Ramy Abdu

The Israeli campaign against independent human rights organisations is no longer a fleeting media backlash to a report, testimony, or journalistic investigation. It has evolved into a systematic policy targeting anyone who seeks the truth and documents crimes and violations against Palestinians, particularly in the Gaza Strip and inside Israeli detention centres and prisons.

19 Israeli prison guards are under investigation on suspicion of involvement in the death of a Palestinian prisoner last month. An autopsy showed signs of severe violence on the body of Thaer Abu Asab, who was 38 at the time of his death in Ketziot Prison on 18 November. Reports in Israeli media say he was beaten severely and died of his wounds hours later. However, the autopsy on Abu Asab’s body remains inconclusive.

Since the onset of Israel's colonisation of Palestine in 1948, innumerable visual records, photographs, and televised footage have documented wide-scale, disproportionate violence marked by humiliation and inhumane conduct by the Israeli military against unarmed Palestinian civilians. Notably, in many cases, the victims were defenceless children, women, the elderly, and those with disabilities.