New Measures Against Administrative Detainees Entrench Ongoing Violations and Undermine International Law

🔴 New Measures Against Administrative Detainees Entrench Ongoing Violations and Undermine International Law

🔴 Palestinian Prisoner’s Society & Commission of Detainees’ Affairs

February 18, 2026

Ramallah, occupied Palestine– The Commission of Detainees’ Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS) stated that the Israeli occupation system’s move to introduce legal amendments that would further tighten detention conditions for administrative detainees—who are held without trial or charge and constitute the largest category among prisoners.

The two institutions affirmed that these amendments constitute a new attempt, under legal cover, to evade the fundamental rights guaranteed by international law to administrative detainees. International law has established clear and strict limitations on the use of administrative detention, preventing it from becoming a tool of collective punishment or open-ended imprisonment without trial.

The Commission and the PPS explained that the issue of administrative detainees has become one of the most significant transformations affecting the composition of the prisoners’ movement in occupation prisons, amid an unprecedented escalation in arbitrary arrest campaigns under what the occupation calls a “secret file.” These campaigns have targeted thousands of citizens since the beginning of the genocide in Gaza. Specialized institutions have recorded the highest historical rate of administrative detainees, currently numbering approximately 3,360 people, including women and children—about 36% of the total number of prisoners in occupation prisons.

The joint statement noted that the crimes and violations endured by administrative detainees, like other prisoners, have led to the killing of 12 administrative detainees since the beginning of the genocide. They are among 88 prisoners who have been martyred during the same period, whose identities have been officially announced. This figure reflects the bloodiest phase in the history of the Palestinian prisoners’ national movement.

The two institutions stressed that since occupying Palestine, the occupation authorities have systematically used arbitrary administrative detention without charges, indictments, or fair trial, based on what is known as the “secret file,” which neither the detainee nor their lawyer is allowed to access. Under Israeli military orders, an administrative detention order can be renewed an unlimited number of times. The order is typically issued for a maximum period of six months but is often repeatedly extended, effectively turning detention into open-ended imprisonment.

Administrative detention targets various segments of Palestinian society across different geographic areas, including university students, journalists, women, former members of the Legislative Council, human rights activists, workers, lawyers, mothers, and former prisoners. Notably, administrative detention has also escalated in the 1948 occupied-territories and in occupied Jerusalem, where detention orders are issued by decision of the occupation’s Minister of Security.

The statement further emphasized that the occupation’s judicial system, including military courts, has long served—and continues to serve—as a central tool in entrenching a system of repression, surveillance, and control, suppressing the Palestinian people and attempting to uproot active members of society while undermining any role that could contribute to self-determination. Following the genocide, these courts have continued functioning as the judicial arm that reinforces the crime of administrative detention and provides legal cover for intelligence agencies to carry out further arrest campaigns.

The two institutions added that over the years, human rights organizations have called for a comprehensive national decision to gradually boycott occupation courts, particularly regarding the handling of administrative detainees’ cases, given the serious national and strategic implications for the future of the prisoners’ cause. They reaffirmed that they still look with hope toward national-level support for this direction in order to take this pivotal step.

In conclusion, the institutions noted that the United Nations had previously called for the dissolution of the occupation’s military courts, with UN experts explaining how the military system has enabled control over the daily details of Palestinians’ lives and entrenched a discriminatory legal structure serving the occupation system.

The two institutions renewed their call to the international human rights system to take effective and urgent measures to hold occupation leaders accountable for war crimes committed against prisoners and the Palestinian people, and to end the state of impunity provided by the United States and international powers to the Israeli occupation system over decades—impunity that has reached its peak with the crime of genocide, despite compelling evidence of its commission against our people in Gaza, in addition to war crimes and crimes against humanity committed against Palestinian political prisoners.