308,000 Palestinians detained by Israel since the First Intifada

Some 308,000 Palestinians have been held in Israeli jails since the outbreak of the First Palestinian Intifada in 1987, the Anadolu Agency reported.

The Palestinian Prisoners Center for Studies said some of these Palestinians had been detained for years, while others had been detained for days.

“The conditions of the detainees during the First Intifada had been worse than their conditions now,” the centre said in a statement issued on the anniversary of the uprising.

The centre noted that around 30 Palestinians continued to be held in Israeli jails since the 1987 uprising.

It called on international human rights organisations to document what it called “Israeli violations” during the uprising so that these violations would continue to bear witness to “Israel’s crimes”.

December 8 marked the 27th anniversary of the outbreak of the First Palestinian Intifada in protest of the living conditions at the Palestinian refugee camps, high unemployment and what the Palestinians saw as insults to their national pride and a daily repression by Israeli authorities against them.

The uprising broke out in the Jabalia refugee camp, northern Gaza Strip, when an Israeli truck driver ran over a group of Palestinian workers at the Beit Hanoun crossing.

The uprising has seen a number of operations against Israeli targets where the Palestinians attacked Israeli soldiers and settlers with knives, according to Palestinian sources, before it calmed down in 1991, and finally stopped with the signing of the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation in 1993.