Prisoners Riot in Israeli Jail

Prisoners torched tents where they had been held [AFP]

22 October 2007

They used forbidden weapons, rubber bullets - it is unacceptable.
Ashraf al-Ajrami, Palestinian minister for prisoner affairs

Clashes have flared in an Israeli jail, with about 1,000 Palestinian prisoners attacking prison guards and torching the tents where they had been held.

Thirty people were injured in the incident which occurred early on Monday at the Ketziot prison in the southern Negev desert, a prison spokesman said.

Ian Domnitz, a spokesman for the Israel Prisons Authority, said the violence broke out after guards began searching prisoners' bunks for contraband.

The Prisoners Club, the main group representing Palestinians held in Israel, termed the cell searches "provocative".

Ketziot is set up like a military camp, with security prisoners quartered in tents rather than buildings.

Riots quelled

In Monday's riot, prisoners set 10 tents on fire and attacked the guards, wounding 15 of them, Domnitz said.

Prison officers moved in to quell the riot, injuring 15 prisoners, he said.

Four prisoners were hospitalised, with one critically wounded by a "non-lethal weapon", Domnitz said.

"The weapon was used in response to the endangerment of the lives of prison officers in the cell block," he said.

In the West Bank, Nabil Abu Rdeneh, a spokesman for Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, accused Israel of conducting a "repression campaign" against the prisoners.

He said the prison guards had used clubs, stun grenades and tear gas to disperse the crowd and said 250 people were injured.

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