Israeli authorities on Wednesday issued administrative detention orders against 63 Palestinian detainees, according to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society (PPS).

40 of the detainees received detention orders, without charge or trial, for the first time, whereas the remaining 23 had their sentences renewed for numerous times.

There are more than 500 Palestinian prisoners being held under administrative detention, a controversial Israeli practice, dating back to the Days of British Mandate, which allows for the detention of Palestinians without charge or trial, up to six months, and can be renewed indefinitely.

Israeli officials claim the practice is an essential tool in preventing attacks and protecting sensitive intelligence, but it has been strongly criticized by the international community, as well as by both Israeli and Palestinian rights groups.

Multiple human rights groups have accused Israel of using administrative detention regularly as a form of collective punishment and mass detention of Palestinians, and that it frequently uses this kind of detention when it fails to obtain confessions in interrogations of Palestinian detainees.

According to Israeli human rights organization, B’Tselem, international law stipulates that administrative detention may be exercised only in very exceptional cases. Nevertheless, Israeli occupation routinely employs administrative detention on thousands of Palestinians.

Palestinian detainees have continuously resorted to open-ended hunger strikes as a way to protest their illegal administrative detention and to demand an end to this policy, which violates international law.

Source:WAFA