Nearly 9000 Palestinians arrested in West Bank, an article by the United Press on June 2, begins with this information: “As Israel continues to seek the return of about 125 hostages taken by the Palestinian militia Hamas on October 7, thousands of people have been arrested in the West Bank by Israeli forces.”
It continues:
The Palestinian Prisoners Society, based in Ramallah, said Sunday on social media that a child was among ten people arrested during raids Saturday causing the number of people arrested by Israel to rise to 8,985.
The United Press article also says that according to an Amnesty International report in November, Israeli authorities “dramatically increased their use of administrative detention” without charges after the war with Gaza “broke out” in October. The article also says:
Amnesty International has documented cases of Israeli soldiers torturing Palestinian detainees, including “severe beatings” and “humiliation,” and such torture had been occurring “for decades” before the Hamas’ attack on October 7.
The article quotes a report from the Palestine Red Crescent Society in March that Israeli forces had detained journalists and more than a dozen healthcare workers in Gaza.
The article also quotes more from the Palestinian Prisoners Society that “about 80 journalists have been arrested and about 49 remain in custody.”
Among the arrested journalists, three women – Ikhlas Saleha, Bushra Tallawil and Asma Harish – are under administrative detention. The journalist Rola Husnain remains under house arrest.
It also quotes the Palestinian Prisoners Society as saying:
Journalists arrested in occupation prisons and its camps face all the vengeful and punitive measures imposed on prisoners and detainees in general, alongside torture and humiliation, the policy of starvation and systematic medical crimes.
The occupation authorities continue to escalate from the policy of detaining journalists to threats and field assaults, detention and persecution, in light of the continuing war of genocide against our people in Gaza.
The article mentions that human rights experts with the United Nations have expressed alarm about the treatment of women and girls in Gaza, some of whom were subject to “extrajudicial executions” by the Israeli military. A link in the article leads to a UN report dated February 19 which said its experts were “appalled by human rights violations against Palestinian women and girls.”
The experts expressed serious concern about the arbitrary detention of hundreds of Palestinian women and girls, including human rights defenders, journalists and humanitarian workers, in Gaza and the West Bank since 7 October. Many have reportedly been subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment.
The article also says “sexual violence by Israeli soldiers against Palestinian women has been documented since before the war began.”
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For more information about Palestinian prisoners, see these articles:
Why Does Israel Have So Many Palestinians in Detention and Available to Swap? by Omar Shakir, Nov. 29, 2023
Palestinian prisoners in Israel — a very thorough article in Wikipedia.
How many Palestinians are in Israeli jails? by Al-Jazeera
The article was published on April 17, 2024 — Palestinian Prisoners Day — a day dedicated every year to the thousands of Palestinian prisoners in Israel. The article has a map showing how many prisoners are kept in various prisons.
