The Palestine Center for Prisoner Studies confirmed that the number of administrative prisoners in Israeli prisons has been clearly increasing, reaching more than 730 prisoners. This has been the highest number accounted for, surpassed only by the year 2008 when the number of administrative prisoners reached 800.

The Palestine Center said that despite the administrative prisoners' boycott of administrative courts since the beginning of this year, the occupation authorities continued to issue administrative orders extensively against Palestinian prisoners, as it issued more than 1,170 administrative orders between new and renewed. This confirms, according to the center, that administrative courts are but a formality and a sham whose final judicial decisions have been ruled regardless of the procession of the court sessions.

The director of the center, Riyad Al-Ashqar, declared that administrative detention is an "arbitrary policy aimed at draining the lives of Palestinians behind bars without legal basis, as the intelligence service, which is fully responsible for managing this file, relies on secret charges that no one is allowed to see, and dictates instructions to the moot courts." 

Al-Ashqar also indicated that the injustice inflicted on the prisoners as a result of this policy has prompted dozens of them to engage in individual hunger strikes during the past years. Administrative prisoner Khalil Awawdeh has been on a hunger strike for 163 days in protest of his baseless administrative detention. On day 111 of his hunger strike, the Israeli courts promised to end his detention, however, Awawdeh resumed his hunger strike as soon as the courts reneged on their promise.

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Watch | Despite his struggle to even talk, the #Palestinian hunger-striking prisoner #KhalilAwawdeh draws a smile on his face while talking to his wife.
The prisoner has been going on a hunger strike for more than 160 days now.#FreeThemAll #FreeKhalil pic.twitter.com/fUbClINrTD

— Al Mayadeen English (@MayadeenEnglish) August 20, 2022

Administrative detention as collective punishment against Palestinians

According to Al-Ashqar, the occupation uses administrative detention as a collective punishment against the Palestinian people, without taking into account the prohibitions set by international law, which limits its use, except within a narrow framework, especially as it affected all segments of Palestinian society, including representatives, faction leaders, women, children, and the sick.

Al-Ashqar revealed that among the administrative prisoners were journalist Bushra Al-Taweel from Al-Bireh and the captive Shurooq Muhammad Al-Badan from Beit Lahm, both previously freed prisoners whom the Israeli courts re-arrested, in addition to two minors, Anas Abu Al-Rub, 17, from Jenin, and Mustafa Mutlaq from the town of Jaljulia in the occupied interior.

In addition, the Israelis arrested four members of the Legislative Council under the arbitrary administrative law, all of whom were previously arrested and re-arrested several times and are always transferred to the administrative authority because their arrest is political without evidence to convict, most notably Al-Quds MP Muhammad Abu Tir, who has spent nearly 35 years behind bars, as well as Hassan Youssef, who is hardly released for a few months before getting arrested once more following administrative orders.

Al-Ashqar called on the signatories to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, as well as the Fourth Geneva Convention, to intervene urgently to put an end to this massacre of the Palestinian people and to place strict restrictions on the imposition of administrative detention orders on prisoners, in compliance with international covenants.

Read more: Haaretz: "Israel" concealing archives of Nakba civilian killings