Ramallah, occupied West Bank – Israel persisted in arresting dozens of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem as it carried out the release of prisoners with Hamas, the Gaza-based armed group.
During the first four days of the ongoing truce between Israel and Hamas, which began on Friday, Israel released 150 Palestinian prisoners – 117 children and 33 women.
Hamas freed 69 captives – 51 Israelis and 18 people from other countries.
Over the same four days, Israel arrested at least 133 Palestinians from East Jerusalem and the West Bank, according to Palestinian prisoners’ associations.
“As long as there is occupation, the arrests will not stop. People need to understand this because it is a central policy of occupation against Palestinians and aimed at restricting any form of resistance,” Amany Sarahneh, spokesperson for the Palestinian Prisoners Society, told Tel Aviv Tribune.
“This is a daily practice – and not just after October 7,” she added. “In fact, we expected more people to be arrested over these four days. »
The Qatar-brokered truce comes after 51 days of relentless Israeli bombardment of the besieged Gaza Strip, which began on October 7, when Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israeli territory, killing around 1,200 people.
Since then, Israel has killed more than 15,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, most of them women and children.
On Monday, the initial four-day truce was extended for two more days, during which 60 more Palestinians and 20 captives are expected to be released.
During Israel’s 56-year military occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, Israeli forces conduct nightly raids on Palestinian homes, arresting 15 to 20 people on “quiet” days.
In the first two weeks after October 7, Israel doubled the number of detained Palestinians from 5,200 people to more than 10,000. This number included 4,000 workers from Gaza who worked in Israel and were detained before to then be released in Gaza.
Palestinian prisoners’ lawyers and monitoring groups have recorded 3,290 arrests in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since October 7. In mid-November, Eyad Banat, 35, was arrested while live streaming on TikTok. He was later released.
“No guarantee with occupancy”
Since the start of the truce, the streets of Ramallah have been flooded with people welcoming the freed prisoners.
But the concerns of Palestinian prisoners do not end after their release. The majority of those released are usually rearrested by Israeli forces in the days, weeks, months and years following their release.
Dozens of people arrested during a prisoner exchange between Israel and Hamas in 2011 were rearrested and had their sentences reinstated.
Sarahneh said it was not yet clear whether Israel had provided guarantees that it would not rearrest those who were released.
“There are no guarantees with occupancy. These people are likely to be arrested again at any time. The occupation is still re-arresting people who have been released,” she said.
“The biggest evidence that these people could be rearrested is that the majority of people currently detained are released prisoners,” she added.
Since October 7, the conditions of Palestinians arrested or detained have deteriorated significantly. Many complained of being severely beaten while six Palestinian prisoners died while in Israeli custody.
Many women and children released during the truce have testified to the abuses they suffered in Israeli prisons.
Several videos have also been released in recent weeks showing Israeli soldiers beating, stomping, mistreating and humiliating detained Palestinians who were blindfolded, handcuffed and partially or entirely undressed. Many social media users said the scenes were reminiscent of torture tactics used by US forces in Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison in 2003.
In addition to severe beatings, Israeli prison authorities cut off medical care for Palestinian prisoners for at least the first week after October 7, including for those who had been beaten, according to rights groups. Family visits as well as routine attorney visits have been halted, the groups said.
Prisoners were previously allowed three to four hours out of their cells in the courtyard, but this has now been reduced to less than an hour, according to rights groups.
The overcrowded cells now often house double the number of inmates they were built for, with many sleeping on the floor without mattresses, they said.
Israeli prison authorities also cut off electricity and hot water, conducted cell searches, removed all electrical appliances, including televisions, radios, hotplates and kettles, and closed the canteen, which prisoners use to buy food and basic necessities like toothpaste.