Mediator Qatar says 13 Israelis, including dual nationals, 10 Thais and one Filipino released in Gaza.

Group of 39 Palestinian women and children transported from two Israeli jails to Ofer prison ahead of expected release.

After seven weeks of war, Palestinians in bombarded Gaza welcome first pause in fighting with mixed feelings.

Israeli army says northern Gaza is out of bounds, blocks displaced Palestinians from returning home.

More than 14,800 people killed in Gaza since October 7. In Israel, the official death toll from Hamas’s attacks stands at about 1,200.

A big crowd has gathered around the Red Cross vehicle at the Beitunia checkpoint in the West Bank, where 39 Palestinians freed from Israeli prison are set to be released.

We are hearing the release of the Palestinian prisoners has been delayed due to scuffles between some Palestinian men and Israeli forces.

The crowd around the car are chanting « where are the prisoners, where are the prisoners? »

Those Palestinian women and teenage boys were transferred earlier today from two jails in northern Israel to a military courts complex in the occupied West Bank.

Once the Palestinian side is satisfied that their release has taken place, the deal remains on track. Around the same time as today’s release of hostages in Gaza, it’s thought that Hamas was also due to hand the list of the next group of hostages it will release tomorrow.

Qatar has said it has an “operations room” in Doha co-ordinating messages and making sure the releases in Gaza take place in a “safe” environment. So as today’s hostages are transferred to hospitals to be reunited with their loved ones, the whole process starts again ahead of another set of releases expected tomorrow.

With many moving parts, lots can still go wrong.

This is all about the sides verifying what has been agreed, before honouring their next set of commitments under the deal. And at the same time, a very delicate temporary ceasefire needs to stay in place for four days, or potentially even longer.

Emergency service tells Israeli Army Radio captives in ‘good’ health

Eli Bin, the director general of Israel’s national emergency service Magen David Adom, has told Army Radio he had spoken to the Red Cross delegation overseeing the captive release.

He said he was told an initial assessment indicated the captives were in “good and reasonable” health.

The released Israeli captives were set to be brought to hospitals in Israel after being brought from Gaza to Egypt via the Rafah crossing.

World Opinions – Agencies

L’article ‘Where are the prisoners?’ chant crowd in West Bank waiting for Palestinians’ release.. Video est apparu en premier sur World Opinion | Alternative Média.

At least 500 prisoners are on hunger strike inside a Bahraini prison primarily used to detain prisoners of conscience, refusing food in protest at their detention conditions.

Detainees began refusing food on 7 August, and increasing numbers have joined since.

Sayed Alwadaei, at the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (Bird) and a former inmate at Jau prison, said: “This is probably one of the most powerful strikes that has ever happened inside the Bahraini prison system; the scale of it is overwhelming.”

According to a statement from the inmates released through the outlawed Al-Wefaq opposition party, the hunger strike includes demands for increased time outside their cells, currently limited to an hour a day, prayers in congregation at the prison mosque, changes to constraints on family visits, improvements to education facilities and access to proper medical care.

Detainees at Jau prison that mainly houses prisoners of conscience began refusing food on 7 August

“These are not frivolous demands, but necessary ones required for human life,” the prisoners added.

The tiny Gulf island of Bahrain, population 1.5 million, has one of the highest incarceration rates per capita in the Middle East. An estimated 3,800 people are behind bars, of which Bird estimates that 1,200 are prisoners of conscience.

Since pro-democracy protests against the ruling Al Khalifa family swept Bahrain in 2011, a large number of people connected with demonstrations have been incarcerated. The government has launched sweeping crackdowns on activists, civil society and opposition political groups, including banning two political parties.

Most of the 1,200 political prisoners held in Bahrain are in Jau prison. Former inmates such as Alwadaei say political prisoners are housed in separate blocks and subjected to especially harsh treatment.

Prominent political prisoners, including the veteran human rights defender Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, are among the hunger strikers in Jau. His daughter, the activist Maryam al-Khawaja, said her father, who has been incarcerated since 2011, launched his own hunger strike to demand adequate medical treatment for a heart condition, after he was denied an appointment with a cardiologist on 11 occasions.

She said her father believed he had been singled out for additional punishment after demanding that prisoners received proper medical attention.

