Bethlehem / PNN /

The Palestinian Prisoner Club (PPS) said today that the Israeli occupation authorities continue to hold Palestinians in administrative detention without charge or trial and under the pretext of having a “secret file” and that the number of administrative detainees in Israeli jails has reached 1016 until the end of March, including six minors and a female prisoner, the highest since 2003.

It said that the number of administrative detention orders issued since the beginning of this year amounted to about 800, most of them were new orders.

The PPS said administrative detention has increased significantly since last year compared to the past few years. In January of last year, the number of administrative detainees was about 500, and at the end of last year their number exceeded 850.

It said the Israeli occupation authorities issued over the past nine years about 13,000 administrative detention orders, the highest was last year when the number of orders reached 2409.

It pointed out that 80% of the administrative detainees are former detainees who spent years in Israeli prisons, including under administrative detention.

Administrative detention is a procedure that allows the Israeli military to hold prisoners indefinitely on secret information without charging them or allowing them to stand trial and is used almost exclusively to detain Palestinians from the occupied Palestinian territory, which includes the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.