After 15 months of genocide against the Palestinian people, Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association welcomes the decision to ceasefire and halt the genocide that has continuously targeted the Palestinian people for 15 months. This atrocity has claimed the lives of thousands of Palestinians and led to the arrest of thousands more during mass detention campaigns carried out by the occupation authorities in the occupied Palestinian territories. The decision to ceasefire and exchange prisoners brings an end to the suffering of Gaza's residents and a large number of prisoners in detention camps and prisons.
Addameer also welcomes the release of Palestinian prisoners and detainees after long months and years spent in the prisons and camps of the occupation. On Sunday, January 19, 2025, the first phase of prisoner releases took place, which included the release of 92 female prisoners and children, among them 69 female prisoners, including two minors, 20 administrative detainees, 5 sentenced prisoners, 44 detainees awaiting trial, and 3 female prisoners who had previously been released in the exchange deal of November 2023 but were re-arrested and are now freed again through this agreement.
Meanwhile, 19 female prisoners remain in detention, including 14 from the West Bank and the occupied territories of 1948, and 5 detainees from the Gaza Strip.
Additionally, 23 children were released, including administrative detainees and those awaiting trial. Some of the released individuals had exceeded the age of childhood but were arrested as minors. This also includes 3 children who had been released in the exchange deal of November 2023 but were re-arrested and are now freed again through the current agreement.
Since the very first day of the aggression, the occupation authorities launched widespread arrest campaigns across various areas of the occupied Palestinian territories. From the beginning of the genocide until the announcement of the ceasefire, the occupation authorities arrested more than 14,300 Palestinians from the West Bank and occupied Jerusalem, including around 450 women and 1,055 children. Due to the policy of enforced disappearance practiced by the occupation authorities against detainees from the Gaza Strip, it has not been possible to document the exact number of arrests that began after the ground invasion on Gaza, but they are estimated to be in the thousands.
Before the start of the genocide against the Palestinian people, the number of prisoners and detainees in the occupation’s prisons was approximately 5,200, including 33 women, 170 children, and 1,264 administrative detainees. Now, following the widespread arrest campaigns carried out by the occupation authorities targeting various segments of the Palestinian population, the current number of prisoners and detainees has reached 10,221. This includes 88 women, among them 4 minors, 21 administrative detainees, 20 university students, and 6 journalists. Additionally, there are 320 children, 95 of whom are under administrative detention.
The current number of administrative detainees exceeds 3,400, along with more than 3,464 detainees from the Gaza Strip, including over 1,886 detained under the “Unlawful Combatant” law. These statistics do not include all detainees from Gaza who have been subjected to enforced disappearance.
The doubling of the number of prisoners and detainees with the onset of the genocide clearly demonstrates how the occupation authorities use detention as a tool of repression and control against Palestinians, as well as a form of collective punishment aimed at pressuring Palestinian political parties during prisoner exchange negotiations. They employ the simplest means to detain the largest number of Palestinians without charge or trial, through administrative detention and detention under the "Unlawful Combatant" law.
Amid the crimes committed by the occupation against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, including killing, destruction, and forced displacement, the occupation authorities also sought revenge against prisoners and detainees in their prisons. They were subjected to arbitrary and retaliatory policies, including complete isolation from the outside world, deliberate starvation and thirst, lack of personal hygiene tools, confiscation of clothing and electrical appliances, denial of family visits, and medical neglect.
Additionally, prisoners faced torture and ill-treatment over months of repression and severe beatings, which resulted in the death of 56 known prisoners during this period. This is aside from other prisoners who died in camps, prisons, and interrogation centers holding detainees from Gaza, whose identities and numbers the occupation has withheld.
In the same context, occupation forces executed several detainees from the Gaza Strip after their release. Addameer documented the disappearance of several detainees before they could reach their families, despite Israeli authorities confirming their release. This indicates that the freed detainees were deliberately targeted and killed immediately after their release.
The occupation authorities did not stop at directly killing prisoners inside prisons and detention centers or denying necessary medical care to sick detainees. They also went further by withholding the bodies of deceased prisoners and preventing their families from bidding them farewell. The occupation currently holds the bodies of 65 martyred prisoners, including 54 who died since the start of the genocide, in addition to an unknown number of bodies of martyred prisoners from the Gaza Strip.
