Monthly Briefing on Palestinian Political Prisoners - August 2025

*The Commission of Detainees Affairs’, The Palestinian Prisoner’s Society, Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association.*

September 14, 2025

Ramallah, occupied Palestine - Israeli occupation authorities carried out 540 arrests of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem, during August 2025. Among them were 49 children and 19 women. The total number of recorded arrests in the occupied West Bank since the start of the genocide in occupied Gaza has risen to over 19,000, including more than 590 arrests among women and 1,550 arrests among children. These figures do not reflect the current number of Palestinian political prisoners – they include both those who remain in detention and those who were later released. They also do not include the total arrests among Palestinians in occupied Gaza, which are estimated to be in the thousands.

The Commission of Detainees Affairs’, the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society, and the Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association publish this monthly briefing based on lawyers’ visits to detainees among other documentation. Israeli occupation forces have consistently and relentlessly carried out mass arrests across the occupied West Bank, Jerusalem and Gaza since the genocide. This includes abducting residents of Gaza as they waited for humanitarian aid—aid that the occupation has turned into a trap for murder, arrests, and abuse.

Israeli occupation forces carry our night-time raids and the violent storming of homes, accompanied by the deliberate destruction of family internal and external property in a manner that resembles settler attacks. Detainees and their families are often subjected to physical assaults, threats of killing, and various forms of humiliation. In many cases, families are held hostage while soldiers loot money, jewelry, and electronic devices. Field interrogations are frequently conducted either inside homes or in makeshift military barracks. Most gravely, there has been a sharp and unprecedented rise in field executions since the start of the genocide.

The sharp rise in organized settler attacks in the occupied West Bank has led to an increase in mass arrests of residents, especially in villages and areas targeted by illegal settlement expansion, where dozens of civilians were arrested and interrogated in the context of escalating confrontations with illegal settlers.

The use of “administrative detention” – or detaining residents without trial or charge indefinitely – has continued to escalate, serving as a tool used by the occupation to suppress any form of active political, social, or cultural engagement. This policy targets a wide range of individuals, including students, journalists, human rights defenders, and former prisoners, aiming to dismantle the foundations of civil society. Today, administrative detainees make up over 32 percent of the total prisoner population, including women and children. Since the beginning of the genocide, approximately 90 percent of appeals and petitions filed against administrative detention orders have been rejected by the occupation’s courts, revealing their entrenched role as a central mechanism in legitimizing this policy through sham trials wholly controlled by the intelligence services.

The Reality for Prisoners

The Israeli prisons administration is committing widespread violations and crimes against Palestinian detainees. Testimonies gathered by legal teams during their visits reveal a worsening health catastrophe inside the prisons, with diseases spreading rapidly and severe weight loss reported as a result of deliberate starvation. Scabies skin disease is being used for further abuse, recently spreading widely in Ofer Prison amid growing concerns that it may return on a larger scale to Naqab Prison. Other forms of diseases are also developing. 

The occupation authorities continue their systematic repression operations against prisoners using various types of weapons, including electric shocks and rubber bullets. These assaults include women and children. Prisoners’ institutions have documented four large-scale crackdowns on female prisoners in August, during which they were subjected to degrading treatment, handcuffed, forced to kneel, strip searched, and sprayed with gas. In addition, assaults targeted sick prisoners, including a crackdown on ill detainees in the "Ramleh prison clinic," where they were sprayed with gas. It is worth noting that such crackdowns were among the causes that led to the killing of detainees after the genocide.

Martyred Detainees in August 2025

Due to the ongoing crimes in occupation prisons, 20-year-old Ahmad Saeed Tazaz’a from Jenin was killed in August 2025; his death was announced on August 3, 2025. He was held without trial or charge under “administrative detention”. It was also announced that 20-year-old Musab Abdulmonim Al-‘Aida from Hebron was martyred after being shot in the city of Hebron prior to his arrest, having sustained critical injuries.

Targeting of Imprisoned Leaders

During the month of August 2025, we witnessed a direct threat made against political leader Marwan Barghouthi by the fascist minister of national security Itamar Ben-Gvir, who stormed his cell in Rimon Prison. Prisoners’ institutions considered this act a direct threat to assassinate leader Barghouthi and the leadership of the Palestinian prisoners' movement in the occupation prisons, who are being subjected to assassination attempts through repeated assaults and continued solitary confinement since the start of the genocide. It is worth noting that Itamar Ben-Gvir has consistently and systematically incited the killing of prisoners and the execution of further systematic crimes against them. He has repeatedly appeared in footage from inside the prisons, showcasing his crimes and the assaults carried out by repression forces against the prisoners, while broadcasting more incitement against them and openly calling for their execution.

Palestinians Arrested From Gaza

The issue of Palestinian detainees arrested from Gaza continues to dominate the scene due to the level of crimes and atrocities they are being subjected to in Israeli occupation’s prisons and military camps. Prisoners’ institutions have recently documented additional testimonies from detainees abducted from Gaza held in these facilities.

One of the most notable recent visits was to the underground"Rakevet" section of Ramleh Prison, where detainees emerged weeping uncontrollably from the horrors they endure—continuous torture, abuse, starvation, and terror around the clock. The testimonies from the "Rakevet" section add to the hundreds already collected from Gaza detainees about the atrocities they have faced since the start of the genocide, including sexual assaults, some of which involved rape to death.

Bodies of Martyred Prisoners Still Held

On the occasion of the National Day for the Retrieval of Martyrs’ Bodies, marked annually on August 27, prisoners’ institutions documented the continued detention of 85 bodies of identified martyred Palestinian prisoners, including 74 held since the start of the genocide. The policy of withholding bodies remains one of the most prominent longstanding practices used by the occupation.

Enforced Disappearance

On the occasion of the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearance marked on August 30 each year, prisoners’ institutions renewed their affirmation that the occupation continues to commit the crime of enforced disappearance, which has also emerged as one of the most prominent issues resulting from the genocide.

This crime has targeted detainees and martyrs from Gaza and has been used as a cover to commit further violations, including acts of torture against detainees. Contributing to the entrenchment of this crime is the use of the "Unlawful Combatant Law," which was amended after the war and directly enabled the imposition of enforced disappearance on Gaza detainees.

 

Total Number of Palestinian Political Prisoners as of Early September 2025

As of the beginning of September 2025, the total number of Palestinian political detainees in Israeli occupation’s prisons exceeded 11,100, the majority of whom are held without trial or charge.

This figure does not include those held in military camps operated by the Israeli army. It represents the highest number since the outbreak of the Second Intifada in 2000, according to documentation available to institutions.

• 
  Female prisoners: Currently number 53, including two from Gaza.
  
  • Children: Over 400 to date.
  
  • “Administrative detainees” (held without trial or charge): 3,577 people, the highest percentage compared to sentenced prisoners and those held on charges, as well as those classified as “unlawful combatants.”
  
  • "Unlawful combatants" (held without trial or charge): 2,662 people. This figure does not include all Gaza detainees held in military camps and classified under this category. It is also noted that this classification includes Arab detainees from Lebanon and Syria.

 

                                                            (ENDS)