92 Martyrs Among Prisoners in Three Years.. Forced Disappearance Hides the Fate of Dozens of Gaza Prisoners

Ramallah - Afaq News - Prisoner institutions said today, Tuesday, during a press conference and a stand in support of prisoners in the city of Al-Bireh, that 92 martyrs among the prisoners whose identities are known have risen during the past three years, while enforced disappearance conceals the fate of dozens of martyrs among Gaza detainees.

They pointed out that about 28% of the total martyrs of the prisoner movement since 1967 have risen in the last three years.

The prisoner institutions indicated that about 9,300 detainees are held in the occupation's prisons as of the beginning of October, including 118 detainees sentenced to life imprisonment, 91 female detainees, 350 children, 3,101 administrative detainees, and 1,419 detainees classified by the occupation as 'illegal combatants', including detainees from Syria and Lebanon.

They confirmed that 26,000 cases of arrest have been recorded in the West Bank and thousands in Gaza since the beginning of the genocide, and that 49% of the prisoners in the occupation's prisons are without 'charges' or 'trials'.

The Israeli occupation has escalated its policy of arrest and pursuit since the beginning of the genocide, turning it into a tool for collective punishment and targeting various segments of Palestinian society.

According to available data, more than 26,000 cases of arrest have been recorded in the West Bank, including occupied Jerusalem, while the number of arrests in the Gaza Strip is estimated to be in the thousands, amid significant difficulties in documentation due to ongoing military operations, information blackout, and enforced disappearances.

The arrests have targeted women, children, the elderly, the sick, journalists, and human rights workers, with the number of detained women exceeding 800, while the number of child arrests in the West Bank has surpassed 2,000 since the beginning of the genocide.

The effects of arrest go beyond detention itself, encompassing incursions, searches, destruction, threats, and mistreatment, in addition to psychological, social, and economic repercussions on the detainees and their families, making arrest, according to human rights organizations, a continuous tool for pressure and collective subjugation.

Speakers called for intensifying international pressure on the occupation to halt the death penalty and abolish it, and to ensure that military or civilian courts are not used as a tool to impose this penalty on a discriminatory basis.

They also emphasized that protecting the lives of Palestinian prisoners and detainees is an international responsibility that should not be treated as an internal matter or left hostage to retaliatory policies.