Original article published by IMEMC, 17th April 2008, click here
As Palestinians marked the Prisoners National Day on Thursday, official records showed that Israel still holds 9750 Palestinian political detainees.
Since 1967, when Israel occupied the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, Israeli troops have taken a total of 750, 000 Palestinian political detainees, the equivalent to all Palestinians families having had one of their sons imprisoned once or twice.
In a report issued by the Palestinian Authority, ‘Political Detainees in the Israeli Affairs Ministry’: from those 9750 prisoners 8030 are from the West Bank, 920 from the Gaza Strip, while the remaining 800 are from Jerusalem: Palestinians with Israeli citizenship and from several Arab countries.
49 of those kidnapped by the Israelis are Palestinian law makers who won the January 2006 Parliamentary elections.
Of the 9750 Prisoners recorded, 9230 were abducted by the Israeli army since year 2000, 350 were kidnapped before the Israeli Palestinian Peace deal of 1994, and 170 Prisoners were taken by the Israeli army between the years of 1994 to 2000.
According to the report, 4505 (46.2%) were sent to court, 4145 (42.5%) were detained without a trial, 1100 (11.3%) were kept under administrative detention, held without charges or court.
The recent numbers show that the Israelis have stepped up its policy of kidnapping Palestinians, they have kidnapped 2200 Palestinians since the beginning of year 2008,while from the same period of time in 2007 it was 1900, a 16% increase.
The Palestinian Prisoners in Israeli jails currently include 330 children and reports by the Red Cross and human right groups say they are being treated like adults: in addition during the interrogation by the army, 99% of them were tortured.
Four female prisoners had delivered their babies inside the detention camp.
The Israelis also used the police of administrative destination not only against the live Palestinians but the dead ones as well. The Palestinian Authority report showed that they still hold at least 200 bodies of Palestinians who conducted attacks against Israeli targets and refuse to send them back to their families, which is in violation of the international human right law.