RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories: The Palestinian Authority asked diplomats in a Wednesday meeting in the occupied West Bank to speak out on “unacceptable” conditions suffered by Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
Varsen Aghabekian Shahin, the Palestinian minister of state for foreign affairs, invited mostly European diplomats as well as representatives from international organizations to show them a three-minute video containing testimonies from Palestinians detained by Israel in recent months.
The compilation of footage and media interviews point to mistreatment in Israeli jails and allegations of torture, which Israeli authorities deny.
“This is unacceptable, this is against all human rights laws, and it needs to stop,” Shahin told the meeting in Ramallah, seat of the Palestinian Authority.
The conditions of prisoners “is of much concern to us, Palestinians, and we hope it is to the world as well,” she added.
The foreign ministry, citing figures from advocacy and rights groups, said some 9,600 Palestinians are currently detained by Israel.
Arrests and Israeli military raids in the West Bank have intensified since the Gaza war broke out with Hamas’s October 7 attack.
The Israeli prison authority has declared a “state of emergency,” effectively allowing it to worsen conditions for inmates and restrict jail visits.
According to a report handed out during Wednesday’s meeting, 18 prisoners have been “killed” in Israeli prisons since October 7.
Qadura Fares, head of the Palestinian Prisoners Club advocacy group, stressed it was often difficult to obtain information about detainees, including thousands arrested in Gaza since the start of the war, of whom he said most have probably been released.
“I believe the international community has the tools to help stop what is happening,” Fares said at the meeting.
“So is there a will in the international community to stop what is happening, or is there not?“
In December, the Israeli military said it had launched an investigation into the death in custody of several Palestinians arrested in Gaza and held at the Sde Teiman base near the city of Beersheva.
Several diplomats who attended the Ramallah meeting refused to comment when approached by AFP.
Last week a spokeswoman for the United Nations rights office said it had “been receiving very worrying, very distressing reports of how Palestinian detainees are being treated by Israeli forces since October 7.”
Palestinians ask diplomats to speak out on conditions in Israeli jails
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Palestinians ask diplomats to speak out on conditions in Israeli jails
- “This is unacceptable, this is against all human rights laws, and it needs to stop,” Shahin told the meeting in Ramallah, seat of the Palestinian Authority
Ankara city hall says water cuts due to ‘record drought’
- Dam reservoir levels have dropped to 1.12 percent and taps are being shut off for several hours a day in certain districts on a rotating schedule in Ankara
ANKARA: Water cuts for the past several weeks in Turkiye’s capital were due to the worst drought in 50 years and an exploding population, a municipal official told AFP, rejecting accusations of mismanagement.
Dam reservoir levels have dropped to 1.12 percent and taps are being shut off for several hours a day in certain districts on a rotating schedule in Ankara, forcing many residents to line up at public fountains to fill pitchers.
“2025 was a record year in terms of drought. The amount of water feeding the dams fell to historically low levels, to 182 million cubic meters in 2025, compared with 400 to 600 million cubic meters in previous years. This is the driest period in the last 50 years,” said Memduh Akcay, director general of the Ankara municipal water authority.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called the Ankara municipal authorities, led by the main opposition party, “incompetent.”
Rejecting this criticism, the city hall says Ankara is suffering from the effects of climate change and a growing population, which has doubled since the 1990s to nearly six million inhabitants.
“In addition to reduced precipitation, the irregularity of rainfall patterns, the decline in snowfall, and the rapid conversion of precipitation into runoff (due to urbanization) prevent the dams from refilling effectively,” Akcay said.
A new pumping system drawing water from below the required level in dams will ensure no water cuts this weekend, Ankara’s city hall said, but added that the problem would persist in the absence of sufficient rainfall.
Much of Turkiye experienced a historic drought in 2025. The municipality of Izmir, the country’s third-largest city on the Aegean coast, has imposed daily water cuts since last summer.
