Prisons
From the Editors (March/April 1984)
The war between Iran and Iraq has entered its most gruesome phase. Iran has stepped up its “human wave” attacks, sending tens of thousands of new recruits, including many young boys, to face entrenched Iraqi gun positions or to serve as human mine detonators. Tehran, with some evidence, accuses the Iraqi high command of using chemical weapons, including mustard gas, to turn back the Iranian attacks. Iraq’s deputy foreign minister, in Washington in mid-March, weakly responded to these charges by pointing to US use of chemical weapons, such as napalm and Agent Orange, in Indochina, and the nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as if to say that Iraq was entitled to some quota of war crimes.
The Prisoners of Israel
The Israeli Defense Forces have taken some 9,000 to 10,000 Palestinians and Lebanese prisoner in south Lebanon. Because the Israelis have not released lists of names or figures, the exact number of prisoners currently held cannot be determined. The IDF itself has released its estimate of 7,000 to 9,000 detainees. [1] Correspondents in the area thought that the al-Ansar prison camp constructed by the Israelis near Nabatiyya in south Lebanon housed anywhere from 6,000 to 9,000 prisoners in mid-July. Although 600 detainees were released in the first week of July, and 212 children were released to the International Committee of the Red Cross on July 18, new detainees continue to arrive at the camp — some 400 on July 18, for instance.
