[ad_1]
JERUSALEM, Oct. 2 (AP) — Israel is holding nearly 800 Palestinians without trial or charge, the highest number since 2008, an Israeli human rights group said on Sunday.
HaMoked, an organization that regularly collects data from Israeli prison authorities, said 798 Palestinians are currently held in so-called administrative detention, where prisoners can be held for months without knowledge of the charges against them or against them. access to evidence against them.
The group said the number of people in administrative detention has risen steadily this year as Israel conducted nighttime arrest raids in the occupied West Bank in response to a spate of attacks on Israelis earlier this year.
Israel claims it uses administrative detention to deter attacks and deter dangerous militants without revealing sensitive intelligence. Human rights groups and Palestinians say it is an abuse of the system, depriving them of liberty without due process, and leaving some Palestinians behind bars for months or even years without any evidence against them. Some have resorted to life-threatening hunger strikes to draw attention to their detention, often fueling tensions between Israel and the Palestinians.
Also read | Protests in Iran: More than 90 killed in Mahsa Amini’s death nationwide.
“Administrative detention should be an exceptional measure, but Israel uses it on a large scale without trial,” said HaMoked executive director Jessica Montell. “This must stop. If Israel cannot put them on trial, it must release all those in administrative detention.”
Hammood said the figure was a new peak in a wave of administrative detentions that began last spring after a series of Palestinian attacks on Israelis that killed 19 people. The attacks sparked Israeli attacks that killed around 100 Palestinians, many of whom were said to be militants or local youth, in protest of the invasion of their towns, but civilians also died in violence.
The Israeli military said about 1,500 Palestinians were arrested during that period, including those in administrative detention. It said the attack was necessary to destroy militant networks and thwart attacks on Israelis. Palestinians say the aim of the attack is to maintain Israel’s 55-year military rule over territory they want to form a future state.
The last time Israel held so many administrative detainees in May 2008 also coincided with an increase in Israeli-Palestinian violence.
Israel’s Shin Bet Internal Security Service did not respond to a request for comment.
Israel occupied the West Bank in the 1967 Middle East war and has since established some 130 settlements there, home to 500,000 settlers. Palestinians want this territory, along with East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, to be the independent state they want. (Associated Press)
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from the Syndicated News feed, the body of the content may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
[ad_2]
Source link