LONDON: Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem have detained 23,000 Palestinians, most of whom were later released, since the onset of the Gaza war in October 2023.
The Palestinian Prisoners’ Society reported on Sunday that the figure includes individuals detained from their homes, at military checkpoints, or taken as hostages.
Israeli forces detained a total of 700 women from the West Bank and Gaza, while the number of children taken reached 1,800 during the same period. Among the detainees were 240 journalists, 43 of whom are still being held. One journalist, Marwan Harzallah, 54, from Nablus, died in Israeli custody last month.
The group said that 9,500 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails face severe violations, including beatings, intimidation of relatives and vandalism of their homes, according to Wafa news agency.
Since the 1967 occupation of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, over 800,000 Palestinians have spent time in Israeli jails, according to a UN report in 2023.
In March, Israel passed a law that means Palestinians in the West Bank who are convicted by Israeli military courts of carrying out deadly attacks labeled as terrorism will face the death penalty as the default sentence. The law does not apply to Israeli settlers living in the same area and who commit similar offenses, as they are tried before civilian judges.
