Over 9,600 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons: Rights group

By Abdelraouf Arnaout

JERUSALEM (AA) - At least 9,623 Palestinians are currently held in Israeli prisons, official Israeli figures showed on Monday.

Some 3,379 Palestinians are held without trial or charge under Israel’s administrative detention policy and 1,402 are classified as unlawful combatant, Israeli human rights group HaMoked said, citing figures by the Israeli Prison Service.

The term “unlawful combatants” is used by Israel to describe Palestinians from the Gaza Strip who have been detained during its ongoing offensive on the enclave since Oct. 7, 2023.

“Israel's treatment of security inmates violates their rights to equality, dignity, family life, education, and more, contravenes international law,” HaMoked said.

It said holding detainees from the occupied Palestinian territories inside Israel “constitutes a blatant violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention” and “violates basic human rights enshrined, inter alia, in Israeli law.”

Israel, flouting a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire, has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza since an Oct. 7, 2023 attack by the Palestinian group Hamas.

At least 37,900 Palestinians have since been killed, mostly women and children, and over 87,000 others injured, according to local health authorities.

Over eight months into the Israeli war, vast tracts of Gaza lie in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, whose latest ruling ordered it to immediately halt its military operation in the southern city of Rafah, where over a million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on May 6.

*Writing by Mohammad Sio in Istanbul