RAMALLAH, (Palestine Foundation Information Center), Palestinian prisoner rights organizations said Israeli occupation forces (IOF) are holding approximately 9,300 Palestinian prisoners, including dozens of women and hundreds of children, according to a joint statement released on Tuesday.
Citing data from the Israeli Prison Service up to early December, the organizations said the figure does not include Palestinians detained in military camps run by the IOF, where many detainees from Gaza are believed to be held.
The statement said 1,254 prisoners are serving sentences, while the number of female prisoners stands at 51, including two girls. Around 350 Palestinian children are currently detained, most of them held in Ofer and Megiddo prisons.
The number of Palestinians held in administrative detention, imprisonment without charge or trial, has risen to 3,350, the organizations said. Another 1,220 detainees have been classified by Israel as “unlawful combatants,” a designation applied mainly to Palestinians from Gaza. The groups stressed that this figure does not account for all Gaza detainees held in IOF military camps.
They added that the same designation has also been applied to Arab detainees from Lebanon and Syria, describing the practice as a clear violation of international humanitarian law.
Human rights reports and testimonies from recently released prisoners indicate that Palestinian detainees are subjected to serious abuses inside Israeli prisons, including beatings, torture, sexual assault, starvation, and denial of medical care, particularly for those suffering from chronic illnesses.
According to available data, at least 100 identified prisoners from Gaza have died in Israeli custody since October 7 as a result of torture, medical neglect, and harsh detention conditions. The fate of hundreds of others remains unknown amid Israel’s continued use of enforced disappearance.
The escalation comes amid policies driven by extremist Israeli national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who has pushed for months to tighten prison conditions for Palestinian detainees. Measures include cutting food and water supplies, restricting family visits, and limiting access to showers, steps that Palestinian and international organizations have described as inhumane and in blatant violation of international law.
