KUALA LUMPUR, July 30 — Malaysia can play a greater role in advocating for the rights of Palestinian detainees by intensifying international pressure on Israel and helping bring alleged prison abuses before global institutions, a senior Palestinian official said.
Head of the Palestinian Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs, Raed Abu Al-Hummus, said Malaysia and other supporters of Palestine could assist by continuing to highlight the ill treatment of Palestinian prisoners and pressing the regime to allow greater access to detainees.
“To put pressure on the Israeli government and to keep talking about this sensitive issue really helps us,” he said during an interview on the Bernama TV’s Palestine Beyond The Headlines programme on Thursday.
He claimed that about 9,400 Palestinians were being held in Israeli prisons, including 99 women, more than 350 children, and 3,244 people under administrative detention, which allows for detention without charge or trial.
He said the figure did not include more than 1,300 Palestinians from Gaza allegedly being held in undisclosed detention facilities.
Describing the situation as a “silent genocide inside the Israeli prisons,” Abu Al-Hummus alleged that new punitive measures had been imposed on detainees since Oct 7, 2023, which include starvation, sexual harassment, overcrowding, and denial of medical treatment.
“Most of them are sick,” he said, adding that diseases had spread throughout the prisons.
He also claimed that more than 90 Palestinian prisoners had died in Israeli custody since Oct 7, with some allegedly subjected to torture, beatings, and sexual abuse.
Abu Al-Hummus said the commission had formed an emergency legal team comprising more than 65 lawyers to follow cases in Israeli military courts, prisons, and detention centres, but restrictions on access and lengthy procedures continued to hamper their work.
“Every issue we raise in the military court needs time, and time means the death of more Palestinian prisoners,” he said.
He said the commission would continue documenting and highlighting the plights of the detainees through reports and engagement with international organisations, and maintained that the Palestinian leadership still believes in peace and a two-state solution.
