Israeli Forces Raid Al-Arroub Refugee Camp in Hebron, Detain Palestinians in West Bank

Israeli occupation vehicles entered the city of Hebron (al-Khalil) in the predawn hours of Friday, where violent clashes erupted between the Palestinian resistance and the Israeli occupation forces after they breached the Al-Arroub refugee camp north of the city.

“More than 500 Palestinian children are sent to prison by Israeli authorities every year”

Amnesty International France

The Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades said its fighters targeted the occupation forces during their storming of the city of Qalqilia in the West Bank with volleys of live fire, and the Israeli army continued its raid around Darwish Nazzal Hospital in Qalqilia until predawn Friday.

Amnesty International France

In the West Bank, the Israeli occupation forces raided the home of the fugitive Tariq Dawood in Qalqilia and raided the town of Nahalin west of Bethlehem and the town of Beit Ummar north of Hebron.

The Palestinian Prisoners Club announced that the occupation has detained 9,170 Palestinians in the West Bank since the start of the war on the Gaza Strip in October, describing arrests that targeted prisoners’ families, those detained previously, and families of martyrs and fugitives.

The same account said the occupation forces raided the Al-Arroub refugee camp and tear gas canisters and rubber bullets were fired at youths, while it also described three resistance fighters martyred in Qabatya after they were besieging a house in which they had been taking shelter.

In Bethlehem, in the occupied West Bank, BBC News reported that Yazen Alhasnat, a 17-year-old, sat beside his mother after being released from prison the previous night nearly five months after he was arrested during an Israeli military raid at 4 a.m.

The BBC said Yazen had been placed in administrative detention, a policy described as allowing the Israeli state to imprison people indefinitely without charges and without presenting evidence against them, and Yazen told the BBC, "They have a secret file."

BBC

The BBC also reported that in the weeks following October 7, the number of people in administrative detention rose to more than 2,800, after being already 1,300 at its highest level in 30 years.

Human rights groups cited by the BBC said administrative detention is an abuse of a security law not designed to be used on such a scale, and Jessica Montell of HaMoked said, "Under international law, administrative detention should be a rare exception."

The BBC added that Israel says the policy is in line with international law and that it is a necessary preventive measure to fight terrorism, while it described detainees as lacking access to the evidence held against them.

Amnesty International France reported that more than 500 Palestinian children are sent to prison by Israeli authorities every year, and that from the age of 12 they can be brought before a military court.

The organization said these detention conditions, illegal to begin with, have grown harsher since October 7, and it described a dual legal system where an Israeli child cannot be tried before 14 while a Palestinian can be tried as early as 12.

Amnesty International France quoted Smadar Ben Natan, an Israeli lawyer and activist, saying, "An Israeli child cannot be tried before 14, while a Palestinian can be tried as early as 12," and it quoted Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur, saying the dual legal system is "the pillar of the Israeli apartheid regime."

The Amnesty account also cited Save The Children figures that each year between 500 and 700 Palestinian children are arrested and detained in prisons, and it said in 2022 the NGO Defence for Children International-Palestine recorded 44 children killed by Israeli occupying forces in the West Bank.

It further reported that the IDF acts in accordance with international law, replying a spokesperson for Tsahal, and that the Israeli Prison Service asserted that all prisoners are detained under the law and that all human rights are fully respected.