A newly-released report shows Israeli forces took into custody a total of 420 Palestinians only in the month of February as Tel Aviv continued its crackdown in the occupied territories.
The Palestinian Prisoners’ Center for Studies (PPCS) said in its monthly report that 70 minors and 22 women and girls were among those detained last month, the youngest of whom was 12-year-old Shaker al-Ash’hab from Jerusalem al-Quds.
The center also said that 12 of the arrests were made in the besieged Gaza Strip.
In February 2017, Israeli courts issued 88 orders for the so-called administrative detention, which is a form of imprisonment without trial or charge that allows Israel to incarcerate Palestinians for up to six months, the PPCS added.
It further noted that 23 of the arbitrary detention rulings were issued for the first time while the rest were renewed orders.
A journalist, identified as Humam Muhammad Hantash from the West Bank city of al-Khalil (Hebron), was among those sentenced to administrative detention, the center pointed out.
According to the figures provided by the Palestinian prisoners' rights group Addameer in January, 6,500 Palestinians are currently being held in Israeli jails, 536 of them arbitrarily.
Palestinian detainees have continuously resorted to open-ended hunger strikes in an attempt to voice their outrage at the controversial administrative detention order.
Palestinian prisoners are said to have been subjected to assault and torture at Israeli prisons.
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