OCCUPIED PALESTINE — At least 9,300 Palestinians, including children, women, and journalists, are being held in Israeli jails, amid reports of torture and medical negligence.
According to the latest update issued on Tuesday by Palestinian prisoners’ advocacy groups, from October 2023, when Israel launched its assault on Gaza, to this date, the number of Palestinian hostages doubled, rising from 5,000 to around 9,300.
According to the Palestinian Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS), of those in detention:
Administrative Detention
The groups said they have documented a “dangerous increase” in the number of Palestinians held under administrative detention in Israeli prisons.
Israel routinely uses administrative detention and has, over the years, placed thousands of Palestinians behind bars for periods ranging from several months to several years, without charging them, without telling them what they are accused of, and without disclosing the alleged evidence to them or their lawyers.
More than 3,350 detainees are currently held under this order by December 2025, including 15 women and dozens of children.
The majority of administrative detainees are former prisoners, school and university students, journalists, human rights activists, lawyers, engineers, doctors, academics, parliamentarians, activists, workers, and first-degree relatives of martyrs and prisoners, including sisters of martyrs and wives of prisoners.
Among the Palestinians killed behind bars since the genocide in Gaza were 11 people held under “administrative detention” without trial or charge.
According to Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Western states rarely employ administrative detention and in some countries, the practice does not exist at all. Israeli occupation authorities use it mainly in the West Bank against Palestinians “while its use against Israeli citizens, particularly Jewish ones, is rarely employed.”
Females
The number of female detainees currently stands at 49, including two women who have been detained since before October 7, 2023, two children, 16 held under administrative detention, and 24 mothers.
Children (Minors)
The number of child detainees under the age of 18 is approximately 350 – all held in Megiddo and Ofer prisons. There is no clear data regarding the detention of children from the Gaza Strip.
Among the martyred Palestinian prisoners this year was 17-year-old child Walid Khaled Ahmed from the town of Silwad near Ramallah in the central occupied West Bank.
Unlawful Combatants
These are Palestinians arrested in the Gaza Strip by occupation forces and are held without charge or trial under the “illegal combatants” law. According to the occupation’s data, as of December 2025, the number of detainees held as “unlawful combatants” stands at 1,220 people.
Sick Detainees
The number of sick detainees in occupation prisons has rapidly escalated since October 7, 2023.
There are hundreds of sick and wounded prisoners, with continuous increases due to crimes, policies, and systematic retaliatory measures, foremost among them torture and medical crimes.
Journalists
The number of Palestinian journalists detained in occupation prisons is 42. Almost all of them (40) were arrested after October 7, 2023 and remain in detention, among them one female journalist.
Parliamentarians
The number of detained parliamentarians is 9, the longest-held among them being the two political leaders Marwan Barghouti and Ahmad Saadat.
Prisoners Serving Long and Life Sentences
After the October 2025 prisoner-exchange deal, 9 Palestinian prisoners detained before the Oslo Accords remain behind bars.
The number of detainees sentenced to life imprisonment is 115.
Detainees Died in Israeli Jails The number of
The identified Palestinian detainees since 1967 to now stands at 323 people. Since the genocide, more than 100 detainees have been killed or died behind bars, including 86 whose identities were revealed. This figure does not include all martyred detainees as the occupation continues to forcibly disappear dozens of bodies of detainees who were killed in military camps, making this the “bloodiest stage in the history of the prisoner movement.”
In 2025, the child Walid Khaled Abdullah Ahmed, 17-years-old, from the town of Silwad near Ramallah, was killed through starvation only six months after his arrest.
The number of martyred detainees whose bodies are withheld by the occupation is 94, including 83 who were killed after the genocide. The martyr Anis Dawla is considered the longest-held case historically; his body has been withheld since 1980.
Israeli occupation authorities have been accused of torturing Palestinian detainees. Testimonies also describe regular beatings by guards, extreme overcrowding, humiliation, and inadequate hygiene.
In August 2024, the Israeli rights group B’Tselem accused Israeli occupation authorities of systematically abusing Palestinians in “torture camps”, subjecting them to severe violence and sexual assault.
Its report, titled “Welcome to Hell”, is based on 55 testimonies from former detainees from the Gaza Strip, the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied territories. The overwhelming majority of these detainees were held without trial. — QNN
