Addameer

🔴 Update on the Number of Political Prisoners in Israeli Occupation Prisons – February 2026

addameer — Mon, 09 Feb 2026 10:38:16 +0000

🔴 *Update on the Number of Political Prisoners in Israeli Occupation Prisons – February 2026*

* These figures are based on information provided by prisoners’ institutions and on what was announced by the Israeli occupation’s Prison Service up to February 2026.

addameer Mon, 02/09/2026 - 12:38

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🔴 Update on the Number of Political Prisoners in Israeli Occupation Prisons – February 2026

addameer — Sun, 08 Feb 2026 17:04:59 +0000

🔴 *Update on the Number of Political Prisoners in Israeli Occupation Prisons – February 2026*

addameer Sun, 02/08/2026 - 19:04

05-02-2026

* These figures are based on information provided by prisoners’ institutions and on what was announced by the Israeli occupation’s Prison Service up to February 2026.

* The number of Palestinian political prisoners and detainees held in Israeli occupation prisons exceeded 9,300 people, as of the start of February 2026.

* Among them are 56 female prisoners, including two girls.

* The number of imprisoned children stands at 350 children, held by the occupation in Megiddo and Ofer prisons.

* The number of administrative detainees held without trial or charge has reached 3,358 people, the highest proportion among prisoners who are sentenced, detained, or classified as “unlawful combatants.”
* The number of detainees classified by the occupation as “unlawful combatants” held without trial or charge is 1,249 people. This figure does not include all Gaza detainees held in camps run by the occupation army and classified under this category. It is also noted that this classification includes Arab detainees from Lebanon and Syria.

In the Gaza Strip, childhood no longer exists.

addameer — Sun, 08 Feb 2026 14:06:24 +0000

In the Gaza Strip, childhood no longer exists.

The game consists of mimicking the arrival of a rocket hitting one’s home: someone dies, the other children pull the “corpse” out of the rubble and carry it away. A diplomat who has witnessed this scene several times during his travels to Gaza during the war, and who prefers to remain anonymous, says he has seen the same scene depicted in children’s drawings as well. His explanation is that young children reproduce in play the only reality they know. “They live surrounded by violence and death, and this is a way to normalize them”.

addameer Sun, 02/08/2026 - 16:06

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Sunday, February 8, 2026 - 12:00

In the Gaza Strip, childhood no longer exists.

addameer — Sun, 08 Feb 2026 12:34:55 +0000

In the Gaza Strip, childhood no longer exists.

addameer Sun, 02/08/2026 - 14:34

08-02-2026

Since the beginning of the October truce, military operations in the Strip have decreased but have not stopped. People continue to die, like Nasser Shamia, a sixteen-year-old from Jabalia, who was shot in the head by an Israeli drone last December and bled to death fifty meters from the “yellow line.” His body was later torn apart by an army bulldozer. When bombs and snipers do not strike, people die from lack of medical care, hunger, and cold. In less than a month, in the besieged enclave—short of food, medicine, and safe shelter due to the blockade imposed by Israeli authorities—nine children have died of hypothermia. The most recent, Shatha Abu Jarad, was only a few months old and lived in a bombed house without doors or windows.

Gaza remains the most dangerous place in the world for children. More than twenty thousand minors have been killed since October 7, 2023; UNICEF also reports the death of at least one hundred children since the start of the truce. This does not include orphans and amputees forced to live in tents without adequate medical assistance. Added to this is profound psychological devastation. “Growing up here is like building a structure on land shaken by constant earthquakes,” the diplomat explains. “Even when the tremors stop, the foundations remain compromised, and outside intervention would be needed to prevent collapse.”

According to Ajith Sunghay, head of the Amman office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in the occupied territories, Israel’s decision to expel 37 international NGOs and to target UNRWA will have devastating effects on a population made up almost half of minors. The blocking of aid will cause immediate shortages in healthcare, medical treatment, protection, and housing. “Without organizations like Doctors Without Borders, pregnant women and newborns will lose access to lifesaving care, as well as the psychological support needed by families and children traumatized by the war.”

