A statement issued by the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas on the occasion of the Palestinian Prisoners' Day

Our Palestinian people, our Arab and Islamic nation,

Today marks the 44th anniversary of the Palestinian Prisoners' Day as our great people are participating in the Great March of Return to demand their fundamental rights and seek  an end to the Israeli siege imposed on the Gaza Strip, weeks before the 70th anniversary of the Nakba. As important as the latter issues seem to our just cause, our freedom from the Israeli Occupation can't be achieved without the freedom of our Palestinian prisoners currently held captive inside Israeli jails.

Our prisoners are experiencing tragic conditions and are deprived from their basic rights guaranteed by the international law. The Israeli occupation is continually implementing arbitrary policies against our prisoners in order to break their will and steadfastness. These policies include the deprivation of the fundamental rights ranging from denial of medical treatment and education, lack of food and unsuitable imprisonment conditions.

The Israeli occupation  continues to detain Palestinian prisoners  without abiding to legal, moral or humanitarian standards and are often put in administrative detention which is internationally prohibited.

With regard to these blatant violations, Hamas emphasises the following:

1) We direct our salute to our great prisoners and pledge that we will be working around the clock to bring them back to their families.

2) Hamas demands that the Israeli government abide by the prisoner swap that was reached in 2011 and release all the prisoners who were included in the deal yet were re-arrested later on.

3) The movement demands that the Egyptian mediator put pressure on the Israeli occupation government to release all those re-arrested from Wafa Al Ahrar deal as that constitues a violation of the terms of the deal.

4) We call upon the ICRC to exert maximum efforts and to exert all means of pressure on the Israeli occupation government to respect the rights of prisoners guaranteed by the international and humanitarian conventions, particularly the Fourth Geneva Convention and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

5) We call upon the masses of our heroic Palestinian people, their forces, factions and institutions to intensify efforts to revive and raise the cause of our prisoners by using every means possible to defend them and to reject the flagrant violation of international and humanitarian law against them.

6) We call on all Arab, regional and international governments, institutions and bodies to exercise all forms of pressure on the occupation and to force it to afford all conditions and requirements of a decent life for prisoners in accordance with international and humanitarian standards.

The Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas

Tuesday 17 April 2018