LONDON: The number of Palestinian women detained or serving sentences in Israeli prisons has risen to 89, following the detention of four female West Bank students on Tuesday morning.
Rights organization the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society said those being held include two women suffering from cancer, three minors and three pregnant women, as well as 19 administrative detainees, who are held without charge or trial.
On Tuesday, Israeli forces detained Natalie Abu Diya and Joulan Abu Awwad after raiding their homes in the town of Birzeit. They also arrested Laila Khalil from Beitunia and another unidentified woman. All four are students enrolled at Birzeit University, about 24 miles north of Ramallah in the West Bank, the Palestine News Agency reported.
The majority of Palestinian women detained by Israel are held in Damon Prison, near the coastal city of Haifa.
The Prisoner’s Society said male and female prisoners face harsh conditions and mistreatment while in Israeli detention, including starvation, medical negligence, solitary confinement, assaults, humiliating searches, and severe overcrowding, with some forced to sleep on the floor.
Israeli forces have detained more than 760 Palestinian women since the start of their military campaign against the Gaza Strip in October 2023, according to a report compiled by the society. During the same period they detained 23,000 people in total in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Most were subsequently released.
The rights organization said that the 9,400 Palestinian prisoners currently in Israeli jails face severe violations, including beatings, intimidation of relatives and vandalism of their homes. Since the 1967 occupation of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem by Israel, more than 800,000 Palestinians have spent time in Israeli jails, according to a report published by the UN in 2023.
