CAIR Calls on US to Act Against Israeli Torture

APP

Washington: The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a prominent Muslim advocacy organization based in Washington, has called on the Biden administration to take action following new reports of Israeli torture of Palestinian detainees.

Dr Muhammad Abu Salmiya, the director of Gaza’s al-Shifa Hospital, was released on Monday without any charges from Israeli detention. He reported that Palestinian prisoners in Israeli facilities face daily abuse. 

“There was almost daily torture. Cells are broken into, and prisoners are beaten. Several inmates died in interrogation centers and were deprived of food and medicine,” Abu Salmiya stated.

He also mentioned that even medical staff were responsible for abuse and neglect, leading to some detainees having limbs amputated due to poor medical care. Detainees reportedly survived on nothing but bread for two months.

A lawyer who visited an Israeli detention center described the conditions as “more horrific than anything we’ve heard about Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.” Both CNN and the New York Times have reported on rape and sexual assault at the same detention center.

Last month, CAIR made a similar demand after increasing reports of systematic torture of Palestinian detainees by Israeli forces. This followed a Palestinian journalist from Gaza describing the torture, abuse, and rape that he and other detainees experienced at an Israeli detention camp.

“The Biden administration must take concrete action to end the widely-reported torture and abuse of thousands of Palestinian detainees being held by the genocidal Israeli government.

These ongoing human rights abuses are made possible by the Biden administration’s complicity in the Israeli genocide and by decades of systematic dehumanization of the Palestinian people. Both the torture and the dehumanization must end,” CAIR stated.

On Sunday, CAIR condemned both the newly-revealed Israeli use of Palestinian civilians as “human shields” and recorded remarks by a top Israeli official calling for the summary execution or starvation of Palestinian prisoners.

In video aired exclusively by Al-Jazeera, Palestinian prisoners were shown being forced to search homes for bombs or tunnels, while Israeli troops sought protection by forcing handcuffed and nearly-naked prisoners to search buildings.

Over the weekend, CAIR’s New York chapter criticized a false claim by Israel’s new far-right consul general that New York is under threat of a “Muslim occupation,” warning it could lead to more hate crimes targeting ordinary Muslims and Arab-Americans.

Last week, CAIR condemned Israel’s blocking of Palestinian mothers from accompanying their children to Egypt for cancer treatment. CAIR also criticized the Biden administration’s reported plan to release 500-lb bombs to Israel, part of a weapons shipment put on hold in April.

Previously, CAIR condemned a genocidal threat by the Israeli government to return Lebanon to the “stone age,” as reports from Gaza revealed that doctors have been forced to perform amputations without anesthesia on bombing victims.

A new report exposed an Israeli war crime from last year in which 11 Palestinian men in Gaza were executed in front of women and children. Survivors described a “bloodbath” left by Israeli soldiers.

CAIR called for a United Nations investigation into the “summary executions” of unarmed Palestinian men in front of their families.

Additionally, a report by the Norwegian Refugee Council confirmed that 83 percent of Palestinians displaced from Rafah by Israel lack access to food, 52percent have no access to dignified shelter, and 57 percent have no access to safe water.

CAIR also highlighted a new report by Scripps News and Bellingcat, which showed that Israel’s campaign in Gaza is seeking to erase Palestinian culture.