Commission of Detainees Affairs

28 years spent in the occupation's prisons

23 years
Since the last arrest of the leader
Marwan Barghouti

Leader Barghouti is isolated in Megiddo Prison.
He is sentenced to five life sentences and 40 years.

He suffered injuries since last September as a result of a brutal beating.

He has been arrested many times, the first being at the age of 15.

Deliberate medical ignorance against detainees in Al-Ramla clinic and Ofer prison

April 8, 2025

The Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs disclosed deliberate ignorance cases for detainees who are held in the clinic of Al-Ramla prison

Cases in point :
. Detainee Ibrahim Shalhoub, 28, from Toulkarem, who suffers from severe pain and extreme difficulty speaking, as a result of being shot 14 times in various parts of his body during his arrest on 27/12/2024. Meanwhile, the prison administration deliberately subjects him to the worst forms of psychological torture and constantly threatens him with death.

. Detainee Muhammad Fayyoumi, 32, from Qalqilia. He suffers from gunshot wounds to his right hand and pelvis. These injuries initially left him unable to walk after his arrest.
. Detainee Naser Abedrabuh, 58, from Jerusalem, was shot with rubber bullets from a distance of less than two meters on 04/03/2025 while he was in Naqab Prison, after he refused to comply with an issued exile order.

With regard to detainee held in ofer prison:
. Detainee Muhammad Rayyan, 24, from Jerusalem, suffers from severe pain in his bones, He was involved in an accident three months prior to his arrest, resulting in the complete loss of his right hand and the loss of fingers on his left hand. He requires special care, painkillers, antibiotics, and warmth.

. Detainee Abdulhafeeth Ghazzawi, 25, from Ramallah, suffers from scabies and can’t sleep at night due to intense itching.

. Detainee Fares Farouq, 27,from Bait Duqqo/ Jerusalem, was subjected to harsh beating and brutal attacks in section 25 last month. During the lawyer's visit, he reported that "armed forces threw gas canisters into the section before storming in, tied all of us face-down on the ground, beat us, stripped us naked, and hurled insults at us."

Abu Al-Hummos: "We Warn Against the Systematic Execution of the Leaders Huwayl and Abu Rmeileh"

March 28, 2025

The Head of the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs, Raed Abu Al- Hummos issued a stark warning today, Friday, about the deliberate and systematic slow execution policy being carried out against the two imprisoned leaders, Jamal Huwayl and Atta Abu Rmeileh.
He urgently called on the President of the International Committee of the Red Cross and all regional and international human rights and humanitarian organizations to take immediate action to halt this brutal practice before it is too late.

Abu Al-Hummos stressed that the overall conditions inside Israeli prisons and detention centers have reached an unprecedented level of cruelty and danger. However, what is being inflicted specifically upon Huwayl and Abu Rmeileh goes far beyond mistreatment, it is a deliberate assassination in slow motion. The prison administration relentlessly humiliates them, raids their cells at all hours, assaults them physically, and enforces a ruthless starvation policy aimed at breaking them down both physically and psychologically.

He further revealed that the systematic deprivation of food and essential medical care has caused both leaders to suffer extreme weight loss, shedding dozens of kilograms. Their health has now reached a life threatening stage, particularly Abu Rmeileh, whose weight has plummeted below 40 kilograms, placing him on the brink of death.

Abu Al-Hummos also disclosed that due to their catastrophic health deterioration, the prison administration was forced to isolate them in confinement cells, designated for detainees whose weight has remarkably decreased. Yet, instead of providing medical attention, they are being subjected to further neglect, locked in pairs under inhumane conditions.

He further warned that the brutal starvation policy imposed on them has already severely damaged their vital organs. Abu Rmeileh, in particular, suffers from a serious heart condition and urgently requires open-heart surgery, yet he remains deprived of necessary medical intervention, putting his life in imminent danger.

It is crucial to highlight that Jamal Huwayl, a prominent member of Fatah’s Revolutionary Council, has been imprisoned for the past eight months, while Atta Abu Rmeileh, the Secretary of Fatah’s regional branch, has been detained for approximately a year and a half. Both leaders, who hail from Jenin, were arrested under the pretext of incitement, yet they are now enduring a premeditated execution behind bars.

Detainees held in Megiddo prison were subjected to assaults by special forces

Palestinian Children Behind Bars

Annual Palestinian Child’s Day Report

April 5, 2025

Report prepared by the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS), Commission of Detainees’ Affairs & Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association

Ramallah, Palestine - At least 350 Palestinian children are currently being held by the Israeli occupation in various central prisons and military camps across the country, including more than 100 of them who are incarcerated without trial or charge under Israel’s unlawful military court system.

On the occasion of the Palestinian Child’s Day marked annually on April 5, Palestinian political prisoners’ legal defense and advocacy groups issue this report highlighting key facts and figures surrounding the children held in difficult conditions behind Israeli bars amid the most violent period yet in the Palestinian people’s struggle against the occupation.

Like the rest of the thousands of political prisoners held by the occupation, Palestinian children face a wide array of abuses and rights violations including torture, starvation, deprivation of medical care and systematic maltreatment. These policies lead to the killing of the first child detainee since the start of the genocide in Gaza in October 2023. The minor, 17-year-old Walid Ahmad from the town of Silwad near Ramallah in the central occupied West Bank, was martyred in Israel’s Megiddo prison on March 22, 2025.

In parallel with Israel’s significantly increasing mass arrests since the genocide, children have not been spared. No less than 1,200 cases of arrests among children in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem have been recorded since October 2023. As for Gaza, Israeli authorities have blocked the ability of Palestinian lawyers and prisoner groups from gaining access to information on the number of cases of arrest among children as well as the number who remain in custody with many subject to the severe crime of enforced disappearance.

Over the past few months, legal teams of prisoner groups have been able to carry out visits to many child detainees in the Israeli prisons of Ofer, Megiddo, and Damon, despite the heavy restrictions imposed on lawyer visits. During these visits, dozens of testimonies were collected from the children, reflecting the level of brutality they are subjected to.

They have been enduring an unprecedented level and scale of abuse behind bars. Severe physical assault by Israeli occupation guards is one of the most prominent abuses taking place inside prisons, including through sudden, violent raids on their cells by specialized prison units leaving many of them wounded. Statistics and documented testimonies indicate that the majority of the children arrested are subject to one or more forms of physical and psychological torture, through a range of systematic methods that violate enshrined protection laws, international standards and child rights agreements.

Additionally, there have been cases of executions of Palestinian children during their arrest as well as documentation of cases where occupation soldiers used children as hostages to pressure family members into surrendering. There are also instances where the occupation’s intelligence services summon the families of the children, forcing them to bring their children for military interrogations. Dozens of children are also being subject to mass field interrogations.

The abuse of Palestinian children begins from the moment of their arrests in the late hours of the night, where dozens of heavily armed soldiers raid Palestinian homes in a violent manner and cause intentional vandalism and destruction before the arrest, terrorizing the child and their entire family.

Many of these children are injured or ill, and during their arrests, occupation soldiers use humiliating and degrading methods that violate their dignity. The majority of them are held in detention centers belonging to the occupation army under tragic conditions, with threats, insults, severe beatings, and deprivation of food and access to restrooms for long hours. This is done in an attempt to pressure them into making confessions. Children are also coerced into signing documents written in Hebrew which they do not read or understand. In addition, dozens of sick and wounded children have been denied medical treatment by prison authorities, including those suffering from chronic and serious diseases and various levels of injuries.

Starvation of Child Detainees

The crime of starvation, which is being perpetrated against prisoners, including children, has taken center stage in testimonies collected after the war on Gaza. Hunger looms over the child prisoners’ sections in an unprecedented manner, to the point where many of them are being forced to fast for days. What the prison administration refers to as meals are, in fact, mere scraps of food. While prisoners have, for decades, established certain standards within the sections with the help of adult prisoner supervisors, this system has effectively ceased to exist. The prison administration now exclusively controls the children, with no oversight as to what happens to them. The care that prisoners had attempted to establish through sacrifice was dismantled by the prison administration, just like all the previous conditions of prison life prior to the genocide.

Walid Ahmed, a 17-year-old child, was arrested from his family home in Silwad on September 30, 2024. During the months he spent in Megiddo prison, he faced systematic crimes, the most notable of which was the crime of starvation, which led to his martyrdom on March 22, 2025. Walid had suffered from scabies (the skin disease) for several months and was subjected to denial of medical care alongside intentional starvation, being completely deprived of treatment until his death. According to the post-mortem medical report of his autopsy, the primary cause of death was starvation.

Dozens of Children Contracted Scabies in Megiddo Prison and Were Denied Treatment

In recent months, child detainees have been suffering from skin diseases, most notably scabies, which has become a health disaster across several central prisons. The occupation has effectively used this disease as a tool to torture prisoners, including child detainees, by depriving them of treatment and of the necessary tools to eradicate the disease. The prison administration deliberately failed to take any measures to limit the spread of the diseases, which can be life-threatening if left untreated.

According to numerous legal team reports, many prisoners, including children, who went for visits had their bodies covered in sores and complained of being unable to sleep due to the intense itching they continuously endure. Despite some efforts by prisoner organizations to pressure the prison administration to provide the necessary tools to prevent the spread of the disease, particularly by ensuring an acceptable level of hygiene, the disease continues to spread widely among the prisoners, leading to the martyrdom of some prisoners in the past months due to the physical complications that arose from this disease.

Over 100 Children Held Without Trial or Charge

Israel’s military court system allows for the detention of Palestinian children without trial or charge under a “secret file” which neither the detainee nor the lawyer have access to in what is referred to as “administrative detention.” Since the genocide, the occupation’s practice of using this pretext to detain and incarcerate Palestinians, including children, has reached unprecedented levels. The number of Palestinians held under administrative detention as a whole reached 3,498 by early April 2025. Among them, there are over 100 children, including some under the age of 15, being held in administrative detention. These figures have never been recorded historically, even during the peak of confrontations in the most prominent uprisings against the occupation.

Occupation’s Military Courts: Part of the Brutality Against Children

The occupation relentlessly continues its crimes against Palestinian children, subjecting them to unjust military trials that lack the fundamental guarantees of due process, just as with all Palestinian political prisoners under Israeli detention. These sham trials serve as a tool for further oppression, where the rights of Palestinian children are systematically violated. Israeli military courts in the West Bank and the occupation courts in Jerusalem have become central instruments in this widespread abuse.

A particularly alarming and inhumane practice is the imposition of house arrest, which has become a prevalent tactic against Palestinian children, especially in occupied Jerusalem. This policy effectively transforms their homes into prisons, confining children to their residences under harsh conditions. The occupation authorities impose house arrest in a manner that isolates these children from their communities, education, and essential support networks, further exacerbating their suffering and denying them the most basic rights afforded to children under international law.

Call for International Action

Palestinian prisoners’ institutions persist in urging the international human rights system to take decisive action to hold the leaders of the occupation accountable for the war crimes they continue to commit against our people. They demand the imposition of comprehensive sanctions on the occupation to isolate it on the global stage, thereby restoring the international human rights system to its rightful role in upholding justice and human dignity. This is essential to break the paralyzing inaction that has allowed the ongoing genocide and aggression to persist unchecked. The institutions also call for the immediate end to the exceptional immunity granted to the occupying state, which has consistently evaded accountability, judgment, and punishment for its systematic violations of international law. It is time to hold the occupation to account and ensure that its impunity comes to an end.

- ENDS.

Health condition of Detainee Muhammad Karajah

Commission of Detainees’ Affairs

The administration of Megiddo Prison deliberately served spoiled food to detainees

Abu Al-Hummos: "The Independent’s Report Confirms the Occupation’s Brutality and Criminality Against Palestinian Detainees"

March 31, 2025

The Head of the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs, Raed Abu Al-Hummos, responded this morning (Monday) to a report published by the British newspaper The Independent on Sunday. The report shed light on testimonies from Palestinian detainees who endured severe torture by occupation forces, represented in beatings, electric shocks, rape, and stabbing.

Abu Al-Hummos stated, "The Independent’s revelations expose the grave and systematic violations Palestinian detainees are subjected to. They face extreme abuse at the hands of occupation soldiers, prison administration forces, and specialized units, with no oversight or legal constraints on the investigation process.
Their fate is determined by the mood of the Israeli interrogators and soldiers.

He further emphasized, "The failure of international organizations to uphold their humanitarian and moral responsibilities, using the occupation’s refusal to cooperate as an excuse, has contributed to create an unprecedented reality in the history of the Palestinian Captive Movement.
Since October 7, 2023, the conditions inside Israeli prisons have become the most violent and lawless in recent history, while the international community remains a passive spectator to these atrocities."

Abu Al-Hummos pointed out that torture, sexual violence, electric shocks, stabbing, deliberate medical neglect, starvation, and extrajudicial killings are all systematic war crimes for which Israeli leaders must be held accountable.

He warned against allowing the occupation further impunity in its treatment of detainees , particularly in newly established detention sites, both known and undisclosed, that have effectively become living graves.

He called for serious attention to The Independent’s findings and the harrowing testimonies it presented. He also stressed the urgency of international intervention to put an end to these Israeli crimes and to ensure access to the military facilities that have been turned into detention centers, where some of the most horrific abuses and crimes are believed to be taking place.

Health condition of Detainee Dr. Muhammad Wahdan