Even without a declared war, the Gaza scenario has long extended to the West Bank and East Jerusalem, as demonstrated by the continuous attacks by settlers—almost always in coordination with the army—and daily military operations. For Joel Carmel, a volunteer with the former soldiers’ organization Breaking the Silence, the “Gaza-ization” of the West Bank lies not only in the government’s intention to expand territorial control, but also in the radical change in soldiers’ rules of engagement: “They arrive with the Gaza war mindset, where almost anything is possible,” he explains. The price is paid by an entire generation of Palestinian children and adolescents who live in fear of being killed or arrested. Since October 7, of the more than one thousand people killed by settlers or soldiers in the West Bank, 220 were minors. The latest victim is Mohammad Na’san, 14, from Al Mughayyir.

In these cases, impunity is total: the military version claims they fired because the child “was carrying a large stone and was about to throw it.” Al Mughayyir is one of the villages most affected because of its strategic position between Ramallah and the Jordan Valley, an area where the forced transfer of Palestinian communities is most advanced. According to the Israeli NGO B’Tselem, between October 2023 and the end of January 2026, 44 Palestinian settlements were forcibly evacuated and another 12 partially evacuated, affecting more than 1,200 children. For spokesperson Yair Dvir, the impact of “ethnic cleansing” on minors is devastating: “They live in a state of permanent terror, after years of violent incursions into villages and homes, witnessing with their own eyes attacks on their family members.

Many parents choose to flee to save their children, but forced displacement means losing homes and community networks. Some families seek refuge in cities; others build makeshift shelters in unsafe areas lacking schools and kindergartens, risking further evictions. While children in Gaza have lost two years of schooling, education in the West Bank is severely compromised by military raids, teachers’ strikes— caused by unpaid salaries due to Israel’s withholding of Palestinian tax revenues—hundreds of checkpoints that open and close arbitrarily, and the destruction of civilian infrastructure

At the beginning of 2025, the forced expulsion of 40,000 people from the Nur Shams, Jenin, and Tulkarem camps left a population largely made up of minors without homes or schools. In the Balata camp, near Nablus, army incursions are almost daily and schools remain closed for days at a time: “We have children aged seven or eight who still cannot read,” denounces Ahed Cusini of the Yafa Center.

The situation is worsened by Israel’s declared “war” on UNRWA. Before the conflict, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees managed 288 schools and two vocational training centers, with over 300,000 students. UNRWA estimates that today in Gaza 97 percent of educational infrastructure is destroyed or used as shelters, leaving 660,000 children outside the school system. In the West Bank, UNRWA runs 96 schools (six in East Jerusalem have been closed by Israeli authorities) for 48,000 students, but at least 5,200 of them experience prolonged interruptions to their education. Despite the efforts of UNRWA and the Palestinian Ministry of Education through online teaching and e-learning platforms, “the concrete risk is that of having a ‘lost generation’ of children,” warns UNRWA official Jonathan Fowler. “Some have already lost up to five years of cumulative learning.”

In many cases, minors are directly targeted by occupying forces. According to Addameer, a Palestinian organization for prisoners’ rights, since October 7 at least 1,650 children have been arrested in the West Bank alone; 350 are still detained, often without formal charges. In Gaza, the number is unknown: many minors disappeared with their families during bombardments or in the months of activity of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, at the center of serious “incidents” that caused at least 2,000 deaths. The army does not release reliable data on the number and identity of those held in detention centers

“The arrest of children has been a constant practice since 1967,” explains human rights activist and former Addameer director Sahar Francis, “but after October 7 the violence became indiscriminate. Raids often take place at dawn, with doors smashed in, explosions, and shouting. Minors are handcuffed, sometimes blindfolded, beaten, and transferred without families being told where they are: true enforced disappearances, especially widespread in Gaza.”

From the enclave come extreme testimonies, such as that of S.R., 15, arrested during the evacuation of Al-Sultan and used as a human shield for 48 days: forced to enter houses ahead of soldiers during fighting, he miraculously survived the demolition of a building he had been forced to enter and was then hit by tank fire

Other minors endure the harsh conditions of detention centers and Israeli prisons, where there is no distinction from the treatment of adults. M.K., 17, arrested at dawn near the Netzarim coastline and transferred between the Sde Teiman military camp and the Ofer and Megiddo prisons, recounts being kept handcuffed day and night for months, with insufficient food, few clothes, and degrading hygienic conditions. Assaults were almost daily, involving dogs, batons, stun grenades, and beatings. Medical care was denied or reduced to paracetamol only. Y.H., 17, arrested in July 2024 in the West Bank, says he was forced to remove stitches from his molars himself after months of ignored requests. He also recounts children with serious breathing problems or scabies being denied treatment, and detainees beaten and transferred for asking help for others.

