Arab League Calls for an end to imprisonment of Palestinian women

The Arab League has highlighted the sacrifices and steadfastness of the Palestinian woman, calling for pooling and intensifying international efforts to end Israel's detention of palestinian female prisoners. "The Arab League in a satement issued here on Thursday marking the International Women’s Day, calls on the world public opinion, local and international institutions, human and civil rights organizations, women's rights organizations, and the whole world to assume their responsibilities and productively work towards supporting the Palestinian people and the Palestinian woman in particular," said the League in a statement published on occasion of International Women's Day. The League also called for pressuring Israel into releasing all detainees, specifically Palestinian females, and ending the administrative detention system considering it against international law and all international humanistic agreements and treaties. The statement added: "The world celebrates today, March 8th, International Women's Day and in a time when the world has witnessed a reinforcement of women's roles on all levels and a pursuit of their rights and active participation in all fields, the Palestinian woman is still defining patience and resistance with her fights and sacrifices in the name of dignity and freedom. She represents the martyr, the mother, the detainee, the hurt, and the muse inspiring Palestinians to establish their independent state with al-Quds as its capital." Furthermore, the statement indicated that since the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories in 1967, occupation forces have detained around 15,000 Palestinian women who have been beaten, insulted, and treated extremely harshly. It states that they are exposed to the dangers of a lack of medical treatment along with searches and intrusions exercised in their provocation by Israeli forces. This is in addition to the prohibition of any messages and even books which constitutes a violation of all principles, values, and international treaties, primarily the Fourth 1949 Geneva Convention. The Arab League indicated in this regard that the Palestinian detainee Hanaa Yahia El Shalabi enters today simultaneously with the International Women's Day into her 22nd day of her open hunger strike in protest of her arbitrary administrative detention by Israeli occupation. The Arab League reiterated that administrative detention is a random illegal procedure which clearly falls outside international law and comes within the policy of collective punishment imposed by Israel against Palestinians through which Israel has detained Palestinians for years without trials or accusations.