The Palestinian Prisoners Club stated today, Sunday, that the Israeli occupation continues to escalate arrest campaigns in the West Bank, carrying out more acts of reprisals and torture against citizens, pointing out that over 100 days of aggression and genocide in Gaza, the occupation army arrested no less than 5875 Palestinians from the West Bank. This total includes those arrested and kept in custody by the occupation, as well as those released later.

The club added in a press statement that the arrest campaigns did not exempt any groups, including women and children, where the number of women arrested reached about 200, while the number of arrests among children exceeded 355 until the end of last December.

The club explained that the level of crimes since October 7 has taken an upward curve in terms of savagery and the horrific and terrifying details reflected in the testimonies of the detainees and their families. The most prominent of these crimes was the crime of torture which imposed itself in most testimonies of the detainees, alongside reprisals and severe beatings, threatening to shoot them directly, field interrogations, threats of rape, use of police dogs, using citizens as human shields and hostages, in addition to field executions carried out against citizens during arrest campaigns, including siblings of detainees, among other brutal crimes and violations, extensive sabotage operations that affected homes, confiscation of belongings and cars, money, gold jewelry, electronic devices, as well as demolishing and blowing up homes belonging to prisoners in occupation prisons. Occupation soldiers also filmed detainees after arresting them under conditions degrading human dignity. These crimes and atrocities, not witnessed in decades, have left serious impacts on the fate of thousands of detainees and their families.

The crime of administrative detention topped the scene with more than 2856 orders after October 7, where the number of administrative detainees in occupation prisons reached more than 3290, the highest rate since 1987. Alongside the crime of administrative detention and arresting citizens under the pretext of the so-called secret file, the issue of arresting citizens on what the occupation calls incitement has emerged.

Regarding prisoners inside the prisons, the occupation prison administration continues to implement systematic crimes and policies against prisoners and detainees, imposing double isolation on them after stripping them of all their belongings, carrying out acts of reprisals and torture against them, and mass assaults carried out by suppression forces that peaked at the start of the aggression, resulting in many injuries among prisoners and detainees. Patients, children, and women were not exempt.

Since that date, methods of reprisals have varied between thirsting, starving, and medical crimes. Dozens of detainees were thrown into small rooms that do not accommodate these numbers. With the entry of winter and severe cold, harsh detention conditions inside prisons worsened. A set of laws imposed by the occupation after October 7 contributed to entrenching crimes and violations against prisoners, leading to the martyrdom of 7 prisoners in Israeli occupation prisons. The occupation media revealed the martyrdom of a group of Gaza detainees in Sde Teyman camp without disclosing their identities or exact numbers, alongside the occupation’s admission of executing one detainee.

As for detainees from Gaza, the occupation continues to carry out the crime of enforced disappearance against them. After 100 days, the occupation refuses to disclose any information regarding the fate of Gaza detainees, their precise numbers, or their detention locations. Nevertheless, testimonies by Gaza detainees reflected the level of crimes committed against them in occupation camps, along with some limited information conveyed by detainees released from occupation prisons, which also clarify a high level of crimes being executed against them. The occupation, through military orders and their enforcement, has entrenched the crime of enforced disappearance. The only clear data relates to the number of female prisoners in Damon prison from Gaza, which exceeds 50, in addition to what the prison administration announced about the presence of 661 whom they classified as illegal fighters.

The total number of prisoners in occupation prisons until the end of December 2023 is 8,800, noting that the number of prisoners before October 7 was more than 5250, while the number of administrative detainees was about 1320.

In a related context, Palestinian security sources confirmed that Israeli occupation forces, reinforced with military vehicles, raided several towns in the Ramallah and Al-Bireh governorate in central occupied West Bank this morning and arrested the sisters of the deputy head of the Hamas political bureau, the martyr Saleh Al-Arouri, who was assassinated in the Lebanese capital Beirut on January 2.

The security sources said that the arrested sisters of martyr Al-Arouri are Dalal and Fatima Al-Arouri. The occupation forces raided the homes of Palestinian citizens during the invasion of Ramallah and Al-Bireh and carried out other arrest operations.

The raids targeted the towns of Al-Mazra'a Al-Gharbiya, 'Aarura, Birzeit, and Al-Jalazun camp, northwest and north of the city of Ramallah.