Arab Parliament Speaker Meshaal bin Fahm Al-Salami called on the United Nations to send an international commission of inquiry into the prisons of the occupying Power (Israel) to learn about the racist practices and grave violations committed daily against Palestinian prisoners.

Al-Salami said in a press release on the occasion of Palestinian Prisoners’ Day that the occupation continues to detain thousands of Palestinians, including children, women, the elderly and political leaders, and the continued arbitrary arrests of all categories and segments of Palestinian society, as well as the arbitrary laws of the Israeli Knesset, such as the law for the forced feeding of prisoners and detainees.

He said that all these were considered to be serious crimes and breaches of the principles of international law, international humanitarian law, the Third Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War and United Nations resolutions.

He called on the United Nations, international institutions and international human rights bodies to shoulder their responsibilities and to label the crimes committed by Israel against the Palestinian prisoners in their real name as a war crime and crimes against humanity.

He stressed the need to compel Israel to release Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, especially women and children, to end the racist violations against them, to end the abhorrent occupation and to achieve a lasting, just and comprehensive peace in accordance with the resolutions of international legitimacy and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.