Political Prisoners in Israel/Palestine

0 Israelis are possibly being held prisoner by Palestinians, while 6,279 Palestinians are currently imprisoned by Israel.

“Since the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory in 1967, more than 800,000 Palestinians have been detained under Israeli military orders in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt). This number constitutes approximately 20 percent of the total Palestinian population in the oPt and as much as 40 percent of the total male Palestinian population… 8,000 Palestinian children have been arrested since 2000.”

– Addameer

Last updated: [dynamically filled]

Sources

57 Israelis are being held in Gaza Reportedly, more than 3/4 of them are male, a great many of them soldiers. (8 are dual Israeli-American citizens, at least 3 of them soldiers.) There were 2 children being held as of August 2024. In addition, there are 10 foreign nationals being held.^*

As of January 2025 Israel holds 2,025 sentenced prisoners, 2,934 remand detainees and 3,376 administrative detainees held without trial. Israel also holds 1886 people as "unlawful combatants".

The data was provided by the Israel Prison Service (IPS), and includes all "security inmates" in prisons under the IPS jurisdiction, including the Ofer Prison, situated in the West Bank.

Note: As of November 2023, the data also includes Palestinians who are residents of the Gaza Strip and are held pursuant to Israel’s Incarceration of Unlawful Combatants Law, 5762-2002. Unlawful combatant – a category which does not exist in international law – is defined in Israeli law as “a person who has participated either directly or indirectly in hostile acts against the State of Israel or is a member of a force perpetrating hostile acts against the State of Israel, where the conditions prescribed in Article 4 of the Third Geneva Convention of 12th August 1949 with respect to prisoners-of-war and granting prisoner-of-war status in international humanitarian law, do not apply to them”.

These figures do not include detainees from the Gaza Strip held by the Israeli military.

Breakdown of Palestinian Prisoners

^* According to The Times of Israel, Hamas publicly acknowledged, in 2016, that it was holding 2 Israeli citizens. Both entered Gaza voluntarily. The two men have been deemed mentally unstable and are presumed alive by Israeli authorites. One is a Bedouin Muslm and the other an Ethiopean Jew whose family accuses the Israeli government of deliberately neglecting their son and not working for his release because he is black.

Note: Israeli sources include 2 deceased Israeli soldiers whose bodies have not been returned, but neglect the fact that the bodies of hundreds of Palestinians (some of them children) are being held by Israel under specific governmental policies. source, source, source

2023: During the attacks on southern Israel that began October 7, approximately 240 soldiers and civilians were taken prisoner, with the intention to exchange them for Palestinian prisoners.