BBCcom_Content_Index_for_December_17_2023.txt

Palestinian prisoners not being given adequate food, Israel's top court says

Israel's Supreme Court has ruled that the state is jogos de god warfailing to provide adequate food to Palestinian prisoners, and must take steps to improve their nutrition.

The three-judge bench said on Sunday that the government was legally obliged to provide prisoners with enough nutrition to ensure "a basic level of existence".

Thousands of Palestinians have been held in Israeli jails for years, including over terror charges - and thousands more have been detained since the war in Gaza began in October 2023.

Talks for a ceasefire have stalled but on Sunday night US President Donald Trump issued a "last warning" to Hamas, urging them to accept a deal to release Israeli hostages from Gaza.

On a post on Truth Social, he said that Israel had accepted his terms, and it was "time for Hamas to accept them as well".

The president wrote that "this is my last warning, there will not be another one!"

Hamas responded in a statement and said it was ready to "immediately sit at the negotiating table" following "some ideas from the American side aimed at reaching a ceasefire agreement".

Trump also told reporters that there would be "a deal on Gaza very soon" and he thought that all the hostages would be returned, dead or alive.

Of the 48 hostages still being held in Gaza, as many as 20 are believed to be alive.

Israel has yet to formally respond to a deal that would see the release of some hostages, but has previously demanded the return of all the hostages in any agreement.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insists total victory over Hamas will bring the hostages home.

Pressure has been growing on Netanyahu in Israel, where thousands took to the streets on Saturday to call for an end to the war in Gaza and urge the prime minister to agree to a deal to free the remaining hostages.

Despite international calls for Israel to halt its offensive in Gaza, Netanyahu has said the IDF will intensify operations in and around Gaza City.

Reports from health officials in Gaza said that at least 87 people had been killed over the last 24 hours.

Israel has also refused to grant the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) access to Palestinian detainees since the Hamas attack on 7 October 2023, in which some 1,200 people died.

Israel launched a massive retaliation campaign to destroy Hamas which has resulted in the death of at least 64,368 Palestinians, according to figures from the Hamas-run health ministry. The UN considers the figures reliable, although Israel disputes them.

Human rights groups in Israel have long criticised prison conditions, and brought a petition last year alleging that changed food policies were causing prisoners to suffer malnutrition and starvation.

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), which was one of the groups that brought the petition, posted on X after the verdict, calling for it to be implemented immediately.

Palestinian detainees released back to Gaza had previously told the BBC they were subjected to mistreatment and torture at the hands of Israeli military and prison staff.

Israel's Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir lashed out at Sunday's ruling on 'X', writing that Israeli hostages in Gaza had no Supreme Court to protect them and he would continue to enforce the "minimum conditions required by law" on "imprisoned terrorists".

As Israel intensified its assault over the weekend, the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) struck another high-rise building in Gaza City on Sunday - the third to be destroyed in three days - alleging that the building was being used by Hamas. This has been denied by the Palestinian interior ministry.

The Al-Roya Building was struck by an air raid on Sunday, the third multi-storey building in Gaza City to be targeted by the Israeli military in as many days.

The Sussi Tower was destroyed on Saturday, and the Mushtaha Tower on Friday.

Evacuation warnings were issued to residents of the building and those in surrounding tents ahead of the strike.

A spokesperson for the IDF said the Al-Roya building housed Hamas intelligence-gathering equipment, and numerous explosive devices had been placed by Hamas "near the building".

The Palestinian ministry of interior denied the claims, and said the "false and baseless" allegations were being used to justify what it called Israel's "crimes against civilians".

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