Israel has broken a 30-year record for administrative detention of Palestinians, hitting 1,264, the Hamoked NGO has announced.
The human rights NGO received the new data from the Israel Prison Service, showing that the number of administrative detainees broke the most recent record of 1,108 from March 2003 at the height of the Second Intifada.
There have not been this many Palestinians in administrative detention since the First Intifada of the late 1980s-early 1990s.
In February, HaMoked had previously said that the IDF had broken its record for administrative detentions of Palestinians dating back around 20 years to the 2002-2003 era of the Second Intifada.
But since then, the numbers have increased even more.
Palestinians hold the pictures Palestinian prisonners detained in Israeli prison starting a hunger strike against the administrative detention in the village Dura, on September 17, 2021. (credit: WISAM HASHLAMOUN/FLASH90)Even during the later years of the Second Intifada and during the Knife Intifada of 2015-2016, the number of administrative detainees was more in the 700 range.
In quieter years over the last two decades, the numbers were usually down closer to 200-300 at a time. In the mid-1990s, at the height of the Oslo peace talks, the number fell to single digits.
Administrative detention practice draws international criticism
Over the years, sometimes the US, and regularly Europe, have criticized Israel for using administrative detention and for other tactics like night arrests of Palestinian minors.
However, there are so many other things that the US and Europe are worried about regarding Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, from new settlement building, to incitement against Palestinians by some of his coalition partners, to the judicial overhaul, that administrative detention may be the least of their worries.
Executive Director Jessica Montell said, “This is a mass, arbitrary detention. Israel is holding over 1,200 Palestinians without charge or trial, some of them for years, with no effective judicial review.”
Montel also noted that the total incarceration figures have decreased, which has made administrative detainees now a stunning quarter of all Palestinians in Israeli custody.
Administrative detention may not be valid in the eyes of the US, Europe and much of the human rights community because it abridges standard criminal proceedings and rights.
For example, defense lawyers do not get to see classified evidence whose revelation could expose Israeli intelligence sources and methods. But it still includes judicial proceedings, the judges see all of the classified evidence and most detainees are held for three to 12 months, meaning not forever.
The IDF responded, “the volume of administrative detainees is a consequence of the security danger presented by each individual detainee,” adding that in addition to information about that danger relating to the individual detainee, the defense establishment also takes “into account the security status of the Judea and Samaria area.”
More Israeli civilians have been killed by Palestinian terror attacks in 2023, closing in on 40, than any year since the Second Intifada nearly 20 years ago.
From 2019-2021, combined only around one-third the number of Israelis were killed compared to the first eight months of 2023.
Further, the IDF said, “the use of administrative detention is limited to situations where the security forces have credible and grounded information which indicates a concrete danger that a detainee represents to the security of the area [West Bank] and where there is no alternative to avoiding the danger.”
“Each case of administrative detention includes…a judicial process by the military courts during which the information which is the basis for the detention is substantively reviewed,” said the IDF.
The IDF has said that the administrative detention judicial proceedings are serious and that decisions can be appealed to the High Court of Justice.
Some Israeli allies have criticized the around 150 Palestinians killed by the IDF in the West Bank in 2022, a huge spike compared to prior years, and a trend which has continued and will likely reach higher numbers by the end of 2023.
The administrative detention issue may also get special attention from the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice, both of which have Israel in their crosshairs.
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