Detainees’ institutions ( the Commission for Detainees and Ex-Prisoners’ Affairs , the Prisoner’s Club , Addameer Association for Prisoner Care and Human Rights , and Wadi Hilweh Center – Jerusalem) said that the occupation authorities continue to detain about (4,900) prisoners, including (31) female prisoners, and ( 160 children, including a girl, under the age of 18, in addition to more than 1,000 administrative detainees, including 6 children and two families, namely (Raghad Al-Fani and Rawda Abu Ajamia).

In a report she prepared today, Saturday, on the occasion of Prisoner’s Day, which falls on Monday, 17 April, the only variable that exists is that the occupation authorities and their various apparatuses have worked to develop more tools of abuse, and deepen their violations through the structure of violence aimed at Depriving the Palestinian prisoner of his efficacy and undermining any escalating struggle against him with the aim of determining his fate and protecting his human rights.

The number of old prisoners arrested before the signing of the Oslo Accords is 23, the oldest of whom is the prisoner Muhammad al-Tus, who has been detained since 1985. In addition, there are (11) prisoners who were liberated in the “prisoner exchange” deal, who were re-arrested by the occupation, and they are among the old prisoners who were arrested since Before (Oslo), they were released in 2011 and re-arrested in 2014, most notably the prisoner Nael Al-Barghouti, who is serving the longest period of detention in the history of the captive movement, and who entered his 43rd year in the occupation prisons, of which he spent 34 years continuously, and the number of prisoners who spent more than 20 About 400 prisoners, who are known as “deans of prisoners,” in addition to dozens of freedmen who were re-arrested in 2014, and spent more than 20 years in two terms.

While the number of prisoners who were sentenced to life imprisonment reached (554) prisoners, and the highest prisoner sentence among them is the prisoner Abdullah Al-Barghouti, whose term is (67) life imprisonment, and the number of martyrs of the captive movement: it reached (236) martyrs, since 1967, in addition to hundreds of The prisoners died after their liberation from diseases they inherited from prisons.

As for the number of martyred prisoners whose bodies are held, it has reached 12 martyrs, who are: Anis Doula, who was martyred in Ashkelon prison in 1980, Aziz Owaisat since 2018, Faris Baroud, Nassar Taqatqa, Bassam Al-Sayeh, and three of them were martyred during 2019, Saadi Al-Gharabli, and Kamal Abu Waar during the year 2020, the prisoner Sami Al-Amour, who was martyred in 2021, the prisoner Dawood Al-Zubaidi, who was martyred in 2022, and Muhammad Maher Turkman, who rose during the year 2022 in the hospitals of the occupation, in addition to the prisoner Nasser Abu Hamid, who was martyred in December 2022, and the detainee Wadih Abu Symbols who slept in occupation hospitals on January 28, 2023.

The number of sick prisoners is more than (700) prisoners suffering from diseases of various degrees, and they need intensive follow-up and health care, including at least 24 prisoners and detainees who have cancer and tumors of varying degrees. The most difficult of these cases today is the case of the prisoner leader Walid Daqqa, who has been detained for 37 years And the prisoner, Asif Al-Rifai.

The reality of arrests since the beginning of this year

Since the beginning of this year, the competent institutions have recorded about 2,300 cases of arrest, as arrests constitute the most consistent and systematic policy targeting all segments of Palestinian society. The number of children arrested since the beginning of this year has reached more than (350), most of them from Jerusalem, while the number of women and girls has Those who were arrested (40).

The rate of arrests in Jerusalem is the highest compared to the rest of the West Bank governorates, as arrests during the past year exceeded more than 3,000 cases out of 7,000 arrests from all over the Palestinian territory, and the high pace of arrests has not actually stopped since the beginning of this year, as more than 1,200 cases of arrest in Jerusalem and its towns, in addition to arrests, house arrest, deportation, imposition of taxes, fines, compensation, home demolitions, seizure of funds of families of prisoners inside occupation prisons, and ex-prisoners, with the aim of fighting the Palestinian presence and displacing the indigenous population from Jerusalem.

