RAMALLAH, West Bank: “Israel” has “stepped up the brutality” of its torture of Palestinians arrested in recent crackdowns, a Palestinian human rights group said.

“This Israeli government continues its policy of torturing prisoners mentally and physically in interrogation, and an increase has occurred in both the means and brutality of torture”, the Mandela Institute said.

The Ramallah-based Mandela group said in a statement received that one of its lawyers had met with two Palestinians in “Israel’s” Askhelon prison who have been tortured since their arrests in early November.

Ashraf Rafiq Nassrallah, a resident of Rafah in the Gaza Strip, arrested on November 1 as he entered Gaza from Egypt, “suffers from extreme back troubles because he has been undergoing shabah since his arrest”, Mandela said. Shabah is a common “Israeli” torture technique in which the prisoner is forced to sit in a contorted position for hours or days.

Nassrallah also told Mandela “Israeli” interrogators had denied him sleep by playing loud music in his solitary confinement and had threatened to arrest his family members or kill him.

Nassrallah was arrested as he returned home via Egypt from Syria, where he had finished university studies.

Bashir Mohammad Qfeisheh, arrested on November 8 as he entered the West Bank from Jordan, was also forced to undergo shabah and denied sleep for long periods, and “had marks from beatings over his entire body”, Mandela said.

Interrogators have also refused to allow him to change clothes since his arrest and have denied him bedcovers and medication for “severe pains in his joints, back, teeth, hands and legs”, caused by the shabah, the institute said.

The “Israeli” supreme court has repeatedly ruled that “Israeli” interrogators may use “physical pressure” on Palestinians arrested in connection with anti-Israeli attacks.