The Mission of the State of Palestine would like to share with you this report, concerning the Palestinian political prisoners that are being held captive in Israeli prisons.

Israeli occupation authorities have consistently undermined the dignity of the Palestinian prisoner struggle by couching prisoner releases in the terms of “good will gestures” and manipulating them as leverage to improve their public relations and global image. Our prisoners have recently announced an open hunger strike under the name of the “battle for rights and dignity”. The Palestinian prisoners and detainees are escalating their protest and launching a collective hunger strike starting from the 1^st of September.

Facts about Palestinian Prisoners

• Since, 1967, Israel, the occupying Power, has resorted to mass arbitrary detention and has arrested an estimated number of 800,000 Palestinians, the equivalent of 40% of the male Palestinian population in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. These courts have been established and operate in a manner that violates fundamental principles of international law, mainly article (66) of the Fourth Geneva Convention that requires military courts to be a “non-political” nature and prohibits using the judicial machinery as an instrument of political or racial persecution.

• Over 4,550 Palestinians are being held captive in Israeli prisons today. Among those are 175 Children under the age of 18, 27 females, 551 are serving life sentences, and 670 suffer detention without trial or charge and constant renewal orders of Administrative detention.

• Na’el Barghouthi is charged with the longest political sentence among all the prisoners, where he has spent nearly four decades in Israeli prisons. 

• According to international law, an occupying state is prohibited from transferring and holding prisoners outside the occupied territory, but Israel does this within its borders.

Palestinian Children in detention

• Palestinian children in Israeli occupation detention and interrogation centers are threatened with death, physical violence, solitary confinement, and sexual assault. In addition, they are exposed to threats of land confiscations, home demolitions, detention of parents or siblings, and many other threats against themselves or a family member.
• Most Palestinian children detained by the Israeli occupation suffer post-traumatic conditions and mental harm due to torture as well as inhumane and degrading treatment. About 98% of detained Palestinian children reported they were subjected to physical and/or psychological torture during the time of their detention.
• Palestinian children, like the rest of the Palestinian detainees, are detained in Israeli detention centers outside the OPT. This practice denies detainees regular family contact and visits and cause trauma to the detained child.
• The Israeli juvenile military court was established in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and is the only juvenile military court in the world according to UNICEF. Where it prosecutes between 500-700 Palestinian Children per year.

Detention without trial or charge

• Administrative detention was introduced to the legal system in Palestine during the British mandate and was part of the 1945 emergency regulations. It was supposed to be used temporarily and was aimed at detaining individuals for a short time in order to prevent violence. Israel has not only adopted this draconian and undemocratic practice but has also used it as a punishment.

• The policy of administrative detention represents a flagrant violation of the Israeli occupation’s responsibilities and obligations towards the occupied population, protected under the fourth Geneva convention (GCIV), and towards the general population under the International Covenant on Civil and political rights (ICCPR).

• Currently, there are 730 Palestinians detained under the Israeli arbitrary policy of administrative detention.

• In July 2022 alone, Israel detained 375 Palestinians, including 28 children and 2 women, and issued 191 administrative detention orders, 126 of which were renewals of ongoing administrative detentions. The highest number of detained have been from Occupied East Jerusalem – 128 Palestinians.
• One of the most in danger administrative detainees is Khalil Awawdeh, age 40, who has been on hunger strike for 182 days in protest of his administrative detention by Israel without charge or trial. Khalil’s life is in serious jeopardy as the Occupying power persists with its cruel and unlawful detention.

• Hunger striking is not new. In fact, it is one of the most powerful nonviolent tools that prisoners have long used to gain simple basic rights and, most importantly, to demand dignity and to be treated in a humane way.

Torture and lack of health facilities

• Almost 95% of the total prisoners are exposed to physical and emotional torture in the Israeli Interrogation rooms. Among them are

1. Adnan Ghaith, who has been repeatedly harassed, intimidated, and detained by Israel at least 35 times.
2. Ahmed Manasara, age 20, has been held captive by Israel since age 13. He Has long suffered from mental health issues, yet he has been held in solitary confinement for the past five months. Nowadays an International Campaign is calling for the release of Ahmad Mansara.
3. Samer AlArbeid who went into a coma for two months due to the severe physical torture he endured. 

• Israeli prisons lack the minimum necessary treatment facilities for Palestinian prisoners which violates their most basic necessary health rights. Consequently, nearly 600 Palestinian prisoners are suffering from different medical problems and are deprived of the right treatment including 120 prisoners with serious illnesses such as Cancer, heart, kidneys failure, liver diseases and other varied mild to serious illness. This number is increasing daily due to the medical negligence and ill treatment of prisoners.
• Since the beginning of the Occupation, 227 Palestinian detainees have died because of torture and due to the Israel Policy of medical negligence

Demands Of Palestinian detainees

Last year there was a jailbreak “freedom tunnel” by six Palestinians from Gilboa Prison. All escapees were caught and reimprisoned. However, After the “jailbreak, the Occupying Power started taking more extreme steps to deprive Palestinian prisoners of their minimum rights. As a result, to this the Palestinian detainees announced a list of demands. 

Our political prisoner demands comply with international humanitarian law and many of them were rescinded as a tool to punish the prisoners for the “freedom tunnel “jailbreak. Therefore, Palestinian prisoners are now facing real-life danger, especially with this long-lasting brutality of the Occupying power

The demands:

• To stop the policy of torture against detainees, especially those who are sentenced to life imprisonment.
• To return the food products withdrawn from the canteen.
• To return the electric appliances to all sections
• To cancel all the punishments imposed on detainees after the operation of the “freedom tunnel.”
• To allow family visits for all the detainees especially detainees from Gaza.
• To decrease using the policy of administrative detention as a punitive procedure.
• To end the policy of solidarity confinement.
• To stop chasing ex-detainees and rearresting them.
• To provide the appropriate medical treatment for sick detainees.

The absence of accountability is emboldening Israel’s impunity, even encouraging its political and military affiliates and colonial settlers to carry on assaults and violations against every aspect of the human rights of the Palestinian people. However, growing calls to end the suffering of our hunger strikers, including from the European Union’s (EU) delegation to Palestine reflects no sensibility or respect from the occupying power to international law and the international community.

Our freedom seekers will be always a key priority.