LONDON: The Palestinian Prisoners Society reported on Wednesday that Israeli authorities had detained 66 journalists since the start of the country’s conflict with Hamas.
The West Bank-based body, which supports Palestinians in Israeli prisons, said that 45 journalists were still being held in jails.
The PPS added in a press release that the number of detained female journalists had risen to four, marking a significant increase since record-keeping began.
The most recent detainee is 32-year-old journalist Asma Noah Harish, whose home in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah was raided shortly after dawn on Wednesday. Her father and brother Ahmed have been detained for some time.
The PPS explained that this “escalation comes within the framework of the widespread arrest campaigns” carried out by the Israeli army after Oct. 7, which includes the arrest of women.
The organization said: “During the month of March until today, the occupation (Israeli forces) has arrested three female journalists.”
Included in this list are: “Bushra Al-Taweel, who was transferred to administrative detention, and Rula Hassanein, a married mother of a 9-month-old daughter, in addition to Harish.”
According to Middle East Eye, which cited her family, an Israeli court has refused to release Hassanein, whose prematurely born baby is solely reliant on her mother’s breast milk for nutrition.
The PPS reported that most journalists were charged with offenses related to incitement on social media, or as media workers. It noted that many of them had been arrested multiple times.
The society confirmed that 23 journalists were placed under administrative detention under the pretext of “secret files,” including journalists Ikhlas Sawalha and Al-Taweel.
It added that most detained journalists had been subjected to severe beatings and torture, especially those detained since Oct. 7, highlighting that the tally of media workers killed since the conflict began had risen to 138.
Abdullah Al-Zaghari, the head of the PPS, said in an interview in February that there had been an escalation in the violation of human rights and international standards in the treatment of prisoners over recent months.
The organization said: “The occupation state arrests journalists and violates their rights in its ongoing efforts to silence them and stop the Palestinian narrative being shared.”
The PPS has renewed its call for international human rights bodies to “fulfill their responsibilities in light of the genocide against our people in Gaza and the targeting of all sectors of Palestinian society through wide and systematic arrest campaigns.”
According to the PPS, the total number of Palestinian prisoners held at Israeli prisons at the end of March was at least 9,400, including 3,661 administrative detainees.
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