Palestinian Detainee Abuse During Operation Cast Lead

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Palestinian Detainee Abuse during Operation Cast Lead - by Stephen Lendman

On July 6, the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PACTI) and Adalah: The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel released a report titled, "Exposed: The Treatment of Palestinian Detainees During Operation Cast Lead," detailing their horrific treatment.

Transferred to Israel for interrogation, detainees related grim details of their ordeal - grave human rights violations, showing Israel's "contempt for the rule of law."

Their "fundamental due process rights were trampled on and the rule of law brutally disregarded during and after the fighting," providing compelling evidence of collective punishment since Israel's 2005 "disengagement," followed by an embargo, a medieval siege, regular incursions, Cast Lead, and continued oppression of 1.5 million people - isolated, surrounded, attacked, brutalized, and slowly suffocated into submission, what hasn't happened and won't, but it doesn't deter Israel from trying, or America from providing weapons and funding its lawlessness.

Seizure and Detention in Gaza

Under Article 92 of the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners relating to family notification about an individual's seizure, the ICRC says it must be "as soon as (someone is) interned, or at the latest not more than one week after....arriv(ing) in a place of internment" or a temporary camp.

Israeli law also obligates authorities to comply with international law, its High Court recognizing notification as a basic detainee right, ruling that relatives must be informed within 24 hours:

"of his arrest and his place of detention so that they will be apprised of what befell their detained relative, and how they are able to offer him the assistance he requires to safeguard his liberty. This is a natural right derived from human dignity and general principles of justice, and accrues both to the detainee himself and to his relatives."

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