QALQILIYA: Israeli occupation forces Thursday evening detained a Palestinian from the occupied West Bank city of Qalqiliya, according to local sources.
They said that a convoy of occupation vehicles stormed the city from the eastern entrance, where the soldiers rounded up a youth, in his 20s, after ransacking his workplace.
Earlier today, the occupation forces detained a man after Israeli colonists brutally assaulted him and attacked his house in Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron.
Wednesday night and in the predawn hours today, the occupation forces rounded up 30 Palestinians, most of them from the Hebron district in the south of the West Bank.
Israeli occupation forces frequently raid Palestinian houses almost on a daily basis across the West Bank on the pretext of searching for “wanted” Palestinians, triggering clashes with residents.
These raids, which take place also in areas under the full control of the Palestinian Authority, are conducted with no need for a search warrant, whenever and wherever the m
ilitary chooses in keeping with its sweeping arbitrary powers.
Under Israeli military law army commanders have full executive, legislative and judicial authority over 3 million Palestinians living in the West Bank. Palestinians have no say in how this authority is exercised.
According to the latest figures from Addameer, the Palestinian Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, there are currently 9,900 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli prisons and detention centers, including 250 children and 86 female prisoners.
This number includes 3,432 Palestinians placed under ‘administrative detention’, that allows the detention of Palestinians without charge or trial for renewable intervals ranging between three and six months based on undisclosed evidence that even a detainee’s lawyer is barred from viewing.
Mass arrest of Palestinians is nothing new. According to a 2017 report by Addameer, over the past 50 years, more than 800,000 Palestinians have been imprisoned or detained by Israel, this figure
is now believed to be closer to 1 million. This means that about 40% of Palestinian men and boys living under military occupation have been deprived of their freedom. Almost every Palestinian family has suffered the imprisonment of a loved one.
Source: Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA