Official PA news believes the "exploding toothpaste" story

The official PA Wafa news agency "reports":

At least 135 Palestinian prisoners, held in Israeli jails, have been killed since 1967 due to torture or live fire shooting, according to a report published by the Prisoners' Center for Studies, a local group concerned with the issue of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons.

Whereas 72 prisoners were killed as a result of extreme torture, 74 others were deliberately shot dead by Israeli live fire after their apprehension, the report uncovered. Seven other prisoners, however, were killed after being treated with excessive force by the Israeli authorities.

Recent reports indicated that the Israel Prison Service had attempted to get rid of two prisoners, identified as Bashir Hroub and Haitham Salhia, by infusing poison into the Hroub's own toothpaste and into a cup of coffee for Salhia.

The center's chairman, Rafat Hamdona, said such attempts, as well as the killing of prisoners, is in contradiction with Article 85 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which stipulates that prisoners' lives are to be protected.

While this article in English says that the toothpaste was poisoned, in Arabic it says "explosive toothpaste." I reported on that accusation earlier this week.

Since the Prisoners' Center believes that Israel tries (and fails) at assassinating prisoners under its full control with James Bond-type methods - and they said that explicitly in their report - it becomes clear that the methodology of these "prisoners rights" organizations are, to put  it mildly, subpar.

And they are only one of the many such organizations that encourage prisoners to make wild accusations so they can write up reports using thee lies and attract more funding. Addameer and the Palestinian Ministry of Detainee Affairs and other organizations regularly pop up and issue bogus statistics. But even Addameer never said anything close to what this Al Arsa organization claims. Instead of saying that they were killed by gunshots, Addameer says that many were killed by "medical neglect."  That organization apparently counts every death from illness or natural causes as "medical neglect."

I once compared the mortality rates for Palestinian Arab prisoners since 1967 with those of the larger Palestinian population, and found that Palestinians are far less likely to die in Israeli custody than if they were free.

It is one thing for a random NGO to pop up and issue fake statistics. But when the PA publicizes them, then we see that the government itself has no compunction about making the most insane accusations.

Yet the Western media will never report on the pattern of lies and the complete untrustworthiness of Palestinian Arab officials. Instead, they will put them on TV and not even ask about their history of incitement and falsehoods.

(h/t Bob Knot)