News / Palestine

Israelis imprison 34 Palestinians without charge or trial: Rights group

Tuesday, 12 January 2016 11:29 AM [ Last Update: Tuesday, 12 January 2016 2:23 PM ]

Protestors hold up Palestinian flags and posters with pictures of Palestinian detainee and hunger striker Mohammed Allan during a protest in the al-Aqsa Mosque compound, in East al-Quds (Jerusalem), on August 14, 2015. ©AP

Israeli authorities have reportedly issued the so-called administrative detention order for 34 Palestinian detainees in defiance of widespread criticisms against the practice.

The rights group Palestinian Prisoners’ Society (PPS) said on Monday 14 prisoners received the order for the first time, while the remaining got renewed administrative detention order.

More than 7,000 Palestinian prisoners are currently held in some 17 Israeli jails, dozens of whom are serving multiple life sentences.

Over 500 detainees are under administrative detention, which is a sort of imprisonment without trial or charge that allows the Tel Aviv regime to incarcerate Palestinians for up to six months. The detention order can be renewed for indefinite periods.

According to the Israeli human rights organization, B’Tselem, arbitrary detention should be exercised only in very exceptional cases, but Israeli officials routinely employ the practice against thousands of Palestinians.

Palestinians protest administrative detention outside the Israeli Ofer prison near the occupied West Bank city of Beitunia on May 28, 2015. ©AFP

Palestinian detainees have continuously staged open-ended hunger strikes in an attempt to express their outrage at the illegal and unfair detention and to demand an end to the policy.

Last year, the Israeli regime passed a controversial bill allowing the force-feeding of hunger-striking prisoners to counter the Palestinian hunger-strikers’ protest.

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