266,500 Gazans kidnapped by Israel since 1967

Israeli soldiers have detained 266,500 Palestinians kidnap-style from the Gaza Strip since 1967, according to Head of the Census Department at the Palestinian Committee of Detainees, Abdul-Naser Ferwana, who also said the number represents around one-third of more than 800.000 Palestinians kidnapped in occupied Palestine since 1967.

The former political captive said Israel is still holding captive more than 400 Gazans, including twenty who have been held since more than 20 years, adding that 22 Palestinians, who were kidnapped during Israel’s latest aggression and ground invasion into Gaza, are still imprisoned.

“Gaza Strip detainees have always been an important part of ongoing struggle of the prisoners’ movement; many became symbols of the struggle,” he said.

“The first detainee to die during strike in Israeli prisons is Abdul-Qader Abu al-Fahm, from Jabalia in northern Gaza, he died in 1970."

Ferwana further stated that the families of Gaza Strip detainees have been denied the right to visit with their detained family members after Israeli made a political decision, an act of collective punishment in June of 2007, denying family visit to all Gaza Strip detainees.

The decision remained in effect until July 2012, after the detainees held a hunger strike that lasted for 28 days, and after Israel allowed visits to dozens of detainees before it broke its vows and reinstated the ban of all visits when it launched its offensive on Gaza on July 8.

The ban remains in effect.

Ferwana said that the arrests of Gazans declined since mid-1994, after the first Oslo Agreement and the establishment of the Palestinian Authority, and after the Gaza Disengagement Plan of 2005.

The decline in arrests still meant that more than 6500 Palestinians from Gaza were taken prisoner in the prisoner in the period between 1994 and 2014.

He also said that 62 Gaza detainees died in Israeli prisoners since 1967, due to torture and medical neglect, while some have been deliberately assassinated after their arrest.

This number includes detainees Abdul-Qader Abu al-Fahm, Rasem Halwa, Samih Hasballah, Khaled Sheikh Ali, Atiyya Za’anin, Yousef al-‘Ar’ir, As’ad Shawwa, and Fadel Shahin, who died in 2008.

The 62 slain Gaza Strip detainees represent 0 of the 206 Palestinian detainees who died, or were killed, in Israeli prisons since 1967.

Ferwana demanded the International Community, the International Red Cross, and all related organizations, to intervene and pressure Israel into stopping its violations, and to allow family visits to all detainees.