Palestinian Information Center
August 8, 2007

RAMALLAH, (PIC)-- The Israeli internal security official in the Talmond jail for women has barred two Palestinian toddlers from getting out of their cells along with their mothers in the daily break for more than three months leading to great deterioration in their health condition.

Sima Anbas, in charge of Palestinian female prisoners in the Palestinian prisoner's club, said in a statement that the 10-month-old baby girl Ghada Jasser and her mother Khawla Zeitawi and the 14-month-old baby boy Bara' and his mother Samar Subaih have been deprived of sun light since 10th May this year.

Anbas noted that the decision came with the advent of summer where Israeli prison dungeons turn into "unbearable hell". She added that the cells reel under high temperatures and humidity.

She explained that both toddlers may have started to contract diseases in their respiratory system, adding that the small cells do not allow them to crawl for more than two steps.

Anbas said that she received a message from both mothers appealing to legal and human rights organizations in addition to MPs concerned with the prisoners' question to seriously pressure the Israeli official to revoke his decision and allow both toddlers to go out of the cells. She added that both mothers were threatening a hunger strike in the event their demands were not met.

The message said that both mothers tried to convince the Israeli prison official to retract his decision and to know reasons for it but they failed.