 dirhams per kilogram, farmers and activists say.
To close that gap, legalization advocates say growing for recreational use should be allowed, too.
But it’s not clear whether that will happen soon.
Mohamed Guerrouj, head of ANRAC, said legalizing recreational use would only be considered within a medical framework.
“The goal is to develop Morocco’s pharmaceutical industry ... not coffee shops,” he said.
Hamas says delegation leaving Doha after Gaza ceasefire talks breakdown
- A high-level leadership delegation from Hamas is departing Doha heading to Istanbul
- Israel has resisted international calls to agree a ceasefire in Gaza
GAZA CITY: Hamas’s negotiating team left the Qatari capital Doha for Turkiye on Tuesday to discuss the “latest developments” in the stalled Gaza ceasefire talks, a Hamas official told AFP.
“A high-level leadership delegation from Hamas, headed by Mohammed Darwish, president of the movement’s leadership council, and including the negotiation team and its head, Khalil Al-Hayya, is departing Doha heading to Istanbul,” the source told AFP.
“The delegation will hold several meetings with Turkish officials regarding the latest developments in the ceasefire negotiations, which stalled last week,” the source added.
For over two weeks, mediators in Qatar had been shuttling between Israeli and Hamas delegations in a bid to secure a breakthrough in indirect talks for a ceasefire and the release of hostages held in Gaza, nearly two years into the war.
The United States joined Israel last week in pulling its negotiators from the negotiations, with US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff blaming the Palestinian militant group for the failure to reach a deal and saying Washington would “consider alternative options.”
Hamas politburo member Bassem Naim told AFP on Friday that the latest discussions focused on details of an Israeli military withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
Israel has resisted international calls to agree a ceasefire in Gaza, with UN-backed experts warning on Tuesday that the Palestinian territory was slipping into famine.
Israeli foreign minister Gideon Saar called the ceasefire demands “a distorted campaign of international pressure against Israel” that would leave Hamas in power in Gaza.
“It ain’t gonna happen, no matter how much pressure is put on Israel,” he said at a press conference Tuesday.
Germany’s Merz says Gaza aid airdrops could start as soon as Wednesday
- “This work may only make a small contribution to humanitarian aid,” said Merz
- Two A400M aircraft were on their way to Jordan at the moment
BERLIN: German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that two of the country’s aircraft could fly aid airdrop missions from Jordan to Gaza as soon as Wednesday, calling the help a small but important signal.
“This work may only make a small contribution to humanitarian aid, but it sends an important signal: We are here, we are in the region,” said Merz at a press conference alongside Jordan’s King Abdullah in Berlin.
Two A400M aircraft were on their way to Jordan at the moment, where they would refuel and then fly their aid mission at the weekend at the latest, in coordination with France and Germany, said Merz.
Merz also welcomed initial steps taken by Israel to allow in aid but said more must follow.
Displaced Sudanese stream home from Egypt after army retakes Khartoum
- “I miss every corner of Sudan, really. I’m very happy that I’m going back,” a returnee said
- Over 4 million Sudanese fled to neighboring countries — including more than 1.5 million to Egypt
CAIRO: Toting large suitcases and bags of belongings, the Sudanese families crowding into Cairo’s main railway station hoped to be returning to relative stability after fleeing Sudan’s civil war.
They are among thousands of displaced Sudanese streaming back home from Egypt into territory retaken by the Sudanese armed forces from the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary in Khartoum and its environs since the start of this year.
“I miss every corner of Sudan, really. I’m very happy that I’m going back,” one of the returnees, Malaz Atef, told Reuters.
The families were waiting to board a free train to the southern Egyptian city of Aswan, from where they would take buses to the Sudanese capital Khartoum. A couple of young girls wore hats reading, “Thank you, Egypt” in Arabic.
Over 4 million Sudanese fled to neighboring countries — including more than 1.5 million to Egypt — after war broke out between the army and the RSF in April 2023, according to figures from the International Organization for Migration, or IOM.
Since the start of this year, over 190,000 people have crossed the border from Egypt into Sudan, more than five times the number who returned in all of 2024, an IOM report said earlier this month.
Sudan’s ambassador to Egypt, Emad el-Din Adawy, who visited the station on Monday, said the returns marked “an important stage for reconstruction and bringing back stability.”
Despite the relative calm in the capital, fighting between the RSF and the army is still raging in the central Kordofan region and Al-Fashir in Darfur in the west.
The war, triggered by a dispute over a transition to civilian rule between the army and the RSF, has displaced over 12 million people and pushed half the population into acute hunger, according to the United Nations.
Some Sudanese in Egypt have complained of difficulty finding jobs and discrimination, and Egypt has deported thousands of refugees it says entered illegally. Thousands of others have fled onwards to Libya.
The weekly trains from Cairo to help Sudanese to return home voluntarily have been financed by Sudanese businessmen, according to Adawy.
The Sudanese who have gone back so far have mostly headed to Khartoum, as well as to Sennar and El Gezira states to the capital’s south, according to the IOM.
France to air-drop aid into Gaza: diplomatic source
- “France will carry out air drops in the coming days,” a diplomatic source said
PARIS: France will air-drop aid into Gaza “in coming days,” a diplomatic source said on Tuesday, as UN-backed experts warned the Israeli-blockaded Palestinian territory was slipping into famine.
“France will carry out air drops in the coming days to meet the most essential and urgent needs of the civilian population in Gaza,” the source said, also urging “an immediate opening by Israel of the land crossing points.”
