Zionist Forces Keep 13 Kidnapped Birzeit Students in Jail since Mid-July

By Staff, Agencies

Thirteen students of Birzeit University students, who were arrested by Zionist occupation forces following their solidarity visit to the family of a Palestinian prisoner in the occupied West Bank last month, are still behind bars in the occupation regime’s jails, the Islamic Bloc, the student wing of Palestinian resistance movement, Hamas, said.

Ismail al-Barghouthi, the coordinator of the Islamic Bloc at the university, made the remarks on Sunday, adding that five of the students are being held in the notorious al-Moskobyia detention center in West al-Quds, while eight others are in Ofer Prison near the West Bank city of Ramallah, Palestinian Information Center reported.

Barghouthi went on to say that all the detainees are members of the Islamic Bloc, stressing that the Tel Aviv regime seeks to undermine the determination of the student wing of Hamas and prevent it from assuming its role in serving university students.

In mid-July, Zionist forces arrested dozens of Birzeit University students after they visited the family of Palestinian prisoner Muntaser al-Shalabi whose house was razed in Turmus Ayya town, north of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.

According to the Islamic Bloc, the occupation regime’s forces “kidnapped 45 male and female Birzeit students after they returned from a visit to the family of Shalabi.”

The Zionist regime’s authorities have intensified their measures against Birzeit University students and detained dozens of them, disrupting their pursuit of higher education, which is a violation of their right to education.

More than 7,000 Palestinian prisoners are currently held in some 17 Zionist jails, with dozens of them serving multiple life sentences.

Palestinian inmates have been subjected to systematic torture, harassment and repression all through the years of the Zionist occupation of Palestine.