Israel holds more than half of Palestinian child detainees without charge | Children’s Rights News

The rights group said Palestinian children consistently report ‘horrendous and debilitating conditions’ in Israeli prisons.

More than half of Palestinian children held in Israeli prisons at the end of last year were held without charge or trial, a Palestinian rights group said, raising concerns about reported abuses in Israeli detention facilities.

In a statement on Wednesday, Defense for Children International-Palestine (DCIP) said there were 351 detained Palestinian children as of December 31, 2025, 51 percent of whom were held in so-called “administrative detention.”

It said it was the “highest number and highest scale on record” since the group began monitoring the figures in 2008.

Citing newly released Israel Prison Service (IPS) statistics, the DCIP said the figures for Israeli prisons under IPS administration do not include children in Israeli military detention and interrogation centers.

“No data is available on the number of children or adults detained at these sites, although DCIP has collected firsthand testimonies from previously detained children describing systematic torture and inhumane conditions,” the agency said.

Palestinians across the occupied territories have faced a surge in arrests and detentions, including of children, in the shadow of Israel’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip that began in October 2023.

Israeli authorities have used administrative detention to hold many of those detainees.

A long-standing policy, administrative detention allows Israel to hold Palestinians indefinitely for up to six months without charge or trial.

About a third of the 9,500 Palestinians detained by Israel as of March 11 are in administrative detention, according to the Palestinian prisoner advocacy group Adamir.

DCIP’s statement on Wednesday came amid multiple reports from human rights groups detailing allegations of a range of abuses, including sexual violence and torture, in Israeli prisons and detention facilities.

Although Israel has denied any wrongdoing, in August 2024, the Israeli rights organization B’Tselem described the Israeli prison system as a “network of torture camps”.

The group, which interviewed dozens of former detainees, accused Israeli officials of working “A systematic, institutionalized policy focused on the continued abuse and torture of all Palestinian prisoners.

DCIP said Palestinian children have consistently reported “appalling and debilitating conditions within Israeli detention facilities”, from beatings to denials of medical care and torture, including the use of solitary confinement.

It added that torture and arbitrary detention of children violates the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Israel has ratified.