by MOHAMMED MAR’I, ARAB NEWS

RAMALLAH: A Palestinian human rights organization on Thursday said Israel has begun using new methods of physical and psychological torture against Palestinian and Arab prisoners.

The Mandela Institute for Political Prisoners said in a press statement that the Israeli internal intelligence agency Shin Bet has been using painful means — mental and physical — of torture that leave fewer physical evidence such as forcing prisoners to sit in tiny chairs with hands and feet tied, making them stand up in closets, depriving detainees from sleep and using violent shaking.

The group said Shin Bet interrogates the prisoners under the threat of murder, assassination, home demolition, rape or the arrest of wife, covering of the head with a dirty sack, placing prisoners inside refrigerators, making them stand for a long period, and placing them in solitary confinement.”

It added that the Shin Bet restricts the prisoners’ use of toilet. The group termed the Israeli new policies against prisoners “blatant violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention” which prohibits signatories from committing any grave breaches against civilians in occupied territories. READ MORE