More than 3,660 Palestinians are being held under administrative detention in Israeli prisons, the highest number since 1967, prisoners’ rights groups said Tuesday.
“As of the beginning of April, more than 3,660 Palestinians were being held under administrative detention in Israeli occupation prisons, marking 200 days since the continuous aggression in Gaza,” the Commission of Detainees’ Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoners Society said in a joint statement.
Read more: Iran threatens to wipe out Israel
The statement pointed out that “the number of detainees was around 1,320 before the Hamas Oct. 7 attack.”
Administrative detention is imprisonment under Israeli military order without charges being filed, lasting for six months and renewable.
The current number of Palestinians who are under administrative detention is “the highest since 1967 and since human rights institutions began documenting data on administrative detainees during the years of the Stone (First) Intifada in 1987,” Amani Sarahneh, the media coordinator for the Prisoners Club, told Anadolu.
Read more: Campus protests escalate in US amidst Israeli-Palestinian conflict
“Among the current detainees are 22 women and more than 40 children,” the statement added.
The statement also noted that “the number of new or renewed administrative detention orders issued after Oct. 7 reached 5,210.”
At least 9,500 Palestinians, including 80 women and more than 200 children, are behind bars at Israeli prisons, according to Palestinian figures.
Tensions have been high across the occupied West Bank since Israel launched a deadly military offensive against the Gaza Strip which has killed nearly 34,200 people following an attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on Oct. 7 last year.
At least 487 Palestinians have since been killed and over 4,800 others injured by Israeli army fire in the occupied West Bank.
Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, which in an interim ruling in January ordered it to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.