RAMALLAH, Tuesday, December 20, 2022 (WAFA) – Israeli forces dawn Thursday detained 11 Palestinians from various parts of the occupied West Bank, according to local and security sources.
They said that Israeli forces rounded up eight Palestinians, including two brothers, from Wadi Ma‘ali neighborhood in the southern West Bank city of Bethlehem and ransacked their houses, causing extensive damage.
The eight detainees are all members of the Hreimi family.
In the northern West Bank, the gun-toting soldiers showed up at a house in the eastern neighborhood of Jenin, broke inside, conducted a thorough search and eventually detained another.
A convoy of army vehicles stormed Qabatiya town, south of Jenin, where the soldiers detained another and ransacked his family house, turning it upside down.
The soldiers manning the Ya‘bad checkpoint, also known to Israeli settlers as Mevo Dotan, stopped and detained another from Qabatiya.
Meanwhile, the forces barged their way into Az-Zawiya town, west of Salfit city, where they broke into the family house of a slain Palestinian and wreaked havoc in it.
Israeli forces frequently raid Palestinian houses almost on a daily basis across the West Bank on the pretext of searching for "wanted" Palestinians, triggering clashes with residents.
These raids, which take place also in areas under the full control of the Palestinian Authority, are conducted with no need for a search warrant, whenever and wherever the military chooses in keeping with its sweeping arbitrary powers.
Under Israeli military law army commanders have full executive, legislative and judicial authority over 3 million Palestinians living in the West Bank. Palestinians have no say in how this authority is exercised.
According to the latest figures from Addameer, the Palestinian Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, there are currently 4,760 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli prisons and detention centers, including 160 children and 33 female prisoners.
This number includes approximately 820 Palestinians placed under “administrative detention”, that allows the detention of Palestinians without charge or trial for renewable intervals ranging between three and six months based on undisclosed evidence that even a detainee’s lawyer is barred from viewing.
Mass arrest of Palestinians is nothing new. According to a 2017 report by Addameer, over the past 50 years, more than 800,000 Palestinians have been imprisoned or detained by Israel, this figure is now believed to be closer to 1 million. This means that about 40% of Palestinian men and boys living under military occupation have been deprived of their freedom. Almost every Palestinian family has suffered the imprisonment of a loved one.
K.F.
