Since 1967, when Israel occupied the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, more than 650,000 Palestinians have been detained by Israel. This represents approximately 20% of the total population in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), and 40% of all males. Despite prohibition by international law, Israel detains Palestinians in prisons throughout Israel, far from their families, who almost never obtain the necessary permits to leave the Occupied Palestinian Territories to visit them.
There are an estimated 6,800 Palestinian prisoners being held in Israel, of which 10 are members of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC). The elected PLC members were victims of a mass arrest targeting legislators and officials on June 29, 2006, in the wake of the election that brought Hamas to power and the capture of Israeli Cpl. Gilad Shalit. Initially, 40 of the PLC members were charged. Most of the indictments were for "membership," "activity" and "holding a position" in an "unauthorised association." Meanwhile, the kidnapping and imprisonment of elected officials continues. For example, in December of 2010, Israeli soldiers kidnapped Hebron-area legislator Sheikh Khalil Nayef Rajoub – a PLC member who had been imprisoned in 2006 and had just been released five months earlier -- after breaking into his home and searching it.
Of particular concern are the number of Palestinian minors in Israeli jails – 209 as of January 2011, 29 under the age of 16. In March 2011, the Palestinian Ministry of Detainee Affairs published a new report documenting the torture of children as young as seven in Israeli prisons. Between January and March of 2011, Israeli soldiers abducted 150 children and all of them were interrogated during the course of their imprisonment – with many subjected to hitting, psychological abuse and other violence or threat of violence without a parent or adult representative present.
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