Palestinian Prisoners Day has a sour taste this year

Palestinian Prisoners’ Day is marked every year on 17 April. It began in 1974, after the Palestinian National Council chose the date to honour the first Palestinian prisoner exchange, linked to Mahmoud Bakr Hijazi’s release in 1971. Hijazi was the first Palestinian to be captured by Israeli occupation forces (IOF).

The Israeli occupation has now legalised the murder of Palestinian prisoners

Over time, the day became much more than a memorial. For Palestinians, it is now a national day of protest against arrest, prison abuse, and the suffering of families whose loved ones are behind bars.

2026 Palestinian Prisoners’ Day was marked across the occupied territory with rallies, public gatherings, demonstrations and messages of support. But this year, it was not only a demonstration against the occupation’s prison system, and the continuing use of detention as a way to control Palestinian life.

It was also a protest against the prisoner execution law recently approved by the Knesset. This racist and apartheid law makes the death penalty mandatory for Palestinians who kill their occupiers. But it does not apply to the growing number of illegal settlers or the occupation’s military who murder Palestinians. Although the killing of Palestinian prisoners inside Israeli occupation happens daily — through torture, medical neglect and starvation — this prisoners’ execution law has now legalised “Israeli” state killings of Palestinians.

Residents of Hebron talk of the unknown fate of their loved ones locked up inside Israeli occupation prisons

In the city of Hebron, in the southern occupied West Bank, residents not only experience daily raids from Israeli occupation forces (IOF), but also violence from the illegal settlers living amongst the population. Here, families of detainees, former political prisoners, local residents, and activists gathered together at Ibn Rushed Roundabout. They raised photos of loved ones, and held banners which condemned the violence experienced by Palestinian prisoners.

They also demanded the reinstatement of prison visits by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which the Israeli occupation has prevented since October 2023.

In a country where one in five Palestinians have been arrested, the day has personal as well as political meaning, as every Palestinian family has suffered in some way.

Some of those attending Hebron’s event spoke with the Canary. Here is what they told us:

Imprisonment is just one of the many forms of control the occupation practices against Palestinians

Imprisonment is not an isolated issue. It is part of the wider system of occupation, where surveillance, checkpoints, movement restrictions, military raids and detention all affect daily life. Families often live with repeated court delays, travel limits, and long periods without knowing what will happen to a son, daughter, father, or mother. This is all part of the Israeli occupation’s system of control over the lives of Palestinians.

Only days before Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, on 14 April, Israeli occupation forces detained Sheikh Hatem al-Bakri, a former Waqf Minister from Hebron, during a raid on the headquarters of the Islamic Charitable Society. Soldiers broke into the building, detained him, and held others inside, including a journalist. This is part of a pattern of ongoing pressure on religious, civic, and public institutions in Hebron.

In late January 2026, Israeli occupation police arrested an imam in Hebron in an overnight raid.

Raids, arrests, and detention are not exceptions in Palestinian life. They are the machinery of control, reaching from prisons into Palestinian homes, mosques, charities, and communities.

More than 9600 Palestinian prisoners, 350 children, 86 women, more than 3530 without charge or trial

According to a new report by the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society, Commission of Detainees’ Affairs, and Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, the number of Palestinian and Arab political prisoners in Israeli occupation prisons has exceeded 9,600 people. This is more than an 80 percent increase from the 5,250 prisoners before the Gaza genocide. More than 3530 of these detainees are being held under “administrative detention“, without charge or trial.

350 children are currently detained, 180 without charge or trial, while 86 females are currently behind bars, including two children. 25 of these women are held under administrative detention.

Palestinians arrested from the occupied Gaza Strip, who are held without trial or charge are known as “unlawful combatants”. More than 1250 Palestinians are currently being held under the “Unlawful Combatants Law”. This figure excludes those held in secret military torture camps since 7 October, 2023.

According to the report, the vast majority of prisoners are now sick, either due to existing health conditions becoming worse, or from injuries and diseases from their time behind bars, where denial of medical care is intentional, and abuse and torture is systematic. Unsanitary conditions have also enabled the rapid spread of diseases amongst detainees.

336 Palestinians killed in prison by the occupation since 1967, more than 25 percent of these have died since the start of Israel’s genocide in Gaza

336 Palestinians have died at the hands of the occupation, while in prison. Almost 90 of these killings have occurred since October 2023, although this figure includes only those who have been identified. Dozens remain forcibly disappeared, and unaccounted for in Gaza.

Occupation authorities continue to withhold the bodies of almost 100 martyred Palestinian prisoners. This is compared to the withholding of 11 martyred prisoners’ bodies before the genocide.

The report also states that eight Palestinians detained from before the Oslo Accords, in 1993, remain behind bars. These include Ibrahim Bayadsa and Ahmad Abu Jaber, who have both been detained since 1986.

118 Palestinians are currently serving life sentences, with the longest sentence being Abdullah Barghouti, who has been given 67 life sentences.

Featured image provided by author

By Charlie Jaay

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