Aug. 9, 2017
Israeli forces detained 880 Palestinians from the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the besieged Gaza Strip in the month of July alone, according to joint report from the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS), al-Mezan Center for Human Rights, Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, and the Palestinian Committee of Prisoners’ Affairs.
Among the detainees were 144 children and 18 women, the report pointed out, adding that the majority of the detentions took place in East Jerusalem and the Jerusalem district of the West Bank, with a total of 425 detentions.
The Jerusalem area was followed by by Hebron with 120 detentions, Nablus with 85, Jenin with 49, Qalqiliya with 47, Bethlehem with 45, Ramallah with 37, Tulkarem with 36, Tubas with 14, Salfit with 10, and Jericho with 10, while two people from the Gaza Strip were detained.
July’s detentions brought the total number of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli custody to 6,400, including 52 women, 10 teenage girls, and 300 children, according to the report.
Among the detainees are 12 members of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), one of whom has been classified by Israel as an “illegal fighter.”
Meanwhile, approximately 450 prisoners are being held without trial or charge under Israel’s widely condemned policy of administrative detention.
Israeli authorities issued 97 administrative detention orders in July, 20 of which were first-time sentences, while the other Palestinians saw their existing administrative detentions renewed.
Israeli raids in Palestinian towns, villages, and refugee camps are a daily occurrence in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, with a biweekly average of 95 search and detention raids carried out over the course of 2016, according to UN documentation.
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Source: Ma’an News Agency