Over the long years of the illegal Israeli occupation, and during every prisoner exchange deal between Palestinian political parties and the occupation authorities, the latter has consistently imposed a series of arbitrary measures against released prisoners. The occupation authorities exclude Palestinian prisoners from the territories occupied in 1948 from the exchange lists and attempt to impose specific criteria for determining which prisoners may be released. Additionally, they prevent the families of prisoners from celebrating the freedom of their loved ones, issuing threats and forcing families not to display any banners or flags when welcoming released prisoners. The authorities also raid homes by force to prevent celebrations and commit other violations accompanying the release of prisoners under exchange agreements.
The occupation authorities also impose forced displacement on a number of prisoners serving life sentences, preventing them from returning to their original towns as part of the occupation's attempts to forcibly displace Palestinians and depopulate the land of its Palestinian residents. In some cases, the authorities impose conditional displacement; however, they often fail to adhere to the standards and conditions agreed upon during negotiations.
The policy of exiling released prisoners flagrantly violates international humanitarian law and international human rights law. Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention explicitly prohibits the individual or collective forcible transfer or deportation of protected persons from occupied territories to the territory of the occupying state or any other state, whether occupied or not, regardless of the motives. Additionally, forced displacement constitutes a grave breach under Article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention and amounts to a war crime and a crime against humanity under Articles 7 and 8 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
Article 9 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention, or exile." This affirms that displacement is a prohibited and unlawful practice under international law. Its implementation, regardless of the circumstances or motives, constitutes crimes against humanity and war crimes that necessitate international prosecution and trial.
In the same context, the Israeli occupation authorities deliberately target released prisoners from prisoner exchange deals with Palestinian political parties by re-arresting them, disregarding the guarantees and agreements made with the parties sponsoring these exchanges. The occupation often presents what it calls "secret files," based on which freed prisoners are tried and returned to their previous life sentences, as was the case with those released in the "Shalit Deal" of 2011. After the release of 1,027 Palestinian prisoners, the occupation authorities re-arrested about 70 of them and presented “secret files” against 49, thereby nullifying their release as part of their ongoing pursuit of freed prisoners.
Currently, under the terms of the recently concluded deal, the occupation authorities have decided to permanently exile these 49 re-arrested prisoners abroad, continuing the series of arbitrary measures imposed against them.
The occupation authorities also re-arrested 27 prisoners, including female prisoners, who had been released during the exchange deal of November 2023, keeping 18 of them in detention to this day. Furthermore, the occupation authorities withdrew on their commitment and refused to release the fourth group of prisoners detained before the signing of the Oslo Accords. Currently, 21 prisoners who were detained prior to the Oslo Accords remain in the occupation’s prisons.
The occupation's targeting of freed prisoners in exchange deals does not stop at re-arresting them but extends to assassinations, particularly of those deported to the Gaza Strip during wars on the territory. Since the onset of the latest aggression on Gaza in October, the occupation forces have targeted the homes of freed prisoners deported to Gaza, leading to the deaths of several of them along with their family members. This forms part of the repeated and ongoing strategy of pursuing and retaliating against them, even after their release.
The policy of re-arresting prisoners released in exchange deals under the pretext of violating conditional release terms has been codified through Israeli military orders. In 2009, Article (186) was added to Military Order No. (1651), allowing for the re-arrest of Palestinian prisoners released in exchange deals to serve the remainder of their original sentences based on the instructions of a special military committee. This process is carried out without disclosing the evidence on which the re-arrest is based, relying instead on a secret file that neither the detainee nor their lawyer can access.
The occupation authorities prosecute Palestinians in military courts that lack the minimum guarantees required for a fair trial. These courts are illegal and violate Palestinians' right to self-determination. This was affirmed in the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice, which stated that all practices arising from the illegal occupation are themselves unlawful, necessitating the complete dismantling of the military judicial system.
In light of the ongoing crimes of the occupation and its attempts to escape accountability, the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion on the illegality of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. Based on this, Addameer calls on the international community to fulfill its responsibilities by refusing to recognize the unlawful Israeli occupation, working to end the occupation, and rejecting all practices carried out by the occupation. Addameer urges pressure on the occupation authorities to immediately release all Palestinian prisoners and detainees, halt policies of arbitrary detention and forced displacement, and ensure respect for human rights and international law in the occupied Palestinian territories. Additionally, Addameer calls for holding the occupation accountable for the crime of genocide against the Palestinian people and all crimes committed against prisoners, including prosecuting and bringing to justice all those involved in these violations.