Bethlehem/PNN/
Several Prisoners' institutions, including the Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs Commission, the Palestinian Prisoner's Society (PPS), the Ramallah-based Addameer – Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, and the Wadi Hilweh Information Center, said that around 11,000 Palestinians were detained by the Israeli occupation forces during the year 2023, half of whom were detained after October 7.
The prisoners’ institutions explained in a report on the most salient issues and data regarding the reality of detainees in the occupation prisons in the year 2023, that the 11,000 detention cases do not include detainees from Gaza who were detained after October 7.
A joint statement said that around 1,085 children and 300 women, including women from the 1948-occupied territories, were detained by the Israeli occupation after October 7th.
The statement noted that after October 7th, detentions reached more than 5,500, including 355 children and 184 women, including women who were arrested from the 1948-occupied territories.
They added that the detention rate in the last three months of 2023 constitutes half of the overall number of detentions, excluding the arrests carried out by the occupation against people from Gaza after October 7.
They stressed that the overall number of detainees has increased by 3,550 when compared to the number of detainees before October 7th.
They stressed that the overall number of detainees has increased by 3,550 when compared to the number of detainees before October 7th.
They also emphasized the significant upsurge in the number of administrative detainees in Israeli jails; which recorded an increase that has not been seen for more than 30 years.
The statement noted that since the beginning of the Israeli aggression and ground invasion into the Gaza Strip, the occupation began carrying out mass arrest campaigns against civilians seeking shelters in schools, sheltering centers, homes and safe corridors. Hundreds were reportedly detained in a barbaric manner on an unprecedented scale, added the statement.
The prisoners’ institutions stressed that the occupation army has published pictures and videos showing the inhumane treatment of detainees, and until now it has refused to reveal their fate and numbers and has prevented lawyers and the Red Cross from visiting them.
The joint statement slammed such Israeli acts as a crime of enforced disappearance according to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court states that the crime of enforced disappearance committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population constitutes a crime against humanity.
