Israel takes revenge on Palestinians with administrative detentions, says official

Gaza (Quds News) – Israel uses administrative detention—a procedure which allows the detention of Palestinians without charges or trial—as a tool of revenge against the Palestinian people, according to the head of the Palestinian Detainees Affairs Authority, Qaddura Fares.

Since the outbreak of the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip on October 7, a large wave of detentions and arrests have taken place in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem.

A total of 4,675 Palestinians have since been rounded by Israeli forces, according to the latest data from Palestinian prisoner advocacy groups.

Administrative detention allows Israeli authorities to extend the detention of a prisoner without charge or trial.

The policy has been inherited from the British mandate regime in pre-1948 Palestine where the British used to detain Palestinians without charge under an emergency law in 1945.

“There has been an unprecedented increase in the practice of administrative detention,” Fares told Anadolu Agency. “Eighty percent of those detained after October 7 were arrested without any charges,” he said.

Qabatia – Jenin | Introducing Mohammed Nazzal, a #Palestinian youth who was held in administrative detention without charges or trial in #Israeli occupation prisons. He was released yesterday as part of a prisoner exchange. pic.twitter.com/9uBp76e4NS

— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) November 28, 2023

The official stressed that “Israel arrests Palestinians in a vindictive and selective manner.” He explained that “Palestinians are divided into two groups after their arrest. Those with an indictment, and those with no charges.”

“Never in the history of Palestine has the number of administrative detainees increased this much,” he said.

“Israel doesn’t stop at arresting Palestinians, it also demolishes their houses, tortures and intimidates them on the way to prison and during interrogation as part of its war of revenge against the Palestinian people,” he added.

“Palestinian prisoners are subjected to brutal interrogation, hunger, cold and torture every hour of the day,” Fares said, noting that “this leads to their deaths most frequently.”

“Israel has become a disgusting regime that has gone completely out of control,” the official stated. He noted that “Israel started as a terrorist group and now it has turned into a gang coalition.”