Fatima Shahin\u00a0spent seven months in an Israeli prison. Authorities initially accused her of\u00a0attempted\u00a0murder of an Israeli in the occupied West Bank, but she was never charged with any crime. <\/p>\n
On Friday, the 33-year-old from the West Bank city of Bethlehem was freed, one of the 39 Palestinians released that day in exchange for Israeli hostages as part of the truce between Israel and Hamas. <\/p>\n
As of Wednesday, Israel had released 180 Palestinian prisoners and detainees and Hamas had released 81 hostages. <\/p>\n
Like Shahin, the majority of those released so far \u2013 128 of the 180\u00a0\u2013 were detained and hadn\u2019t been charged, put on trial or given an opportunity to defend themselves. Some say they weren\u2019t even told why they were being detained. <\/p>\n
Some\u00a0of the Palestinians were held under a murky military justice system that theoretically allows Israel to hold people for indefinite periods without trial or a charge. <\/p>\n
Israel has been operating two distinct justice systems in the West Bank since it captured the area in 1967. Palestinians living there fall under the jurisdiction of Israel\u2019s military court system, where judges and prosecutors are uniformed Israeli soldiers. Meanwhile, Jewish settlers there are subject to civilian courts. <\/p>\n
B\u2019Tselem,\u00a0The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, a non-governmental organization, says the courts \u201cserve as one of the central systems maintaining Israel\u2019s control\u00a0over the Palestinian people.\u201d <\/p>\n
Shahin said that while in detention, she was denied access to a lawyer and was barred from speaking to her family, as she recovered from life-changing injuries that she suffered during her arrest. <\/p>\n
Before the truce came into effect last week, the Israeli Ministry of Justice published a list of 300 Palestinian prisoners and detainees eligible for release under the exchange agreement. <\/p>\n
A majority of people on the list hadn\u2019t been\u00a0charged or\u00a0sentenced for any crime. <\/p>\n
Instead, according to the document,\u00a0some\u00a0were either detained or held under administrative detention, a controversial procedure that allows Israeli authorities to hold people indefinitely on security grounds without trial or charge,\u00a0sometimes\u00a0based on\u00a0evidence\u00a0that isn\u2019t made public. <\/p>\n
It is also used by Israel as a preventative measure: people are detained not for what they have done, but for future offenses they allegedly planned to commit. <\/p>\n
Many of the detainees held under the policy have no idea why they are being imprisoned, because evidence against them is classified. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis leaves the detainees helpless \u2013 facing unknown allegations with no way to disprove them, not knowing when they will be released, and without being charged, tried or convicted,\u201d according to B\u2019Tselem. <\/p>\n
Under Israeli law, people can be held in administrative detention for up to six months, but the term can be renewed indefinitely. <\/p>\n
According to data obtained from the Israel Prison Service (IPS) by B\u2019Tselem, of the more than 1,300 Palestinians\u00a0that were held in administrative detention as of September, about half had been detained for more than six months. <\/p>\n
The IDF legal adviser said that the administrative detention law is in line with international law frameworks and complies with the Geneva Convention. However, the official admitted it was possible that in some cases, the law was used in a \u201cheavy-handed\u201d way. <\/p>\n
Israel has been widely criticized for its use of the policy. When prominent Palestinian activist and former Islamic Jihad spokesperson Khader Adnan died in Israeli prison after\u00a0an\u00a087-day hunger strike in May,\u00a0UN experts called on Israel\u00a0to end the practice, calling it \u201ccruel\u201d and \u201cinhumane.\u201d <\/p>\n
Adnan became a symbol of Palestinian resistance to Israeli detention policies after spending a total of eight years in Israeli jails, mostly under administrative detention. He was never sentenced. <\/p>\n
Despite the criticism, the number of administrative detainees held in Israeli facilities has been rising steadily. <\/p>\n
As of September, the number was at its highest in\u00a0more than three decades, surpassing the previous record set at the height of the Second Palestinian Intifada (uprising) in 2003, according to data obtained by\u00a0B\u2019Tselem\u00a0and\u00a0HaMoked, an Israeli NGO that focuses on human rights law and provides free legal aid to Palestinians. <\/p>\n
The events of recent days have also put the spotlight on another issue that Israel has been criticized for: the detention of children aged 18 or younger. <\/p>\n
According to B\u2019Tselem, the Israel Prison Service was holding 146 Palestinian minors on what it defined as security grounds as of September. <\/p>\n
Under Israeli law, children as young as 12 can be imprisoned for up to six months. Minors are sent to military prisons alongside adults. <\/p>\n
A majority of those released so far through the exchange deal are teenagers between the ages of 16 and 18, but Israel\u2019s list of people eligible for release also includes five 14-year-olds and seven 15-year-olds. <\/p>\n
Malak Salman was 16 when she was arrested in 2016 for an alleged attempted stabbing of an Israeli police officer in Jerusalem. Israeli authorities said no one was injured, but she was convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to 10 years in a military prison. After an appeal, the sentence was reduced to nine years. <\/p>\n
Salman was one of the prisoners released on Friday, after serving almost eight of those nine years. She was finally reunited with her family in Jerusalem, but her family wasn\u2019t allowed to celebrate. <\/p>\n
Israeli authorities have banned celebrations surrounding the releases of the Palestinian prisoners after Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said that \u201cexpressions of joy are a support for terrorism\u201d and that \u201ccelebrations of victory give strength to those same human scum.\u201d Ben Gvir was previously convicted of inciting racism against Arabs and supporting a terrorist organization. <\/p>\n
Since the deadly October 7 terror attacks by Hamas on Israel, Israel Police have used the Counter Terrorism Law to widen a crackdown on Palestinians. <\/p>\n
Article 24 of this\u00a0legislation\u00a0states that anyone who does anything to \u201cempathize with a terror group\u201d whether that is by \u201cpublishing praises, support or encouraging, waving a flag, showing or publishing a symbol\u201d can be arrested and jailed for up to three years. <\/p>\n
After the Hamas attacks last month, Palestinians have been arrested after\u00a0expressing solidarity\u00a0with civilians in Gaza and sharing verses from Quran on social media, among other reasons. <\/p>\n
Referring to celebrations by the families of freed detainees, Ben Gvir said on Thursday that \u201cthe policy here is very, very, very clear \u2013 not to allow these expressions of joy, and resolutely strive to make contact and stop any support for these Nazis.\u201d <\/p>\n
Like the rest of the Palestinians held by Israel, children are put through\u00a0the\u00a0Israeli military court system, which means their rights are limited and not in line with international juvenile justice system standards. <\/p>\n
According to a\u00a0report\u00a0by Save the Children earlier this year, between\u00a0an estimated\u00a0500 and 1,000 children are held in Israeli military detention each year. <\/p>\n
Many of the children\u00a0are held for stone throwing, it said, an offense that carries a maximum\u00a0penalty of 20 years\u00a0in prison under Israeli law. <\/p>\n
Earlier this year, the organization said that its survey of Palestinian children detained by the Israeli military showed that 86% reported being beaten, 70% said they were threatened with harm and 69% reported being strip searched during interrogation. <\/p>\n\n
Fatima Shahin\u00a0spent seven months in an Israeli prison. Authorities initially accused her of\u00a0attempted\u00a0murder of an Israeli in the occupied West Bank, but she was never charged with any crime. On Friday, the 33-year-old from the West Bank city of Bethlehem was freed, one of the 39 Palestinians released that day in exchange for Israeli hostages <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":12249,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12248","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12248\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}