Israel arrested 1,228 Palestinians in April: report

Israel arrested 1,228 Palestinians in April: report
"The number includes the hundreds of Palestinians arrested during the Israeli settlers' storming of Al-Aqsa compound in the holy month of Ramadan," the spokesperson for the Palestinian Prisoners' Club told The New Arab.
3 min read
West Bank
24 May, 2022
Around 4,650 Palestinians are held in Israeli jails, including 170 minors and 32 women according to human rights groups. [Qassam Muaddi/TNA]

Israeli forces arrested 1,228 Palestinians in April, including 156 minors and 11 women, Palestinian prisoners' support organizations said in a joint statement on Monday.

The month of April witnessed the highest rate of arrests by Israeli forces since the beginning of the year, the statement released by the Palestinian Prisoners' Club, Addameer Association for Prisoners' Support, the Palestinian Higher Commission for Prisoners Affairs and the Wadi Hilweh Information Centre in Jerusalem said. 

The statement specified that during the same period, Israeli forces issued 68 new administrative detention orders and 86 renewal orders of current administrative detentions.

"This can be explained by the escalation of events in April, especially in Jenin and Jerusalem," Ayah Shreiteh, the spokesperson for the Palestinian Prisoners' Club told The New Arab.

"The number includes the hundreds of Palestinians arrested during the Israeli settlers' storming of the Al-Aqsa compound in the holy month of Ramadan," Shreiteh noted.

Israeli police arrested 781 Palestinians during the month of Ramadan at the Al-Aqsa compound, according to figures released by the Israeli Knesset earlier in May.

The Palestinian detainees' Families' Committee in Jerusalem had previously told The New Arab that over half of the detainees at Al-Aqsa during Ramadan have been released.

On Monday, the Israeli army announced that it had arrested 11 Palestinians during several raids across the West Bank. Palestinian sources also documented 11 injuries.

"Two youngsters were injured in their backs by rubber bullets," Mahdi Hamdan, a local resident of the village of Jifna, north of Ramallah, told The New Arab. 

"The Israeli army also confiscated several security cameras but did not arrest anyone in the village, but continued their way to Birzeit [1km away] and arrested a university student," Hamdan added. 

Abdallah Allolu, an undergraduate student at Birzeit University, was among the detainees, the Prisoners' Club affirmed.

Israeli forces also arrested two Palestinians in their twenties in the villages of Rummanah and Zababdeh near Jenin, after confrontations with local youth, in which one Palestinian was injured.

Further arrests were carried out in the Balata refugee camp in Nablus, in the village of Taqwa, near Bethlehem, and in southern Hebron.

Over one million Palestinians have been arrested by Israeli forces since 1967. Currently, around 4,650 Palestinians remain in Israeli jails, including 170 minors, 32 women and 600 administrative detainees, held without charges, according to human rights groups.