25 Cases of COVID-19 Among Palestinian Detainees in Israeli Prison

Palestinian women wearing protective face mask walks beside Israeli officers in Jerusalem. Reuters.
Palestinian women wearing protective face mask walks beside Israeli officers in Jerusalem. Reuters.
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25 Cases of COVID-19 Among Palestinian Detainees in Israeli Prison

Palestinian women wearing protective face mask walks beside Israeli officers in Jerusalem. Reuters.
Palestinian women wearing protective face mask walks beside Israeli officers in Jerusalem. Reuters.

The Palestinian Prisoner's Society (PPS) announced Sunday that 25 new COVID-19 cases were registered among Palestinian detainees in an Israeli prison in the Naqab desert.

The new infections raised the total number of Palestinian prisoners who have contracted the coronavirus since the outbreak of the pandemic to 171, according to the PPs.

It also noted that the Israeli prison authorities had moved all of the infected prisoners to section 8 in neighboring Ramon prison, but said it has not received any information about their health conditions.

PPS stressed that there was a real danger to the lives and health conditions of the Palestinian prisoners in Israeli detention facilities, given the lack of proper health measures.

It further called on the international human rights organizations, the World Health Organization and the United Nations to pressure the Israeli occupation authorities to release all sick and elderly Palestinian prisoners.

For her part, the Palestinian Minister of Health, Mai Al-Keela, also warned about the danger of the virus outbreak among Palestinian detainees, highlighting major overcrowding in prisons.

Al-Keela stressed that “all Israeli prisons are vulnerable to becoming centers of the epidemic, which means that all Palestinian prisoners are highly vulnerable to infection with the COVID-19, and this puts their lives in danger, especially the sick prisoners, who amount to 700, especially chronic patients and cancer patients.”

She also called on the international community to pressure the occupation over the immediate release of the sick and elderly prisoners to form a neutral medical committee to supervise the results of the prisoners’ samples and their health conditions.



Israel Says it Killed a Hezbollah Member in Drone Strike in South Lebanon

A picture taken from the southern Lebanese region of Marjayoun, shows the destruction in Khiam on November 28, 2024, a day after a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah took effect. (AFP)
A picture taken from the southern Lebanese region of Marjayoun, shows the destruction in Khiam on November 28, 2024, a day after a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah took effect. (AFP)
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Israel Says it Killed a Hezbollah Member in Drone Strike in South Lebanon

A picture taken from the southern Lebanese region of Marjayoun, shows the destruction in Khiam on November 28, 2024, a day after a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah took effect. (AFP)
A picture taken from the southern Lebanese region of Marjayoun, shows the destruction in Khiam on November 28, 2024, a day after a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah took effect. (AFP)

An Israeli drone strike hit a car in south Lebanon on Saturday, killing one person who the Israeli military said was a member of Hezbollah.

State-run National News Agency did not give further details about the strike in the village of Bourj el-Mlouk.

The airstrike was the latest in a wave of such attacks since a US-brokered ceasefire went into effect in late November ending the 14-month Israel-Hezbollah war.

The Israeli military said the Hezbollah member who was killed was active in the border village of Kfar Kila.

The strike came a day after Lebanon’s military court sentenced two people to prison terms for giving digital information to Israel.

Four judicial officials told The Associated Press Saturday that one of those sentenced received a 15-year prison term while the other was sentenced to 10 years in jail. A third was set free for lack of evidence against him, the officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to share information with the media.

The officials said the two scanned the cellular telephones network in wide areas of Beirut and its southern suburbs that is home to Hezbollah’s headquarters using sophisticated equipment.

The officials said the two, who were detained last year, also supplied Israel with about 1,500 photographs from Beirut’s southern suburbs.