For Khalid Kuzmar, president of Defense for Children Palestine (DCI), “since October 7 the number of arrested children has tripled, and whereas previously there were 5–10 cases per year of administrative detention, today about one third of detained minors are in this condition. Torture and the use of hunger as punishment are widespread practices”. Israeli authorities justify arrests on security grounds, but children are often detained in their homes o for stone-throwing, an offense that under Israeli law can carry sentences of 10 to 20 years. In military courts, Kuzmar says, international law is ignored: “When I objected in one case, a judge reminded me, laughing, that I was in a military court, not before the International Criminal Court.”

Drawing on years of experience as a defense lawyer, Kuzmar describes a judicial system where protections for minors have been hollowed out: lawyer meetings under surveillance, no confidentiality, children intimidated by guards, families barred from visiting and only allowed to attend hearings by video conference, in what he calls a “humiliating” context. Beyond restoring the rule of law, there is an enormous need for psychological support. “Many minors write wills or say ‘there is no future for children in Palestine,’ reflecting the despair of an entire generation that knows only violence and oppression.”

Kuzmar argues that the Israeli government applies a “free hand” policy, supported by figures such as Minister Ben-Gvir, which guarantees impunity to jailers, soldiers, and settlers.

Sahar Francis cites the case of Walid Khalid Abdullah Ahmad, 17, who died of hunger and dehydration in Megiddo prison: despite autopsy results and testimonies, the case was closed. Even the documented rape at Sde Teiman risks being dismissed because the victim was sent back to Gaza and declared “untraceable.” The chief IDF prosecutor, Yifat Tomer-Yeroushalmi, was arrested on charges of having disseminated the video. For Joel Carmel, the government has exploited the dehumanization of Palestinians to shift attention from alleged crimes by soldiers to the supposed faults of magistrates, marking a further step toward systemic impunity: “Today it is almost impossible for soldiers to be held accountable by the system, because that system is structured to protect them, whatever they do.”

UPDATE: Palestinian Political Prisoners in Israeli Occupation’s Custody – December 2025

addameer — Tue, 16 Dec 2025 12:52:32 +0000

UPDATE: Palestinian Political Prisoners in Israeli Occupation’s Custody – December 2025

👉🏼There are some 9,300 Palestinian political prisoners and detainees in the Israeli occupation’s prisons, the majority of whom are held without trial or charge, or are awaiting trial and have not yet been charged. This figure does not include detainees held in military camps run by the Israeli occupation army.

addameer Tue, 12/16/2025 - 14:52

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https://www.addameer.ps/news/5665

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Tuesday, December 16, 2025 - 12:00

UPDATE: Palestinian Political Prisoners in Israeli Occupation’s Custody – December 2025

addameer — Tue, 16 Dec 2025 12:47:21 +0000

UPDATE: Palestinian Political Prisoners in Israeli Occupation’s Custody – December 2025

addameer Tue, 12/16/2025 - 14:47

16-12-2025

December 16, 2025

These figures are based on information from Palestinian prisoners’ institutions and the Israeli occupation’s prison service up to December 2025.

👉🏼Only 1, 254 of them have so far been sentenced by the occupation's military system according to the prison services.

👉🏼Among them are 51 Palestinian female prisoners, including two minors, held in Damon prison.

👉🏼 350 of them are Palestinian children held in the occupation’s Ofer and Megiddo prisons.

👉🏼 Palestinians held without trial or charge: Some 4,570 people - or almost HALF of all detainees - including:
- At least 3,350 Palestinians arrested from the occupied West Bank classified as “administrative detainees”.
- At least 1,220 Palestinians arrested from occupied Gaza classified as “unlawful combatants”. This figure does not include all detainees abducted from Gaza, held under this category, in military camps run by the Israeli occupation army. This category also includes Arab political detainees from Lebanon and Syria.