The lack of medical care, she said, was putting his life at risk. “He has a heart arrhythmia and he is at risk of a heart attack or a stroke at any time. We believe my father needs urgent surgery to install a pacemaker.”

Prisoners say denial of medical treatment, use of punitive solitary confinement and abuse are common. The family of Ahmed Jaafar Mohamed Ali, a dissident extradited from Serbia to Bahrain last year in contravention of a ruling by the European court of human rights because of fears he would be tortured in Bahrain, said he had joined the hunger strike.

His family say that after Ali demanded to see the duty officer at Jau on 15 August, the officer arrived and instructed other guards to pepper spray Ali in the face. He was then bound, with his arms behind his back and on his legs, before being taken to solitary confinement.

The national communication centre of Bahrain told the Guardian after publication: “The government of Bahrain is committed to protecting human rights and ensuring that international standards are met for all dealings with inmates at its reform and rehabilitation facilities”, and repeatedly asserted there were no prisoners of conscience held within its system.

Officers and other employees at Jau prison “are fully committed to dealing with inmates in accordance to the law,” it added.

The office of Bahrain’s interior ministry ombudsman said it had conducted investigations to “ensure the inmates obtain all their rights, whether from health care, visits or contact with their families, and are not being subjected to ill-treatment”.

Maryam al-Khawaja pointed to the broad international assistance received by Bahraini authorities from abroad, including Britain. The UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak, met the crown prince of Bahrain, Salman Bin Hamad Al Khalifa, in July. Britain also increased funding to the Bahraini interior ministry and security bodies to £1.8m last year through its opaque Gulf strategy fund.

She said: “The ruling family know they are incredibly dependent on their western allies … in many ways they [the allies] have enabled the Bahraini regime to stay in power.”

By Ruth Michaelson – Theguardian.com

L’article At least 500 Bahraini prisoners on hunger strike over conditions est apparu en premier sur World Opinion | Alternative Média.

 Dozens of Palestinians staged a protest at the al-Manara Square in downtown Ramallah on Wednesday, calling for the release of six prisoners on hunger strike in Israeli jails, some of whom are at imminent risk of death.

The six prisoners embarked on open-ended hunger strikes to protest being held on “administrative detention” orders – an Israeli policy that allows detaining Palestinians indefinitely based on “secret information” – without pressing formal charges or putting them on trial.

The demonstration was attended by the families of the prisoners, who hail from various cities in the occupied West Bank, as well as local civil society and prisoner groups.

Qadura Fares, head of the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society (PPS), said, “this battle that our heroes are undergoing is every Palestinians’ battle”.

“We are standing in front of a very dangerous scenario today. We are calling for national mobilisation – in the occupied West Bank, Gaza, Jerusalem and the 1948-occupied territories,” he said during the protest.

“Israel wants to turn us into a population that asks for civil rights, not national rights,” said Fares, adding hundreds of prisoners are threatening to participate in an-open ended strike starting on Thursday.

Families of prisoners call for the release of their sons, held in Israeli jails under ‘administrative detention’.

On Tuesday, prisoner Miqdad al-Qawasmi, who has refused food and drink for 91 days, was moved to the intensive care unit at the Israeli Kaplan hospital near Ramle. His lawyer, Jawad Bulous, said his health deteriorated rapidly and he “faces sudden death”.

Qawasmi’s father said his son is on a hunger strike to secure his liberation. “Those on hunger strike represent the epitome of freedom,” he said.

‘Verge of death’

Prisoners Alaa al-Araj, 75 days, and Hisham Abu Hawwash, 65 days, were also moved from the Ramle prison clinic to Israeli hospitals on Tuesday after their health deteriorated. Their whereabouts remain unknown, even to their families.

“We couldn’t sleep all night yesterday when we heard that Alaa was moved to hospital,” his mother, Nabila al-Araj, told Al Jazeera at the protest.

“He is on the verge of death,” said Nabila, who came from the northern town of Tulkarem to attend.

She said Alaa, a father of a five-year-old boy, is suffering and is “unable to stand, to talk, to see”, explaining that doctors are particularly worried about his nervous system..

World Opinions – Aljazeera

L’article Palestinians demand mobilisation to save hunger-strike prisoners est apparu en premier sur World Opinion | Alternative Média.