Israel holds record number of Palestinian prisoners, rights group reports

As of September 2025, the Israeli occupation authorities are holding 11,040 Palestinian prisoners, including 3,577 administrative detainees imprisoned without charge or trial, according to figures published Tuesday by the Israeli human rights organisation HaMoked.

The report, based on official data from the Israeli Prison Service, shows that among those detained are 1,450 sentenced prisoners, 3,351 remand detainees, and 2,662 Palestinians classified as “unlawful combatants.”

HaMoked confirmed that thousands of these arrests took place during the ongoing Israeli war of extermination on the besieged Gaza Strip, launched in October 2023. Following the start of the war, the Israeli occupation authorities issued a blanket decision declaring all Palestinians detained from Gaza as “unlawful combatants.”

This classification under Israeli law enables the occupation to arrest and indefinitely detain Palestinians without indictment, trial, or due process, on the basis of secret files prepared by the security services. It effectively strips detainees of basic legal rights and leaves them at the mercy of arbitrary military orders.

In parallel, the occupation’s administrative detention system allows for the imprisonment of Palestinians for renewable six-month periods under the pretext of “security reasons,” even in cases where no evidence exists to bring charges in court.

International condemnations

Human rights organizations have repeatedly condemned Israel’s detention policies. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch describe administrative detention as a form of arbitrary imprisonment used systematically against Palestinians, in violation of international humanitarian law.

The United Nations has also urged Israel to end its widespread use of administrative detention, stressing that it amounts to collective punishment and violates the Geneva Conventions.

Despite these calls, the number of Palestinian prisoners has reached an unprecedented record high, reflecting what rights groups say is Israel’s deliberate use of mass incarceration as a tool of oppression, control, and intimidation against the Palestinian people.