7,000 PALESTINIANS DETAINED IN 2014: DATA

Gaza, 14 Rabiul Awwal 1436/5 January 2015 (MINA)– Over 7,000 Palestinians were detained in 2014, an 80 percent increase since 2013, a rights group said Monday (5/1).

The Palestinian Prisoner’s Center for Studies said in a statement that in 2014, 7,110 Palestinians were detained by Israeli forces, compared with 4,250 in 2013, Maan News Agency quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA) as reporting.

In 2013, the number of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails was 5,000, while at the end of 2014 there were 6,800 Palestinians being held in Israeli jails, researcher Riyad al-Ashqar said in the statement.

Additionally, there was a 57 percent increase in Israeli detentions of children in 2013 — 1,200 Palestinian minors were detained in 2014 while 760 were detained in 2013.

Woman were also detained in higher numbers, with 126 Palestinian women detained in 2014 compared to 83 in 2013.

Some 76 former prisoners were rearrested by the Israeli army in 2014, while only eight were rearrested in 2013.

Finally, the number of administrative detainees — Palestinians held in Israeli prisons without charge or trial — increased by around 250 percent, the statement said. The number of administrative prisoners reached 560 in 2014 compared to 150 in 2013.

The policy of administrative detention, which dates back to the British mandate period, allows Israel to hold Palestinian prisoners indefinitely without trial on the basis of secret information.

According to a 2013 report by the UN’s Children’s Fund, Israel is the only country in the world where children are systematically tried in military courts and subjected to “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment.”

Over the past decade, Israeli forces have arrested, interrogated, and prosecuted around 7,000 children between 12 and 17, mostly boys, at a rate of “an average of two children each day,” UNICEF said. (T/P010/R03)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)