The Palestinian Commission of Detainees’ Affairs, the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society, and Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association

On the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People: Palestinians Face Incarceration for Defending Their Right to Self-Determination

addameer — Fri, 28 Nov 2025 18:38:01 +0000

On the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People: Palestinians Face Incarceration for Defending Their Right to Self-Determination

November 29, the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, comes at a time when the world is witnessing an ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people, a crime marked by the systematic destruction of life, deliberate targeting of civilians, and policies aimed at erasing an entire population. This genocide is accompanied by mass displacement, the dismantling of communities, and a pattern of grave breaches of international humanitarian and human rights law, including collective punishment, arbitrary detention, torture, and the widespread denial of essential services and protections. In this critical moment, the global community must reaffirm its legal and moral obligation to protect Palestinian rights and confront these grave international crimes with decisiveness and urgency.

addameer Fri, 11/28/2025 - 20:38

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https://addameer.ps/news/5661

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Friday, November 28, 2025 - 12:00

On the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People: Palestinians Face Incarceration for Defending Their Right to Self-Determination

addameer — Fri, 28 Nov 2025 18:36:48 +0000

On the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People: Palestinians Face Incarceration for Defending Their Right to Self-Determination

addameer Fri, 11/28/2025 - 20:36

28-11-2025

On the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People: Palestinians Face Incarceration for Defending Their Right to Self-Determination

November 29, 2025

Despite the unequivocal prohibitions in international law, the prolonged and illegal Israeli occupation remains the central and most far-reaching violation underpinning all other grave abuses committed against the Palestinian people. This entrenched system of domination has enabled collective punishment, the systematic targeting of civilians, arbitrary detention, the destruction of civilian infrastructure, and other flagrant breaches of international humanitarian and human rights law. Yet, States and international institutions have consistently failed to take the measures necessary to halt these atrocities or to ensure accountability for decades of unlawful conduct, allowing impunity to persist.

Among the most urgent concerns is the situation of Palestinian prisoners. The Israeli occupation’s detention system remains a central mechanism used to entrench its control over the Palestinian population. This system is characterized by mass arrests, widespread use of administrative detention without charge or trial, torture and sexual assaults, inhumane prison conditions, arbitrary restrictions, and the targeting of vulnerable groups.

The arrest and detention of Palestinians, including children, women, students, journalists, human rights defenders, and elected members of the Palestinian parliament, reflect a deliberate policy aimed at silencing political participation, suppressing civic engagement, and obstructing Palestinian efforts to claim their fundamental rights. The sharp increase in arrests, enforced disappearances, and deaths in custody since October 2023 further underscores the urgent need for international intervention. This year’s International Day of Solidarity must therefore serve not only as a moment of reflection, but as a call for coordinated global action.

According to Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association (November 2025), there are more than 9300 Palestinian political prisoners in the Israeli occupation detention, including 3,368 held under administrative detention without charge or trial. Over 350 children and more than 50 women remain imprisoned, in addition to more than 1340 from the Gaza strip, 1205 among them are detainees under the unlawful combatant law. Since October 7, 2023, an estimated 21,000 arrests have taken place in the West Bank and Jerusalem alone. Human rights organizations have documented 98 deaths in custody resulting from torture, medical neglect, and inhumane conditions since October 2023. Additionally, thousands of detainees from Gaza remain forcibly disappeared, held in military camps, and denied access to legal representation.

These violations are taking place alongside the broader context of Israel’s illegal occupation, reaffirmed by the 2024 International Court of Justice (ICJ) advisory opinion, which declared Israel’s presence in the occupied Palestinian territory unlawful. The opinion underscores that all states have a legal duty not to recognize, aid, or assist the continued occupation, this includes practices such as the mass detention of Palestinians, the transfer of prisoners outside occupied territory, and the maintenance of an abusive military court system.

Despite this, states continue to maintain military, political, and economic ties that directly enable ongoing violations. The recent International Criminal Court (ICC) decisions including the rejection of Israel’s challenges and the issuance of arrest warrants for senior officials, underscore the gravity of the situation and the necessity of pursuing accountability through all available international mechanisms. Yet many crimes, particularly those committed against prisoners and detainees, remain insufficiently addressed.

The past two years have been the deadliest for Palestinians across Gaza, the West Bank, and occupied Jerusalem. Israeli forces and armed settlers continue to perpetrate widespread attacks with total impunity, while Palestinians are subjected to a discriminatory military legal system that criminalizes everyday life, including minor infractions that often lead to years-long sentences.

