Prisoner's Club: Occupation Carried Out 23,000 Arrests in West Bank Since Start of Genocide War

The Palestinian Prisoner's Club confirmed in a statement issued on Friday that Israeli occupation forces have carried out over 23,000 arrests among Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. This horrifying toll coincides with the ongoing genocidal war waged by the occupation on the Gaza Strip since October 2023, which has been accompanied by widespread campaigns of abuse.

The statement clarified that these statistics do not include thousands of detainees from the Gaza Strip who face an unknown fate amid the ongoing crime of enforced disappearance. The club stressed that the detainees include diverse segments of Palestinian society, including women, children, and wounded individuals, in addition to former prisoners who were re-arrested as part of the policy of collective punishment.

The Prisoner's Club described the current reality of the prisoner movement as experiencing its most brutal and cruel phase since the 1967 occupation. It noted that Israeli prisons are no longer merely detention centers but have transformed into organized spaces for practicing all types of torture, starvation, and systematic humiliation against male and female prisoners.

The club considered the crime of arrest a fundamental pillar of the Israeli colonial project aimed at undermining Palestinian existence. It added that this policy is used as a systematic tool to break the social and national structure of the Palestinian people, and an attempt to empty the arena of active and influential cadres by disappearing them behind bars.

The human rights report revealed the martyrdom of 89 Palestinian prisoners inside occupation prisons since the start of the recent aggression, whose identities have been officially recognized and announced. Sources confirmed that these martyrs died as a result of direct torture, severe starvation policies, or deliberate medical crimes practiced by prison administrations.

With the ascension of these martyrs, the total number of martyrs of the prisoner movement since 1967 has risen to 326 martyrs who fell inside detention centers. The occupation authorities still refuse to disclose the fate of dozens of detainees from the Gaza Strip, which reinforces fears of a larger number of martyrs who have not yet been documented.

Over the past decades, the Prisoner's Club has documented the arrest of more than one million Palestinians, a clear indication of the comprehensiveness of the policy of mass arrests. The statement considered that these policies began even before the 1948 Nakba as a tool for colonial control and intimidation, and have continued and escalated with successive Israeli governments.

Despite repression, isolation, and harsh conditions, the club affirmed that the prisoner movement has succeeded in transforming prisons into arenas of resistance and national consciousness. Over many years, prisoners have been able to build an organizational and cultural system that confronted the occupation's attempts to strip them of their struggle and human content.

Current data indicate the presence of more than 9,400 Palestinian prisoners in occupation prisons, living in conditions lacking the most basic human necessities. Among these detainees are 86 female prisoners facing difficult conditions, in addition to hundreds of children who are deprived of their most basic educational and health rights.

The statement also drew attention to the sharp increase in the number of administrative detainees, which reached 3,376 detainees without charge or trial. The occupation uses this type of detention as a pretext to detain Palestinians for indefinite periods based on what are called 'secret files' that lawyers are not allowed to access.

In a related context, the occupation is holding approximately 1,283 Palestinians under the classification of 'unlawful combatants,' a law that allows Israeli authorities to detain Gaza residents for long periods without real judicial oversight. These detainees suffer from complete isolation from the outside world and deprivation of legal or family visits.

In parallel with these figures, a recent report by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics showed the scale of the comprehensive humanitarian catastrophe experienced by the Palestinian people. The total number of martyrs since October 2023 until the end of April 2026 has exceeded 73,761 martyrs in all Palestinian territories.

The toll of martyrs was distributed to include 72,601 martyrs in the Gaza Strip, which is subjected to continuous genocide, and 1,160 martyrs in the occupied West Bank. These figures reflect the extent of direct targeting of civilians and infrastructure, amid international silence and an inability to stop the Israeli war machine.

The prisoner movement today is experiencing the most brutal and cruel phase in its history since 1967, as prisons have turned into organized spaces for torture and abuse.