Detention figures
End of December 2023:

Security Prisoners

Adults: 8,171
Children: 137
Total: 8,308

Percentage held in Israel:

Adults: 74%
Children: 49%

Administrative Detention

Adults: 3,239
Children: 49
Total: 3,288

 
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Newsletter - June 2017

Detention figures – According to the Israeli Prison Service (IPS), as of 31 May 2017, there were 6,020 Palestinians (West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza) held as "security prisoners" in Israeli detention facilities including 331 children (12-17 years). In the case of children there was a 9 percent increase in the number compared with the previous month but an annual decrease of 18 percent compared with 2016. These figures include 2 children held without charge or trial in administrative detention. According to the IPS, 74 percent of child detainees and 81 percent of adult detainees were transferred and detained inside Israel in violation of Article 76 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. A further 1,673 Palestinians were held as "criminal prisoners" including 17 children. More statistics

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50 years of military rule - Two days after the start of the 1967 war, Israeli military forces occupied the West Bank and imposed martial law over the Palestinian population. At the time, this measure was legal under the Fourth Geneva Convention (the Convention), which permits the use of martial law in specific circumstances and on a temporary basis. To this day, the military authorities continue to rely on the Convention as the jurisdictional basis and justification for prosecuting Palestinian civilians under military law.  Once martial law was established, Major General Haim Herzog, the military commander in the West Bank at the time, started issuing military orders regulating the lives of Palestinians living in the territory. Read more
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MCW Annual Report - MCW has released a new report that considers developments relating to the arrest and detention of children by the Israeli military in the West Bank in 2016/17. In addition to reviewing relevant legal and procedural changes in the system the report considers the findings from 127 testimonies obtained from detained children. While noting a number of relevant changes in the system in recent years, the evidence suggests this has not translated into a significant improvement in practice. The report also considers: unlawful transfer and detention; unlawful discrimination inherent in applying dual legal systems in one territory; accountability; implementation of UK and UNICEF recommendations; and a link between child detention and the settlements. Report
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UK lawyers' report - 5 years on - This month marked 5 years since a delegation of UK lawyers reviewed the treatment of Palestinian children under Israeli military law and published their findings and recommendations in a report. The Foreign Office funded report - Children in Military Custody - found undisputed evidence that the military detention system violated at least 6 articles under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and 2 articles under the Fourth Geneva Convention. Following a review of developments in the system as well as the testimonies of 480 children detained between 2013 and 2017, the evidence indicates that just one of the UK report's 40 recommendations has been substantially implemented. This represents an implementation rate of just 2.5 per cent. Read more
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Kingdom of Olives and Ash - Writers Confront the Occupation Kingdom of Olives and Ash is a ground-breaking collection of essays by celebrated international writers bearing witness to the human cost of fifty years of Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. The book includes contributions from Colum McCann, Jacqueline Woodson, Colm Toibin, Geraldine Brooks, Dave Eggers, Hari Kunzru, Raja Shehadeh, Mario Vargas Llosa, and Assaf Gavron, as well as from editors Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman. Two writers, Ayelet Waldman and Arnon Grunberg, contributed essays that touch upon the prosecution of children in military courts. A third writer, Nobel literature prizewinner Mario Vargas Llosa, wrote an article about the military courts published in El Pais following his visit to Ofer military court in 2016. Read more
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