Ramallah, July 16 (RHC)-- A Palestinian prisoners’ rights group says more than 80% of Palestinians arrested by Israeli forces in the West Bank since the outbreak of the Israeli war on Gaza are being held under administrative detention in the regime’s jails.

The Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs announced in its latest report on Monday that the Palestinians are being held without trial or charge under Israel’s notorious policy of administrative detention.

The rights group added that the number of Palestinian administrative detainees in Israeli jails has increased dramatically following Operation Al-Aqsa Storm by Hamas and other Gaza-based resistance groups on October 7.

The commission further noted that 15% of the Palestinian prisoners are being held in Israeli custody as unlawful combatants.

The “unlawful combatant,” an uneulogized category under international law, is defined in Israeli law as “someone who directly or indirectly participated in hostile acts against Israel.”

The rights group also said that 3,380 Palestinians are currently being held without trial or charge under Israel’s policy of administrative detention.  The number of Palestinian detainees in Israeli jails stands at 9,700, of whom 9,409 prisoners are from the occupied West Bank, 202 individuals are from the besieged Gaza Strip, and the rest come from the 1948 occupied territories.

At least 255 Palestinians have died in Israeli prisons and detention centers since 1967, the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs said, stressing that at least 18 Palestinians have died in Israeli custody since last October.

Israel is currently holding the bodies of at least 29 Palestinian prisoners, of whom 16 lost their lives after Operation al-Aqsa Storm, the rights group added.  Palestinian detainees have continuously resorted to open-ended hunger strikes in an attempt to express outrage at their illegal detention.

Israel keeps Palestinian inmates under deplorable conditions without proper hygienic standards. Palestinian inmates have also been subject to systematic torture, harassment, and repression.  Human rights organizations say Israel continues to violate all rights and freedoms granted to prisoners by the Fourth Geneva Convention and international laws. 

According to the Palestine Detainees Studies Center, around 60 percent of the Palestinian prisoners detained in Israeli jails suffer from chronic diseases, a number of whom died in detention or after being released due to the severity of their cases.