Israel is holding about 600 Palestinian detainees without charge or trial, the highest number since 2016, an Israeli rights group said. HaMoked, an Israeli rights group that regularly gathers figures from prison authorities, said on Monday that as of May there were 604 detainees held in administrative detention. Nearly all are Palestinians, as administrative detention is very rarely used against Jews.
So-called administrative detainees are arrested on “secret evidence,” unaware of the accusations against them, and are not allowed to defend themselves in court. They are usually held for renewable six-month periods that often lead to years in detention. While Israel says the procedure allows authorities to hold suspects while continuing to gather evidence, critics and rights groups say the system is widely abused and denies due process. The last time Israel held this many administrative detainees was in October 2016 in the wake of a surge in attacks, including stabbings, shootings, and car-ramming attacks carried out by Palestinians living under occupation and amid Israel’s illegal settlement expansion project.
Jessica Montell, the director of HaMoked, said attacks do not justify detaining hundreds of people for months or years without charge. “It’s like an assembly line of administrative detention, far in excess of what can be justified under international law,” she said, noting that international law allows preventive detention under rare circumstances for a limited period of time.
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