HaMoked demands the immediate release of a Palestinian who has been held in prolonged and arbitrary administrative detention for the past two years and ten months

Each year, Israeli security forces arrest thousands of Palestinian residents of the occupied territories, and they hold hundreds in administrative detention for months, and sometimes even years. Administrative detention orders are based on "classified material" and are periodically extended without limitation, enabling de facto imprisonment without an indictment or a trial.

On October 10, 2018, HaMoked submitted a request to the Commander of the Military Forces in the West Bank for the release of a Palestinian who has been in administrative detention for the past two years and ten months. HaMoked emphasized that the man's detention is periodically extended based on classified material, without granting him an opportunity to refute the suspicions against him and blocking any option of effective judicial review. HaMoked further claimed that this is not the man's first administrative detention, and he has been cumulatively detained for over six years without trial (!).

HaMoked noted that by definition, administrative detention seriously harms a person's liberty and right to due process. International humanitarian law conditions use of this exceptional measure on the existence of a genuine security threat that cannot be prevented in any other way, and emphasizes the importance of maintaining its exceptional nature. Israel current holds over 450 Palestinians under administrative detention orders for months and even years at a time. It is therefore evident that Israel has not upheld the exceptional nature of this measure.