The crime of arbitrary administrative detention was also the most prominent crime that the occupation authorities escalated its implementation, which mainly aims to undermine any effective and current struggle. The number of detainees exceeded more than a thousand, and this percentage is the highest since 2003, which affected children, women, and the elderly. And patients, as the number of administrative detainees among children reached (6) children, and two families, namely (Raghad Al-Fani and Rawda Abu Ajamiyyah), noting that the number of arrest warrants issued under the pretext of having a (confidential file) has reached more than (860) since the beginning of this year. ) an order, emphasizing that the majority of administrative detainees are former prisoners who spent years in the occupation prisons.

Racial legislation and laws

The occupation system, at all levels, escalated the targeting of prisoners, through several tools, including: the enactment of racist laws and legislation affecting the fate of prisoners and their families, the most prominent of which was: a bill to execute prisoners who carried out resistance operations against the occupation, in addition to the law to revoke citizenship and residency from Jerusalemite prisoners and liberators and from lands occupied in 1948, and this was not the first racist legislation, but the occupation legislated over the years a number of dangerous racist laws, targeting prisoners.

The reality of the prisoners inside the occupation prisons

As for the reality of the prisoners inside the occupation prisons, the occupation authorities, led by the Occupation Prisons Administration, continued to implement their consistent and systematic policies against male and female prisoners, including child prisoners, most notably the crime of medical negligence (slow killing), which today constitutes the most prominent of these crimes, and he was the last victim of medical negligence. The martyr Ahmed Abu Ali from Hebron, who was martyred in February of this year.

The number of sick prisoners in the occupation prisons is more than 700, including 24 prisoners who suffer from cancer and tumors of various degrees, the most prominent of which is the case of the prisoner Walid Daqqa, who has been detained for 37 years, and who suffers from a rare cancer that affects the bone marrow known as (myelofibrosis), as a result of a crime. Medical negligence, Daqqa recently suffered several successive health setbacks, and was transferred, after demands from the prisoners, to Barzilai Hospital, with a serious health condition to this day, in addition to the case of the prisoner, Asif Al-Rifai, in which the cancer reached an advanced stage.

In addition to these policies, the policy of solitary confinement, which has escalated significantly since 2021 until today, specifically after the "Freedom Tunnel" operation, and the number of prisoners facing solitary confinement today is about (35), including sick prisoners suffering from mental and chronic health diseases. Among them is the prisoner Ahmed Manasra, who the occupation continues to detain and isolate despite his serious health and psychological condition. We also mention here the oldest isolated prisoners in the occupation prisons, the prisoner Muhammad Khalil, who has been facing solitary confinement for more than 15 years.

In addition to these policies, the operations of breaking into prisoner sections and abuse of them. Since late last year and at the beginning of this year, many incursions into prisoner sections have been recorded in several prisons, and they have actually escalated compared to the months preceding November 2022, and reached their intensity at the end of November 2022. January of this year, when several raids were recorded in one day, and collective punishments were imposed on the prisoners, including a mass isolation process.

The occupation authorities also continued to put obstacles in the way of visits to the families of prisoners, depriving thousands of their family members, or depriving prisoners (as a punishment) imposed on them, or because of their partisan affiliation, as is the case with dozens of prisoners from Gaza, where the prison administration deliberately turns any right into a tool to impose further measures. Abuse of the prisoners, and it never stopped (developing) tools to obstruct the visits of the prisoners, and the abuse of the families of the prisoners.

Over the course of February and until March 22 of this year, the prisoners carried out a series of protest steps, represented by daily disobedience steps that affected all aspects of detention life, in rejection of the set of measures announced by the extremist Minister of National Security "Ben Ghafir" against the prisoners. Many details were targeted, including the amount of water the prisoners are allowed to use, the hours of showering, and bread.

Indeed, after a confrontation that lasted for 37 days, the prisoners were able, in agreement with the Prisons Administration, to push it to retract its announced measures. However, this does not mean that it stopped many of the policies of abuse against the prisoners, which have become part of the Israeli prison system.