How are Palestinian women treated in Israeli prisons?
Most Palestinian women political prisoners were previously housed with the general Israeli prison population in Neve Terze prison, where drug addicts, prostitutes, and other hardened prisoners are held. After hunger strikes, most were transferred to Telmond prison. Some, however, including several administrative detainees, remain incarcerated at Neve Terze. A few Palestinian women are raising very young children in prison; two, Mervat Taha and Manal Ghanem, gave birth while under detention. For most others, contact visits with children and other family members are permitted twice every six months. However, as a condition for the visits, women are required to submit to full body searches in the nude. This is a condition most have rejected. Prison guards have stormed Palestinian women prisoners’ cells, and searched and confiscated their personal effects without cause, beating the women prisoners in the process. Denial of medical services has been used to punish those who protest the cond
