Palestine calls for breaking the wall of silence and launching the broadest international campaign of solidarity and advocacy for the release of more than 10,000 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli-occupation prisons.
The Palestinian people commemorate Palestinian Prisoner’s Day on April 17 each year, affirming the centrality of the prisoners’ cause in the Palestinian national conscience, in loyalty to their sacrifices, and in renewed commitment to continue the struggle until their full freedom is achieved.
This day comes at one of the harshest stages in the history of the prisoners’ movement, as the Israeli occupation continues to detain more than 10,000 Palestinian prisoners, including 350 children, 87 women, 17 elected members of the Legislative Council, 41 journalists, and 190 prisoners who have spent more than 20 years in detention, 3,532 of whom are held under administrative detention, a measure routinely used by Israel, without being charged, informed of the accusations against them, or given access to the alleged evidence, either to them or their lawyers. Some have spent more than 45 years in captivity under extremely harsh detention conditions that violate the most basic humanitarian and legal standards. The gravity of this reality is further exacerbated by continued cases of enforced disappearance, particularly of prisoners from the Gaza Strip, whose fate remains unknown to this day—constituting a grave violation amounting to a war crime and reflecting a systematic pattern of abuse.
Arrest and detention have been transformed into a systematic criminal policy targeting the Palestinian the dignity and existence of the Palestinian people. Over the years of occupation, this policy has affected more than one million Palestinians, to the extent that the experience of detention has become part of daily reality, with hardly a single Palestinian household untouched by direct or indirect suffering from arrest.
Palestinian prisoners inside Israeli-occupation prisons are subjected to a continuous series of grave violations, including physical and psychological torture during arrest and interrogation, sleep deprivation, prolonged solitary confinement, and a policy of slow execution through deliberate medical neglect, which has led to the deaths of hundreds of prisoners. Israel also remains the only country in the world that systematically prosecutes children before military courts, subjecting them to procedures that lack the most basic guarantees of fair trial and due process. The occupation authorities also continue to withhold the bodies of a number of martyrs and prisoners who died in detention, refusing to return them to their families or disclose their burial sites. In addition, policies of starvation and poor nutrition, deprivation of family visits, and physical and sexual assaults, including torture, are carried out in blatant violation of all human values
Prisoners and their families are also subjected to collective punishment, including home demolitions and confiscation of property, in crimes that shock the conscience of humanity.
In a dangerous escalation, the Israeli occupation has passed what is known as the “Death Penalty Law for Prisoners,” revealing the true nature of an apartheid-based occupation system and entrenching an escalating level of extremism and criminality against the defenseless Palestinian people. This law is discriminatory and racist in nature, applied exclusively against Palestinian detainees, thereby entrenching a system of persecution and contributing to policies that amount to genocide.
This adds another crime to the record of violations committed in the Gaza Strip and extends its impact to the West Bank, including Jerusalem.
The suffering of Palestinian prisoners constitutes a flagrant violation of the rules of international humanitarian law, particularly the Fourth Geneva Convention, which stipulates humane treatment and prohibits torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. These violations also constitute a clear breach of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and, in many cases, amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity that require accountability and prosecution.
The State of Palestine affirms that the issue of prisoners will remain a national priority that is not subject to compromise. It calls on the international community to assume its legal and moral responsibilities, break the wall of silence, and take practical steps to pressure the occupation authorities for the unconditional release of all Palestinian prisoners. It further calls for the establishment of an independent international mechanism to investigate war crimes committed against them and to bring those responsible before the International Criminal Court, in order to end the culture of impunity and the state of exception granted to Israel.
The State of Palestine also calls on free people around the world, as well as human rights and humanitarian organizations, to intensify solidarity and advocacy campaigns, expose these violations, and work to provide international protection for prisoners, as their cause represents a true test of the world’s commitment to the principles of justice and human rights.
The State of Palestine reaffirms that despite the brutality and oppression of the Israeli occupation, the struggle will continue to achiever freedom for our people, Independence, the realization of the right of return, the liberation of prisoners, and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital.