Mr Ahmad Khaled; an academic researcher made the opening note, welcoming the participants.

Ms. Francis thanked the Institute of Law for discussing the Palestinian Prisoners in accordance to the International Law.

She added that the International Law considers part of the Palestinian Prisoners as Prisoners of War, and are protected by the 3rd Geneva Convention. The remaining part of Prisoners are protected by the 4th Geneva Convention and are considered detainees.

She said that Israel refuses to deal with detainees and Prisoners based on the International Law and considers them as criminals violating Israeli Law.

Ms. Francis spoke about the violations against the Prisoners by the Israeli government by bypassing a fair court, and transferring them to Prisons in Israel, mistreating them and placing them in isolated cells.

She also spoke about the Hunger Strike by the Prisoners demanding an end of policies of isolation and collective punishment.

Then she gave some statistics about the Swap deal by Israel and the Resistance factions, noting that the deal had a good impact which brought up the Prisoners’ subject back to the International media after Oslo’s agreement.

She mentioned that the deal had some flaws as not including all women in Prisoners in that deal, and not giving a guarantee of freeing the remaining Prisoners in the 2nd phase of the swap.

Dr. Faramand stressed that there should be a new strategy to deal with the issue of Prisoners.

The encounter discussed several questions concerning the topic, but all was focusing on finding a new strategy in dealing with the Prisoners’ issue in reference to the role that could be played by civil institutions in building that strategy.

In the end, Mr. Khaled thanked the speaker and participants for attending this legal encounter.