Israel Arrests Nearly As Many Prisoners As It Has Released

In the first four days of the ongoing truce between Israel and Hamas, Israel released 150 Palestinians but arrested 133.

While families and crowds gathered in the streets of Ramallah to welcome the freed prisoners, Israeli forces strengthened their efforts at the ongoing rearrests. Most of these arrests took place in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem according to Palestinian prisoner associations.

“As long as there is occupation, the arrests will not stop. People must understand this because this is a central policy of occupation against Palestinians and to restrict any kind of resistance,” Amany Sarahneh, spokesperson for the Palestinian Prisoners Society, told Al Jazeera.

“This is a daily practice – it’s not just after October 7,” she added. “We actually expected more people to be arrested during these four days.” Israel has not yet provided any guarantees that it will not rearrest freed prisoners. The Palestinians Authority’s commission for prisoner affairs said in a statement on Monday that many of the arrests included children and elderly women. The Israeli military has greatly escalated their nighttime raids across the West Bank and East Jerusalem since October 7. Palestinian monitoring groups and prisoner lawyers have recorded 3,290 arrests so far.

Since October 7, the health and safety of Palestinian prisoners have greatly declined. Many prisoners, including women and children, have complained of severe beatings and humiliation. Several videos have also surfaced of Israeli soldiers torturing detained Palestinians who have been blindfolded and stripped. In addition to the severe beatings, Israeli prison authorities halted medical care for prisoners for at least the first week after October 7. Six Palestinian prisoners are reported to have died while in custody.

Tags: Israel-Palestine War Hamas