Statements by the head of the Prisoners’ Affairs Authority, Qaddoura Fares, to the “Agence France-Presse”:
- “The most dangerous thing that is happening is that Israel does not reveal the number of detainees it has arrested during its operations in the Gaza Strip,” after the Hamas movement’s attack on Israel on October 7.
- “We fear they were killed after being arrested and interrogated.”
- “Not revealing the number and hiding this case means that Israel can do whatever it wants with those it has arrested, even killing them.”
- “The Palestinian Prisoners’ Affairs Authority contacted Israeli and international authorities to obtain the number, but we received no responses.”
- “Once, at the beginning of the war, the army arrested 105 Palestinians and we don’t know their fate.”
The Israeli military refused to comment and, in its response to Agence France-Presse, said: “We cannot clarify this matter at this time.”
According to information from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the Israeli army arrested Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, who were fleeing from the north to the south of the Gaza Strip.
During the 7-week war and four-day truce, Israeli forces arrested people walking south on Salah al-Din Road, which is the only route Israel allowed displaced people to take after ordering them to leave the north of the Gaza Strip. .
Displaced people in Gaza told the United Nations that the Israeli army had set up a checkpoint, equipped with facial recognition cameras controlled remotely by soldiers.
The United Nations said it observed “separated families” passing through and added: “At least one child was forced to cross this checkpoint alone after his father was arrested at this checkpoint.”
On Tuesday, the Palestinian Red Crescent reported the arrest of one of its aides, Ramadan Hoso, from Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip, on the southern road, and held him for hours before he was released.
Husso said: “The Israeli soldiers said to the person in front of me: turn around and go there. Then they told me: go there. They interrogated me, stripped us of our clothes and took us to a checkpoint and then to a tank. .”
He says in a video broadcast by the Red Crescent: “The soldiers accompanied me and my hands were tied.”
Sahar Awad, a woman displaced from Gaza, told Agence France-Presse that Israeli soldiers arrested her son Muhammad at the southern exit of Gaza City on November 12.
He added: “He was released after 9 days after being tortured.”