Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Israel Should Reduce Palestinian Detentions

Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch indicated that Israel should reduce its use of administrative detention against Palestinian suspects, a senior official said on Thursday, amid an ongoing wave of hunger strikes among Palestinian detainees.

According to the official, Aharonovitch’s remarks were made during a special meeting he convened to discuss the hunger strikes on Tuesday, when he said “we have to make sure that we’re making suitable use [of administrative detention], according to need.”

According to the Israeli Prison Service, 300 Palestinian prisoners are currently being held under administrative detention in Israeli prisons, compared to as many as 1,500 five years ago.

Despite the drop, officials at the Justice Ministry, the Public Security Ministry, and the Foreign Ministry have all said, the policy should be downsized even more.

Aharonovitch’s reported remark were made following a recent wave of hunger strikes, inspired by Islamic Jihad operative Khad er Adnan who staged a hunger strike for over two months beginning late last year to protest Israel’s administrative detention policy.

For more, go to Haaretz.com

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.