Amnesty International On-line, Israel and the Occupied Territories: Mass detention in cruel, inhuman and degrading conditions
We were all handcuffed and we sat on a pebbly ground. We weren't given
any food, and when we asked for water they poured it over us. The handcuffs were tight and when the blindfolds were taken off on our arrival I saw some people with hands black and swollen. We told the soldiers that they were cutting into us and they said there was no alternative. We started to shout and cry, begging them to ease the handcuffs. It was very cold and some of us had T-shirts and no shoes. We weren't allowed to go to the toilet and had to relieve ourselves there. By 3.30am we were starting to shake and our teeth were chattering with cold.

There were two periods of large-scale Israeli incursions into Palestinian residential areas between 27 February and 20 May 2002. Some 2,500 Palestinians were arrested during the first period of Israeli incursions in late February and early March 2002; most were released after a few days' detention in what were consistently reported as degrading conditions. More than 6,000 Palestinians were arrested during a second period of large-scale Israeli incursions into Palestinian residential areas during Operation Defensive Shield which began on 29 March 2002. There was widespread ill-treatment of those arrested and more than 2,000 of the Palestinians detained after 29 March were held incommunicado, without access to a lawyer or a court. The use of administrative detention has also greatly increased: in May 2002 more than 700 Palestinians were detained without trial under administrative detention orders, compared with 32 six months earlier.

Israel's military incursions into Palestinian residential areas took place 17 months after the start of the second Palestinian intifada against Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The intifada which began on 29 September 2000 had started with stone throwing demonstrations and riots which had been put down by Israeli security forces by excessive use of lethal force. By January 2001 the Israeli forces went on the offensive, entering Palestinian areas with increasing frequency and using increasingly heavy firepower. On the Palestinian side, although demonstrations continued, armed political groups began to dominate the struggle. These groups, which often acted in alliance with each other, included Fatah, leading organization in the Palestine Liberation Organization headed by President Yasser Arafat; the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), both leftist groups; Hamas and Islamic Jihad, both Islamist groups; and the Martyrs of al-Aqsa, a group with close links to Fatah which emerged during the intifada. Armed Palestinians fired at Israeli colonies (known as ''settlements'') located in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and deliberately targeted Israeli-registered cars with yellow numberplates in the West Bank. Israeli civilians were deliberately targeted by Palestinian armed attacks and suicide attacks in public places - hotels, cafes, markets, bus stations, within Israel. By 27 February 2002 Palestinians had killed 271 Israelis, 196 of whom were civilians, including 30 children. The IDF responded using armour piercing rounds, grenade launchers, F16 aircraft and missiles from Apache helicopters against installations of the Palestinian security services and Palestinian residential areas. By the end of February 2002 more than 860 Palestinians had been killed, including more than 180 children; the majority appeared to have been killed when no other lives were in imminent danger, often shot by reckless or nervous soldiers. Very few cases were investigated by the IDF, allowing Israeli soldiers who shot Palestinians virtual impunity. In addition, during the first 17 months of the intifada more than 700 Palestinian houses had been destroyed containing several thousand homes. Within the Occupied Territories the IDF cut off towns and villages from the outside world by military barriers, piles of earth, concrete blocks and trenches; Palestinians from the Occupied Territories were forbidden to travel on many of the main roads in the Occupied Territories so that a journey of a few kilometres might take several hours; the economy declined and more than 50 per cent of Palestinians were out of work(1).
http://web.amnesty.org/ai.nsf/Index/MDE150742002?OpenDocument&of=COUNTRIES\ISRAEL/OCCUPIED TERRITORIES