The ongoing deterioration inside Israeli prisons—including starvation policies, violence, denial of medical care, and systematic torture, demands immediate action. Humanity cannot afford a repeat of decades-long failures that have enabled the expansion of unlawful practices against Palestinians, including the violent and discriminatory detention system.

In this context, and in light of the catastrophic failure of the UN Security Council to uphold international law and prioritize the Palestinian right to self-determination as affirmed in the ICJ’s July 2024 Advisory Opinion, we call on third states to take immediate, meaningful, and effective action. This includes rejecting the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 2803 and demanding a lawful and just resolution that prioritizes the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, including self-determination and the right of return of Palestinian refugees; dismantles Israel’s settler-colonial apartheid regime; ends Israel’s unlawful occupation and escalating annexation of Palestine; and centres accountability for Israel’s historic and ongoing mass atrocity crimes. Third states must also impose diplomatic, military, and economic sanctions on the illegal Israeli occupation, and ensure their actions align with obligations arising from the ICJ Advisory Opinions of 2024 and 2004, as well as international duties to uphold Palestinian protection and self-determination.

On this International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, Addameer calls on the global community to take the following urgent and concrete actions:

Impose a comprehensive two-way arms embargo on the illegal Israeli occupation by halting all transfers of weapons, military technology, and surveillance systems that enable human rights violations.
Activate universal jurisdiction mechanisms to investigate and prosecute individuals responsible for torture, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and violations against Palestinian detainees.

Apply political and economic pressure by suspending diplomatic, military, and economic cooperation with the illegal Israeli occupation until it complies fully with international law.

Implement widespread boycott, divestment, and targeted sanctions to dismantle systems of oppression and promote accountability.

Ensure the immediate and unconditional release of all Palestinian political prisoners, including:

Ending the use of administrative detention;
Dismantling the military court system;
Conducting independent investigations into all cases of torture and deaths in custody.

Cooperate fully with the International Criminal Court, including supporting ongoing investigations and enforcing arrest warrants for individuals implicated in international crimes.

Silence is complicity. Defending Palestinian rights: self-determination, dignity, and protection from arbitrary imprisonment is an urgent moral and legal imperative.

We call on people around the world to escalate collective action: to organize, mobilize, and demand accountability from the illegal Israeli occupation and from the governments that uphold its oppressive system, governments that arm, fund, and legitimize its system of oppression.

Solidarity cannot remain symbolic; it must translate into continuous pressure, tangible policy shifts, and committed advocacy until the Palestinian people achieve freedom and justice.

Prisoner institutions: On World Children’s Day, the Israeli occupation is carrying out physical and psychological destruction against child prisoners.

addameer — Thu, 20 Nov 2025 20:12:44 +0000

Prisoner institutions: On World Children’s Day, the Israeli occupation is carrying out physical and psychological destruction against child prisoners.

Ramallah – 20/11/2025 – On the occasion of World Children’s Day, the prisoner institutions (the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs, the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society, and Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association) stated that the Israeli occupation system continues to inflict physical and psychological destruction on child prisoners through a series of systematic policies. Over the past decades, the Palestinian child has remained one of the groups most exposed to Israeli violations, including killing and injury, deprivation of education, night raids, and arrests that have targeted tens of thousands of minors since the beginning of the occupation.

addameer Thu, 11/20/2025 - 22:12

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https://www.addameer.ps/media/5658

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Thursday, November 20, 2025 - 12:00

Position Paper: Palestinian Civil Society Condemns UNSC Resolution 2803 Establishing Joint US-Israel Illegal Occupation of Gaza

addameer — Thu, 20 Nov 2025 20:11:17 +0000

Position Paper: Palestinian Civil Society Condemns UNSC Resolution 2803 Establishing Joint US-Israel Illegal Occupation of Gaza

On Monday, 17 November 2025, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) voted in favour of Resolution 2803, normalising the colonial occupation of Palestinian territory. This resolution was imposed on the Palestinian people without their consent, constituting a blatant violation of the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to self-determination. The United States (U.S.) and its allies, have made it clear that this plan must be accepted, threatening to "finish the job"— an overt reference to resuming the genocide in Gaza. Under international law, such a threat of force invalidates any claim of consent.

addameer Thu, 11/20/2025 - 22:11

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https://www.addameer.ps/news/5657

Date

Thursday, November 20, 2025 - 12:00