Israel is holding over 1,200 detainees — nearly all of them Palestinians — without charge or trial, the highest number in over three decades, an Israeli human rights group said Tuesday.
The detainees, 99% of whom are Palestinians, are held under Israel's policy of “administrative detention," without trial and under allegations that Israeli authorities keep secret.
The detentions can range from a few months to years — and authorities often extend them for unknown reasons, according to Jessica Montell, the executive director of Hamoked, the rights group that published the figures.
Hamoked said this makes it nearly impossible for detainees or their lawyers to mount a proper defense.
"The overall figure is outrageous," Montell said. “This is a patently illegal practice. These people should be given a fair trial or released.”
Israeli authorities can renew administrative detentions indefinitely. While detention orders are usually set for periods of three or six months, Montell said administrative detainees in Israel spend a year in detention on average.
Israel says the controversial tactic is necessary to contain dangerous militants and avoid divulging incriminating material for security reasons. But Palestinians and rights groups say the system denies due process and is widely abused.
The number of administrative detainees has more than doubled since early last year, when Israel began staging near-nightly arrest raids into Palestinian cities and towns following a series of Palestinian attacks. A quarter of all Palestinians under Israeli custody are now administrative detainees, according to Hamoked.
Administrative detention is very rarely used against Jews or Israelis, but that figure has been rising, too — 14 Israelis were held in administrative detention as of March, Montell said. Most of them are Palestinian citizens of Israel. But several are Jews suspected of violence against Palestinians during rampages in the West Bank.
Neither Israel’s Shin Bet security service nor the army immediately commented on the latest administrative detention figures.
Israel says its activities in the occupied territories are meant to stamp out militancy and thwart future attacks. The past year and a half has seen some of the worst bloodshed in the area in nearly two decades. More than 160 Palestinians have been killed in the fighting this year, according to a tally by The Associated Press.
Israel says most of the dead are militants. But many were stone-throwing youths protesting the incursions or people uninvolved in violence. At least five of them were age 14 or younger.
Israel’s hard-line National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, a West Bank settler himself, has pushed for tough measures against Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
On Monday, the Palestinian Prisoners Club and other advocacy groups reported that Ben-Gvir had done away with a policy allowing the early release for Palestinian prisoners held on national security charges.
For years, all detainees sentenced to less than four years had been eligible for early release to relieve severe overcrowding in the country’s prisons. Israel’s prison service confirmed that it was abiding by Ben-Gvir’s waiver of early releases as of Tuesday.
The West Bank has been under Israeli military rule since Israel captured the territory in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians want it to form the main part of their future state.
The territory’s nearly 3 million Palestinian residents are subject to Israel’s military justice system, while the nearly 500,000 Jewish settlers living alongside them have Israeli citizenship and are subject to civilian courts.
Such disparities have fueled allegations by human rights groups that Israeli policies toward the Palestinians amount to apartheid.
© Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
14 Comments
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falseflagsteve
1200 can you believe it? No comments from those that support Ukraine 100%. This is what I mean about things being based on what’s popular in the media. People just follow and parrot them.
This is an appalling breach of human rights and I’m glad it’s been reported here rather than non stop about that ridiculous Ukraine/Russia lark.
Strangerland
So your argument is "*people shouldn't support Ukraine, because *Israel". Got it. Seems legit...
falseflagsteve
Stranger
Nah, things ain’t black and white and I explained fully the reasons in my comment.
Let me explain in simpler terms. If the media mentioned other bad things going on around the world rather than non stop on just one then people might get a more nuanced view of the world.
There’s plenty of horrible things going on worldwide every single day, starvation, government oppression etc yet people have an obsession with just one thing, currently Ukraine and a climate change sideline to pad out the news.
Desert Tortoise
Yours comment is more of an argument to read multiple news sources. My daily reading includes Al Jazeera, AL-Monitor and Middle East Eye. Less frequently I read "38 North", Nordic Monitor, SJV Water and The Straits Times. I used to read SCMP but it has become a CCP mouthpiece.
cuddly
Making the streets of Tel Aviv safer.
Rodney
What about the 20000 Palestinian children?
RichardPearce
Now, when a certain other regime held ONE person with no charges or trial, the international press refused to allow the regime to substitute any euphemisms (the most ironic one they trotted out was guest of the state, which the media ruthlessly trolled) until the regime actually admitted that Robert Sobukwe was a POLITICAL PRISONER.
And, unlike the more famous prisoner of Robyn Island, they didn't keep him in general population, but built an entirely separate building to hold him in, with guards ordered to shoot any prisoner who got within earshot of him.
Didn't save the regime.
Strangerland
You are complaining about Ukraine, because Israel. Did your mom do you a disfavor and teach you life was fair or something?
That's only going to cause frustration for your entire life...
Desert Tortoise
Israel gets a pass in much of the western press for things that would be roundly condemned if any other nation did it. You know that is true. The Israeli treatment of the Palestinians borders on genocide. They are not just anti-Muslim either. Many orthodox Jews and some members of the Israeli Parliament are openly, vocally anti-Christian too, but is never mentioned in the western press.
What the western press also doesn't mention that the Arab press does, is that the Palestinians know that in the long run they are going to win. They look at the examples of Tunisia, South Africa and especially Algeria where colonial rulers tried to destroy the native population and replace it with colonists. Demographic displacement of the native population. Ethnic cleansing. It worked in the US and Canada against their native populations and mostly worked in South America but it failed utterly in South Africa, Algeria and Tunisia. The colonists were eventually driven out and that is what will happen to the Jews in Israel unless they are willing to create a completely secular democracy that treats Arab Muslims, Arab Christians and Jews equally under the law. All the Palestinians have to do is survive and continue to resist to win. Israel as we know it is temporary unless the Jews are willing to utterly slaughter every Arab living in the region. That is impossible to accomplish.
Strangerland
I do. And I agree. But my point is, the existence of this is not a reason to not help Ukraine, as certain posters try to put forth.
My point is very clear in how silly the "logic" looks: *We can't help Ukraine, because *Israel.
Desert Tortoise
https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2023/08/israel-holds-over-1200-mostly-palestinian-detainees-without-charge-highest-3
Desert Tortoise
This article explains the internal conflicts within Israel better than any I have ever read. It illuminates things most people outside the region do not understand.
https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/israel-state-building-project-unravelling-within
theFu
I'm extremely disappointed, if this story is true. The normal countries we come to expect this behavior in, some with over 1M detainees, need to be called out, but so does Turkey which disappeared about 13,000 political
theFu
... opposition prisoners.