Thirty Palestinian detainees began an open-ended hunger strike to protest Israel’s policy of administrative detention

On 25 September 2022, 30 Palestinian detainees held in Israeli jails started an open-ended hunger strike to protest their administrative detention, under which Israeli authorities indefinitely detain them based on secret evidence and without trial or charge. This Israeli policy violates detainees’ basic human rights and judicial guarantees, including the right to a fair trial, to defend themselves and to access a lawyer. Despite serious risks to their health, Palestinian detainees are launching hunger strikes as the only effective way left for them to pressure Israeli authorities to end arbitrary policies against them.  

By the end of August 2022 there were around 4,650 Palestinian detainees—including 32 women and 180 minors—and around 743 administrative detainees—including two women and four minors—held by the Israel Prison Service (IPS).

Israel’s policy of administrative detention is carried out against Palestinian detainees from the occupied West Bank under its Emergency Powers (Detention) Law of 1979, which authorizes the government to issue administrative detention orders for individuals for up to a six-month period and may then be renewed periodically. Conversely, Palestinian detainees from the occupied Gaza Strip are detained under the guise of the 2002 Unlawful Combatants Law, which authorizes Israeli officers with the rank of captain and higher to issue arrest orders, while an Israeli civilian court must review the incarceration order within 14 days and subsequently every six months.    

Al Mezan asserts that Israel’s policy of administrative detention contradicts the basic rights guaranteed under international human rights law, particularly the rights to liberty and to equality before courts and tribunals and to a fair trial enshrined under Articles 9 and 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Israel is a party. We call on the international community to uphold its moral and legal obligations vis-à-vis the protected Palestinian people, including Palestinian detainees, and ensure Israeli authorities finally put an end to their inhumane policy of administrative detention.