RAMALLAH: As many countries around the world celebrate Mother’s Day, 28 Palestinian mothers held in Israeli jails are denied their right to celebrate this occasion with their children, today said the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS) and the Detainees and Ex-Detainees Commission.

The Commission and the PPS said in a joint statement that among the mother detainees are wives of prisoners, sisters of prisoners, sisters of martyrs, and former female prisoners who spent years in Israeli occupation prisons.

They said that Mother’s Day this year comes at a time of ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, which resulted so far in the killing of over 32,000 people, mostly children and women.

PPS affirmed that the occupation continues to carry out the crime of enforced disappearance against the female prisoner mothers from Gaza detained in Israeli camps.

PPS added that occupation forces carried out large-scale detention campaigns against women in Gaza after October 7, including mothers
and grandmothers.

Today, among the female prisoners in Damoun prison, there are four female prisoners from Gaza, including two female prisoners and their mothers.

The Commission and PPS said that Mother’s Day represents a milestone to celebrate the exceptional sacrifices of Palestinian mothers, who have faced systematic killing, displacement, detention, and threats for many decades, in full view of the world, and to reflect the level of the occupation’s crimes, unprecedented in their intensity after October 7th.

“At a time when the world celebrates Mother’s Day and excludes Palestinian mothers, in light of the lack of a real global will to end the occupation and stop its escalating crimes,” added PPS and the Commission.

PPS and the Commission recounted the horrific testimonies from female detainees, including mothers, who were subjected to various forms of maltreatment, including physical and psychological abuse in prisons.

The occupation detains the majority of female prisoners, including mothers in the
Israeli prison of Damoun

The Commission and PPS explained that the crimes and violations carried out by the Israeli occupation forces against female prisoners, including mothers, after October 7 escalated in an unprecedented way, and one of the most prominent crimes documented by the institutions was the detention of mothers to pressure their husbands or children who were detained by the occupation forces under harsh and unbearable conditions.

PPS said that dozens of mothers were assaulted and brutally attacked during the military raids into their homes by occupation soldiers.

The occupation forces further escalated the sexual assaults against female detainees, including mothers, the most prominent of which was the strip searches.

The Commission and the Club added that the majority of female prisoners and mothers are detained on charges related to incitement or are under administrative detention, and that some of them are active women at several human rights, popular, and social levels.

PPS and the Commi
ssion urgently called on international feminist institutions and movements to assume their moral and humanitarian responsibilities in the face of the horrific crimes committed against Palestinian women.

Source: Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA