Palestinians Mark Prisoners’ Day Amid Ongoing Genocide for 2nd Year in a Row

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

April 16, 2025 

Ramallah, Palestine – Amid Israel’s ongoing genocide, thousands of Palestinian political prisoners are experiencing the most severe forms of torture and maltreatment ever recorded since the beginning of the Israeli occupation, prisoner rights groups said today, on the eve of Palestinian Prisoners’ Day. 

In this report, Palestinian prisoner defense and advocacy groups lay out the key realities and figures surrounding the current situation for political detainees. The abuse of Palestinian prisoners has become yet another facet of the genocide which is taking place with full international complicity. 

The rise in systematic crimes practiced against Palestinian political detainees has lead to the direct and indirect killing of 63 identified prisoners since the genocide began, 40 of whom were arrested from the occupied Gaza Strip. Meanwhile, the occupation continues to withhold the bodies and identities of dozens of other Palestinian political detainees, leaving their families in the dark. 

Since the occupation of 1967, there have now been 300 identified Palestinian political prisoners who were martyred in custody, the last one being the 17-year-old child Walid Ahmad from Silwad who was starved to death in March 2025 as his autopsy showed. 

Israeli occupation authorities are using a myriad of horrific ways to kill and injure Palestinian prisoners at an unprecedented rate, with the most prevalent being severe physical assault, denial of medical care, starvation, and torture including sexual assault. 

For decades, prisoners have been in a constant and ongoing battle with their jailers to obtain and preserve the most basic rights that should otherwise be afforded to any detainee around the world. They managed to secure their rights through hunger strikes and other forms of protest, often paying for it with their lives, only to have them stripped away entirely since the start of the genocide. 

Testimonies and statements from prisoners in custody — relayed by legal teams and documented through released detainees — continue to reveal a shocking and horrifying level of systematic torture, especially in the accounts of detainees from Gaza. These testimonies, in addition to detailing acts of torture, also described unprecedented methods of humiliation designed to degrade human dignity. 

The entire international human rights system must view this as a new phase that threatens humanity as a whole, not just Palestinians.

It is important to remember that the Israeli government had already been inciting for the targeting of Palestinian political prisoners and implementing more oppressive policies well before the genocide began. The period before the genocide served as a prelude to the government's intentions, including blatant calls to execute Palestinian prisoners, led by the fascist minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who embodies the broader Israeli occupation system. He has openly called for the shooting of Palestinian detainees in the head as a way to "solve" prison overcrowding. 

This incitement reflects the reality that prisoners are currently living through, under a government carrying out the world’s first live-streamed genocide — and with explicit support from powerful international actors.

KEY FACTS AND FIGURES 

Since the beginning of the genocide, Israeli occupation forces have carried out at least 16,400 arrests across the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem, including those who remain in custody and others who were later released. Among the 16,400, there were at least 510 cases of arrests among women, and 1,300 among children.

These figures does not include arrests carried out in the Gaza Strip, which are estimated to be in the thousands. This is due to the occupation’s ongoing crime of enforced disappearances against many detainees abducted from Gaza. Israel prevents the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) from visiting the detainees, and  withholds information about their numbers, places of detention, their conditions, or any details about their fate - whether they are dead or alive. 

In addition to its central prisons, the occupation has established a number of special military camps for holding detainees, particularly those from Gaza. Notable among those are the Sde Teiman military camp, which became infamous for crimes of torture and rape, as well as Rakefet prison, Anatot military camp, Ofer military camp, Naftali military camp, and Menasha military camp. These are the only camps that the prisoner groups have been able to monitor; there may be secret prisons and camps hidden from the public. 

Meanwhile, the Israeli occupation’s increased use of administrative detention (AD) - or holding residents without trial or charge - has become one of the most significant transformations of the period since the genocide. The number of Palestinians held under AD has reached a historic high of 3,498 people as of the beginning of April 2025, including over 100 children and four female prisoners. 

Before the genocide, the number of Palestinians held under this arbitrary order stood at approximately 1,320 people. The figure began to rise with the arrival of the far-right Israeli government in 2021, before the genocide. 

It is clear that since its occupation of Palestinian territories, Israel has used the policy of AD as an arbitrary measure against residents, with tens of thousands detained over the years. Alongside the rise in its use of AD, the occupation has escalated its arrests based on freedom of expression, using the pretext of “incitement" to detain many. Social media platforms have become a central tool for repression, surveillance and arrests. 

Medical crimes also weigh heavily on prisoners, particularly with the continued infestation of scabies skin disease, which has led to the martyrdom of prisoners. The majority of detainees suffer from scabies, particularly in the Naqab, Megiddo, and Ofer prisons, where the disease is increasing. Despite the disease arising over a year ago, occupation authorities continue to deny providing the detainees with basic hygienic products to disinfect their environment, as well as access to clean clothes, sun exposure and regular showers, all of which is taking place amid severe and unprecedented overcrowding in Israeli prisons. 

Meanwhile, the Israeli military assault on the northern West Bank continues for close to four months, with occupation forces continuing to carry out mass arrests accompanied by horrific acts against detainees such as extrajudicial executions, using residents as human shields and as hostages to pressure their family members to surrender. This comes alongside severe abuse including during sudden field interrogations, physical assault, international mass vandalism and destruction of detainees’ homes, theft of vehicles, money and jewelry, as well as threats of murder and abuse of detainees and their families, and widespread destruction of infrastructure and homes in Jenin and Tulkarem.

DATA AS OF EARLY APRIL 2025

• Number of Palestinian political prisoners: Exceeds 9,900 people, not including all the detainees abducted from occupied Gaza and are subjected to the crime of enforced disappearance.
• Females: There are currently 29 female prisoners, including one arrested from Gaza as well as one minor. 
• Children: There are around 400 Palestinian children held, distributed across Megiddo and Ofer prisons.
• “Administrative Detainees” (without trial or charge, applied to West Bank and Jerusalem residents): The number of administrative detainees in Israeli prisons has risen at an unprecedented rate since the beginning of the genocide, reaching over 3,498 administrative detainees (as of early April), including four women and more than 100 children. The majority of administrative detainees are former prisoners, in addition to other groups such as: school and university students, journalists, human rights activists, lawyers, engineers, doctors, academics, members of parliament, activists, workers, and first-degree relatives of martyrs and prisoners, including sisters of martyrs and wives of prisoners.
• “Unlawful Combatants” (without trial or charge, applied to Gaza residents): At least 1,747 residents of Gaza are being held under this arbitrary law as of early April 2025.
• The number of sick prisoners in Israeli prisons has also risen, with hundreds of sick and injured prisoners. Their numbers continue to grow due to the crimes and punitive policies systematically imposed by the occupation, the most notable of which are torture and medical deprivation. 

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

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.

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