Published by Wafa

The Israeli military court of Ofer Tuesday issued administrative detention orders against eight Palestinian prisoners, said the Palestinian Prisoner’s Club (PPC).

PPC said that three prisoners from Hebron received detention orders without charge or trial for a period of four months. They were identified as Hani Masalmeh, Khalil Abu Dwaish, and Rami al-Salamin.

Majd al-Sa’adi, from Jerusalem, and Yousif Salhab received similar sentences.

Meanwhile, Nimr Damj, from Jenin refugee camp, and Mohammed Abu Joma’a, from Jericho, received a three months detention sentence, while Mousa Ala’a Eddin, a resident of Jerusalem, received two months.

Under administrative detention, prisoners are held without charge or trial and for indefinite and renewable period of time.

The use of administrative detention dates from the “emergency laws” of the British colonial era in Palestine. 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.

According to the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, “Israel’s use of administrative detention blatantly violates the restrictions of international law. Israel carries it out in a highly classified manner that denies detainees the possibility of mounting a proper defense. Moreover, the detention has no upper time limit.”

“Over the years, Israel has placed thousands of Palestinians in administrative detention for prolonged periods of time, without trying them, without informing them of the charges against them, and without allowing them or their counsel to examine the evidence,” B’Tselem reports.

Palestinian detainees have continuously resorted to open-ended hunger strikes as a way to protest their illegal administrative detention and to demand an end to this policy which violates international law.

To be noted, several Palestinian prisoners, including senior Hamas official Khader Adnan, are currently on a hunger strike to protest their illegal detention without charge or trial.

Meanwhile, Israeli military courts have renewed the detention orders of around 55 prisoners, for different periods of time, under the pretext of completing investigations and judicial proceedings.