121 Palestinians Sentenced to Administrative Detention only in March

Israeli occupation have issued administrative detention orders against 121 Palestinian prisoners since the beginning of March, including new orders issued Tuesday against 40 prisoners, said the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS), on Tuesday.

WAFA Palestinian News & Info Agency reports that PPS, in a recent press release, said that 12 prisoners received new detention orders without charge or trial, while the remaining 28 prisoners had their sentences renewed for the third and fourth times, including some who have served years under administrative detention.

Administrative detention is an archaic procedure, dating back to the time of British Mandate Palestine, which allows the Israeli military to hold prisoners indefinitely on secret information without charging them or allowing them to stand trial.

Palestinian detainees have continuously resorted to open-ended hunger strikes as a way to protest their illegal administrative detention and to demand an end to this policy which violates international law.

B’Tselem, Israeli information center for human rights, stresses: “International law stipulates that it may be exercised only in very exceptional cases – and then only as a last possible resort, when there are no other means available to prevent the danger.”

In the case of Palestinian detainees, Israeli occupation routinely uses administrative detention against Palestinians. Statistics show that over the years, thousands of Palestinians have been held in Israeli custody as administrative detainees for extended periods of time.