Israeli authorities, Tuesday, issued administrative detention orders against 41 Palestinian prisoners, including 26 Palestinians from Hebron district, according to the Palestine Prisoners’ Society (PPS).The detainees were sentenced for a period ranging between two months and six months, with twelve of the detainees receiving detention orders without charge or trial for the first time, whereas the remaining 29 detainees had their administrative detention sentence renewed for the second or third time.

Administrative detention is the imprisonment of Palestinians without charge or trial and on the basis of secret evidence for up to six month periods, indefinitely renewable by Israeli military courts.

The use of administrative detention dates from the “emergency laws” of the British colonial era in Palestine, said the Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, who states: “Israel’s use of administrative detention violates international law; such detention is allowed only in individual circumstances that are exceptionally compelling for “imperative reasons of security.”

Israel uses administrative detention routinely as a form of collective punishment and mass detention of Palestinians, and frequently uses administrative detention when it fails to obtain confessions in interrogations of Palestinian detainees.

There are around 500 detainees serving administrative detention in several Israeli jails, including Palestinian Legislative Council member Khalida Jarrar who has been recently sentenced to six-months of administrative detention.

Jarrar is not the only lawmaker to be imprisoned; 18 of the Palestinian Legislative Council members are currently held in Israeli detention without charge or trial.

Palestinian detainees have continuously resorted to open-ended < ahref='http://www.imemc.org/newswire?search_text=hunger+strike&button=Search+%3E%3E' target='_blak'>hunger strikes as a way to protest their illegal administrative detention and to demand an end to this policy which violates international law.

WAFA Palestinian News & Info Agency has provided the names of the 41 detainees who received administrative detention orders:

Mahmoud Fasfous,

‘Abdullah Sha‘ban,

Amir Shammas,

Nour Dudin,

Bajes Swaiti,

Raed al-‘Amla,

Murad Shqaiqat,

Mustafa Braija,

Muhammad al-Habal,

Ahmad al-Qiq,

Hasan Shihada,

Tareq Hamed,

Suhaib Jidan,

Ayman Za‘aqiq,

Nour Jaffal,

Nedal al-Boum,

Muhammad Abu Ras,

Sa‘id al-‘Asafra,

Sufian al-Wahaddin,

Fawzi Talahma,

‘Issa ‘Awawda,

Bashar Da‘na,

Anas Dweik,

Isma‘il Slaibi,

‘Ala’ Za‘aqiq,

‘Abdul-Qader Sharawna,

Nedal Jaber,

Munther Abu ‘Atwan,

Firas Masalama,

‘Abdullah Bani Odeh,

Arqam Ahmaro,

Muhammad al-Khatib,

‘Imad Isma‘il,

Shaher Abu Ghalyoun,

Ahmad Huraimi,

Mustafa Shawer,

Mahmoud ‘Ayyash,

As‘ad Imam,

Raed Sharbati,

Muhammad Abu Ghalya,

Tamer Qawasmah

See also: 04/16/15 Prisoners Day Report on Palestinian Detainees, Their Sufferings and Their Plight