RAMALLAH, (PIC)
Palestinian human rights groups concerned with the issue of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails said that the tally of the Palestinian detainees who have been arrested in the West Bank and occupied Jerusalem by Israeli occupation forces (IOF) since the beginning of the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, amounted to more than 9,155 captives.
The Detainees and Ex-detainees Affairs Commission, the Palestinian Prisoner Society and the Addameer Foundation said in a joint statement, that the number of detained women surged to more than 310, while arrests among children jumped to 640.
The arrest campaigns affected 80 journalists, with 48 of whom are still held captive in Israeli jails, while 12 journalists from Gaza are likely subjected to enforced disappearance.
The human rights groups indicated that the orders of administrative detention reached more than 6,627 new orders and renewals, including orders against children and women.
The ongoing arrests campaign since October 7 last year have been carried out in conjunction with committing more crimes and escalating violations including severe abuse and assaults, and threats against detainees and their families, as well as sabotage and extensive destruction of citizens’ homes, confiscation of vehicles, money, and gold jewelry, along with the extensive destruction against infrastructure specifically in Tulkarem and Jenin cities and their camps, according to the statement.
In addition to detention campaigns, the IOF carried out field executions, including family members of some prisoners, it added.
At least 18 identified prisoners have been martyred inside Israeli occupation prisons since October 7 last year, the statement highlighted, adding that 16 bodies of martyr prisoners who were announced martyrs after October 7, 2023, have been detained among 27 martyr prisoners whose bodies are still detained by the IOF.
The statement indicated that these statistics do not include the arrests from Gaza, where the IOF has recently admitted the arrest of at least 4,000 citizens, with 1,500 of them released later on, noting that the IOF arrested hundreds of Gaza workers in the West Bank, in addition to citizens of Gaza who were present in the West Banks hospitals for medical treatment.
