The Israeli military court of Ofer, on Tuesday, approved administrative detention orders filed against 13 detainees, according to the lawyer of the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS).PPS reported that the orders were approved by the court for seven prisoners, and for a period of four months. The prisoners were identified as Murad Quteshat, Tariq Hammad, Thaib Njajra, Ibrahim Klieba, Mohammad Aslan and Amir Ya’eesh and Nader Takatka.
Meanwhile, WAFA further reports, Abdallah al-Amleh, Mohammad Amro, Yousef Amarneh and Abed al-rahman al-A’tek were given a detention period of six months.
Two others, identified as Nimer Damj and Abed al-Rahman Hindeyeh, received a sentence of three months.
Administrative detention, a form of punishment dating back to the days of British Mandate Palestine, is a procedure which allows the Israeli military to hold prisoners indefinitely on secret information, without charging them or allowing them to stand trial.
The terms are most often served under far more severe conditions than other prisoners, denying them of basic rights such as adequate medical care, and driving many detainees into extended states of extreme protest, including hunger strike.
Addameer human rights association stated that “Palestinians have been subjected to administrative detention since the beginning of the Israeli Occupation in 1967 and before that time, under the British Mandate.”
“The frequency of the use of administrative detention has fluctuated throughout Israel’s occupation, and has been steadily rising since the outbreak of the second intifada in September 2000,” the group added.
In the case of Palestinian detainees, Israel routinely uses administrative detention as a method of punishment. Statistics show that, over the years, thousands of Palestinians have been held in Israeli custody as administrative detainees for extended periods of time.
Palestinian detainees have continuously resorted to open-ended hunger strikes as a way to protest this outdated and illegal punishment.
Furthermore, according to Israel Prison Service (IPS) data, more than 60 percent of administrative detainees held at the end of August 2014 had been held for three months or less. Some 10 percent had been held for three to six months, some 13 percent from six months to one year, and roughly 13 percent from one to two years. Four detainees had been in administrative detention continuously for over two years.
At the moment, there are 500 administrative detention detainees, 18 of whom are members of the Palestinian legislative council.
See: 12/24/14 6500 Palestinians, Including 200 Children, Currently Held By Israel
