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At least 769 Palestinians have been denied exit from the blockaded Gaza Strip by Israeli authorities since January, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on Wednesday.
The applicants included Palestinians who sought medical treatment for diseases such as cancer.
According to Haaretz, Israeli authorities cited first-degree relations between the applicants and Hamas members for denying them exit from the seaside enclave.
Last year, Israel denied exit to only 21 Gazans.
Since 2007, the Gaza Strip has groaned under a crippling Israeli blockade that continues to deprive its inhabitants of many essential commodities, including food, fuel, medicine and building materials.
Israeli intelligence service has been exploiting exit permits to blackmail Palestinians for security information, while many others are being detained at Israeli access points despite holding permits.
The Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority (PA) on Tuesday denounced the mistreatment to which Palestinian inmates in Israeli prisons are regularly subjected.Speaking to Anadolu Agency, Issa Qaraqe, head of the PA's Commission for Prisoners Affairs, said that Israel regularly subjects Palestinian prisoners to “severe measures”, including depriving them of water.He went on to describe such measures as “illegal”, accusing Israeli prison authorities of systematically mistreating prisoners and depriving them of their basic rights.Palestinians imprisoned by Israel are generally subjected to tight restrictions, including limits on visits by family members.Israel’s Channel 10 recently reported that Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan had directed the Israeli Prisons Authority to reduce shower time for inmates with the ostensible aim of conserving water.
Palestinian Authority slams Israeli abuse of prisoners
An Israeli court on Tuesday slapped a prominent Palestinian poet with a five-month jail term for “inciting terrorism” on social-networking platforms. According to Israeli daily Haaretz, the Israeli Magistrate's Court in the northern city of Nazareth sentenced Darin Tatour after convicting her of “inciting terrorism” in a poem she posted on social media.An Israeli citizen, Tatour belongs to the country’s Palestinian Arab minority who remained on their land following Israel’s establishment in 1948 -- an event they remember as the “Nakba” or “the Catastrophe”.Israel arrests seventeen Palestinians in overnight raidsTatour, a 36-year-old resident of the town of Al-Rina in the northern Galilee region, was arrested by the Israeli authorities in 2015 for her poem entitled, “Resist, My People, Resist”.In early 2016, Israel’s Central Court in Nazareth released Tatour from custody but placed her under house arrest.It remains unclear whether the jailed poet plans to appeal Tuesday’s court sentence.
Israeli court slaps Palestinian poet with jail term