Since the beginning of the Israeli occupation of Palestine, Israeli forces have systematically targeted Palestinians, regardless of their location, arresting over one million Palestinians from across the West Bank, Jerusalem, Gaza, including other Arab prisoners who had participated in the Palestinian resistance.
Over the years, the occupation has employed all forms of torture, abuse, medical neglect, and starvation against Palestinian political prisoners. It has used the issue of prisoners as a tool of pressure and political bargaining, in an ongoing attempt to further its long-standing project of taking control not only of Palestinian land but also subjugating its people.
As part of this strategy, the occupation has systematically targeted Palestinian women and children, arresting hundreds of women and thousands of underage children, through inhumane practices that deprive them of their most fundamental rights. This has been carried out in complete disregard for international conventions and laws concerning prisoners and human rights in detention, particularly in areas of war and military occupation.
Surge in arrests
However, the scale of arrests and violations has severely spiked since October 7, 2023, when Israel launched a mass arrest and collective punishment campaign across all Palestinian territories—including Gaza, Jerusalem, the West Bank, and inside the 1948-occupied territories—in an attempt to suppress national resistance within Palestine and to exact revenge.
Palestinian prisoner defense and advocacy groups have recorded over 16,400 arrests of Palestinians from across the West Bank and Jerusalem alone, in addition to thousands of others abducted from the Gaza Strip, amid what many rights groups describe as genocidal actions by Israel in Gaza. As of early April 2025, there are some 9,900 Palestinians, including 400 children and 27 women, held in Israeli occupation prisons, the majority of them held without trial or charge. They are detained in at least 30 prisons, military camps, and interrogation centers throughout the country.
In the aftermath of October 7, the Israeli occupation massively abused its use of two legal frameworks that allow it to arbitrarily detain Palestinians en masse without pressing charges or allowing them to stand trial. The first is ‘administrative detention,’ a military order used against Palestinians of the occupied West Bank that can be indefinitely renewed. Until the start of April 2025, there were 3,498 Palestinians held behind bars under this order. The second is the “Illegal Combatants” law Israel used specifically against Palestinian residents of occupied Gaza, under which some 1,747 people are held, majority in military camps as opposed to formal central prisons.
Thousands more from Gaza remain forcibly disappeared, with no information available about their names, conditions, or whereabouts, as Israel refuses to cooperate with human rights and humanitarian organizations. Detainees, and particularly those abducted from Gaza, are suffering from severe abuse, torture, solitary confinement, medical neglect, starvation, and even executions inside prisons. Israel has admitted to killing over 60 prisoners — both through direct executions and deaths resulting from abuse and neglect — inside its prisons and newly established interrogation centers opened before and after October 7, 2023.
The suffering of Palestinian prisoners is not limited to physical and psychological torture, but extends to deliberate policies aimed at breaking their spirits and dehumanizing them. Israel’s prison system is a tool of colonial control, where detention is not just a punitive measure but a means of collective punishment and intimidation meant to terrorize Palestinian society as a whole.
This raises pressing questions about the role and effectiveness of international human rights bodies and the United Nations, which appear increasingly powerless and passive in the face of ongoing crimes and abuses committed against Palestinian prisoners — men, women, and children alike.
Failures of international organizations
Prisoners face daily abuses that are clear violations of international humanitarian law and the Fourth Geneva Convention, which are meant to guarantee the rights of individuals under occupation. From the blanket denial on all family visits to detainees and highly limited access to legal representation, to the use of solitary confinement for extended periods, the occupation have normalized practices that meet the legal definition of crimes against humanity. Former detainees, including children, often suffer long-term psychological trauma and physical disabilities as a result of their detention and their injury during arrest.
Moreover, Israel’s refusal to cooperate with international oversight bodies, including the International Committee of the Red Cross and UN special rapporteurs, has created a complete lack of transparency over the condition and fate of many detainees — particularly those from Gaza. The enforced disappearance of thousands from the enclave, combined with the use of military camps as secret detention sites as well as horrific testimonies of released and current detainees shows there are mass abuses taking place including extrajudicial executions.
In the face of these escalating atrocities, the silence and inaction of the international community are not only disappointing but extremely dangerous. The continued failure to hold Israel accountable emboldens further crimes and undermines the global human rights system. As Palestinian prisoners endure one of the darkest chapters in their collective history, decision makers must be reminded that if they are benefiting from the suffering of the Palestinian people, or are doing nothing to end it, they bear equal moral responsibility alongside the Israeli occupation.
The question now is not only about the fate of thousands in Israeli occupation prisons, but about the moral credibility of the international legal order. If the institutions that were ostensibly created to protect human rights cannot act when they are most needed, then the foundations of international law must not only be questioned, but are in danger of complete erosion. ( Courtesy: Anadolu News ) The author is: President of the Palestinian Prisoners Association. (Opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect WNAM editorial policy)
