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TEL AVIV, April 7: An Israeli human rights group said on Sunday it had petitioned the supreme court to end what it called the use of torture during interrogation of Palestinian detainees, but the petition was rejected.
Israeli authorities have dismissed charges of ill-treatment, saying detainees were being dealt with humanely.
Lior Yavne, spokesman for B’Tselem which focuses on rights issues in the West Bank and Gaza, also said the court turned down an appeal to end the use of a collective warrant that prevents detainees from having access to a lawyer.
Israeli officials said about 2,000 Palestinians had been arrested in an army offensive into the West Bank launched 10 days ago after a spate of Palestinian suicide attacks. They said some 600-700 had been released.
“We received information that (some of the) detainees at Ofer detention camp in Beitunia (on the West Bank) are being interrogated by means of torture,” Yavne said.
He quoted “Israeli sources” as saying some detainees had had their toes broken.
Yavne said the petition called for the court to “end immediately all use of physical pressure in interrogation”.
But he told Reuters the court had rejected the request saying affidavits from those claiming they were abused, which B’Tselem did not provide, had yet to be presented.
Yavne said B’Tselem had asked the court to abolish the military warrants preventing detainees meeting their attorney. But the court accepted the state’s case that the measure was taken in an “exceptional warfare situation”.
In 1999, the Israeli supreme court issued a ruling banning the use of a variety of techniques used by the internal security service Shin Bet against Palestinian detainees, such as violent shaking.
CHURCH SIEGE: A Roman Catholic official on Sunday accused Israel of putting pressure to leave on Franciscan monks holed up in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, fearing this was a prelude to an attack on Palestinians inside.
“The Israeli officers are exercising increasingly heavy pressure on (Franciscan officials in the Holy Land) to have the Franciscan monks abandon the church and the monastery,” said Father David Jaeger.
Jaeger, spokesman for custodians of of Catholic sites in the Holy Land, said they “protest strongly against such pressures, which are offensive to its mission, and is asking the Israeli government to order those officials to cease and desist.”
“It is understandable if we fear that these pressures are meant to prepare the ground for a military assault on the place,” said Jaeger, who is currently in Rome.
“We therefore repeat that the friars inside are not hostages (of the Palestinians). They are exactly where they should be. Any military assault should be absolutely out of the question,” he said.
Some 200 Palestinians took refuge in the Bethlehem church on Tuesday and have remained holed up inside along with 40 Franciscan monks and four nuns.
Israeli troops ring the complex, one of the holiest sites in Christendom.
Israel accuses the Palestinians of using the church as a sanctuary and using the clergy inside as virtual hostages, but says its troops are under orders not to fire at holy places.
Palestinians say it is the troops surrounding the church who have effectively taken those inside hostage.
PAPAL APPEAL: In his address on Sunday, Pope John Paul said he felt close to those who are “living through difficult hours” in the Bethlehem church.
Vatican sources said on Saturday that Vatican diplomats and Church officials in the Holy Land had put forward a proposal to Israelis and Palestinians to end the Bethlehem standoff.
Catholic sources said that under the proposal, which Vatican diplomats and Church officials are working out with the help of other diplomats, the Palestinians in the basilica would be given safe passage to the Gaza Strip, leaving their weapons behind.
Israel’s latest offensive has been confined to the West Bank and has not affected Gaza, which is separated from the West Bank by Israeli territory.
“We take the occasion to appeal to both parties once more to accept the plan for what would be an honourable and peaceful solution to this unsustainable situation,” Jaeger said.—Reuters
