Israel detained 341 Palestinians in September 2020, including 32 children and three women, according to the Palestine Prisoner’s Society (PPS).
PPS announced in a fact sheet, co-authored with the Prisoner’s Affairs Commission, the Wadi Hilweh Information Center and the Prisoner Support & Human Rights Association (Addameer), that Israeli forces rounded up 341 Palestinians from the occupied territories, including 32 children and three women.
The detainees were distributed as follows: 117 Palestinians from Jerusalem district, 25 from Ramallah and al-Bireh, 80 from Hebron, 28 from Jenin, 30 from Bethlehem, nine from Nablus, 13 from Tulkarem, 10 from Qalqilia, six from Jericho, four from Tubas, four from Salfit and 15 from the besieged Gaza Strip.
PPS added that some 4,400 Palestinians, including 39 female detainees, 155 children and 350 others placed under administrative detention, are currently languishing in Israeli detention facilities.
It pointed out that the Israeli occupation authorities issued 98 detention orders in September, including 41 new orders and 57 others extending the period of detention.
Israel’s widely condemned practice of administrative detention that allows the detention of Palestinians without charge or trial for renewable intervals ranging between three and six months based on undisclosed evidence that even a detainee’s lawyer is barred from viewing.
The US State Department has said in past reports on human rights conditions for Palestinians that administrative detainees are not given the “opportunity to refute allegations or address the evidentiary material presented against them in court.”
Amnesty International has described Israel’s use of administrative detention as a “bankrupt tactic” and has long called on Israel to bring its use to an end.
Palestinian detainees have continuously resorted to open-ended hunger strikes as a way to protest their illegal administrative detention and to demand an end to this policy, which violates international law.
