A record number of Palestinian children are being held in administrative detention in Israeli prisons without charge or trial, a report by a children’s rights organisation has revealed.
“360 Palestinian children are detained in Israeli prisons as of June 30, the latest data available from the Israel Prison Service (IPS), which is the highest number since early 2016,” Defense for Children International – Palestine (DCI-P) reported this week.
“147 children, or 41 percent of the total, are held in administrative detention without charge or trial, which is both the highest number and the highest proportion on record since Defense for Children International – Palestine began monitoring these numbers in 2008,” the report added. “The IPS, which typically releases detainee data on a quarterly basis, was more than two months late in releasing the data from the second quarter of 2025.”
That figure is still an undercount. Palestinian Prisoners’ Club, in its latest report published on September 3, placed the number of children in the Israeli prison system above 400, out of a total of more than 11,000 detainees, including 49 women.
These numbers only tell part of the story, however, as countless abuses behind the scenes remain undocumented. There is no exact data on the number of children Israelis have abducted or “disappeared” without a trace from Gaza since October 7.
“Many children have been detained and ‘disappeared’ by Israeli forces,” Save the Children said in a report published in June 2024. “Some thrown into unmarked or mass graves or maimed beyond recognition. Others have been separated from their families and caregivers, at risk of exploitation.”
The children held in Israeli torture dungeons endure horrific abuse, are fed rotten food and are subjected to daily beatings.
From the DCI-P report:
“Every month since October 2023, Israeli forces have rapidly expanded their use of administrative detention to target Palestinian children,” said Ayed Abu Eqtaish, accountability program director at DCI-P. “These children are languishing in overcrowded Israeli prisons, fed rotten food, and beaten on a daily basis by Israeli guards, all while they are completely isolated from the outside world, including from their families and lawyers. They must all be released immediately.”
The report further added that Israelis are attempting to restrict information about detainees, and the suspension of visits by family members and lawyers has meant that the full extent of rights violations cannot be documented.
Moreover, the reported detainee count does not account for children held in military detention and torture chambers, such as at the notorious Sde Teiman, run by the Israeli occupation forces:
The data released by the IPS accounts for prisons under its administration, including Megiddo and Ofer, where children are detained and imprisoned. This data does not include children who are detained at Israeli military detention and interrogation centers, such as Huwwara, or military bases like Sde Teiman. There is no available data for how many children or adults are detained at these sites, though DCI-P has received testimony from previously detained children of torture and dehumanizing conditions being regularly implemented at these locations.
According to the report, children in detention increasingly have their rights violated, “including Article 37(d) of the Convention on the Rights of the Child” according to which “every child has the right to prompt access to legal assistance and to challenge the legality of their detention before a court.”
The report says:
Lawyers representing Palestinian detainees now face mounting barriers, including the cancellation of scheduled visits, severe limitations on visiting hours, prolonged delays extending for months, and bans on bringing in even basic case materials. Lawyers are also forbidden from passing on simple messages from families, and children who wish to pass along messages to their families through a lawyer have been beaten. Further, Israel has disallowed the International Committee of the Red Cross from visiting any Palestinian detainees held in Israeli places of detention since October 7, 2023.
Killing of Palestinian captives
More than 70 Palestinian detainees are reported to have been killed in Israeli captivity since October 7 alone. Most of them have been ruthlessly anally raped and beaten to death. One such anal rape at the Sde Teiman torture facility was caught on camera last year. The victim, Islam al-Sarsawi, subsequently succumbed to his wounds. Adnan al-Bursh, a renowned and much-loved doctor in Gaza, was also raped and tortured to death.
Also read: Israel is routinely raping Palestinians in its torture dungeons
Children have not been immune to such treatment from the Israelis.
Walid Ahmad, 17, was abducted from his home in Silwad on September 30, 2024, and imprisoned in Megiddo Prison. Over six months of his captivity, Walid was subjected to starvation and medical neglect. On March 22, 2025, Walid died in captivity, and a medical report confirmed that starvation was the primary cause of death. He also suffered from untreated colitis and scabies.
Walid had complained of not receiving enough food before he lost consciousness on March 22 and was transferred to the prison’s clinic. However, attempts to resuscitate him failed and he died.
Military courts for children
“The occupation continues its violations through military trials that lack basic standards of fair justice, using its courts in both the West Bank and Al-Quds to violate children’s rights,” Palestinian Prisoners’ Club reported in April. “In Al-Quds, house arrest is a widespread practice that turns family homes into makeshift prisons, stripping children of their freedom and normal lives.”
Palestinian children are the only children in the world to be prosecuted in military courts. “Each year approximately 500–700 Palestinian children come into contact with the Israeli military court system; they are the only children in the world to experience systematic prosecution in military courts,” Jason Lee, Save the Children’s then Country Director in the occupied Palestinian territory, stated in July 2023.
Poor treatment and rampant diseases
Itamar Ben‑Gvir, the Israeli minister in charge of prisons, has regularly boasted about making life miserable for Palestinians in captivity. “No deposits, no canteens, fifteen-minute shower [instead of 8 hours], one hour for yard,” Ben-Gvir bragged on his Twitter account last March. “There are no large refrigerators. We have narrowed down the menu. No prisoner representation, no education, no dental care. There are no aesthetic treatments.”
Last November, Ben-Gvir advocated for executing the Palestinian captives by shooting them in the head.
Prisoner testimonies have revealed that the amount of food provided for meals is inadequate and inferior. The state of emaciated and unhealthy Palestinian captives released during the prisoner exchanges earlier this year outlined the horrific treatment meted out to them. “[T]he shortage of food and its inferior quality, result[s] in loss of weight among prisoners and loss of immunity against disease due to malnutrition,” Institute for Palestine Studies wrote in a paper last year.
There have been regular reports of scabies outbreaks and the rampant spread of lice and rashes among Palestinians penned in unsanitary Israeli dungeons. Those suffering from such diseases are denied medical treatment exacerbating their condition.
Iyad Duwais, a 16-year-old, who was abducted from Shu’afat in East Jerusalem, and released in October 2024 after seven months in captivity, revealed the neglect that Palestinians in Israeli dungeons are subjected to:
Long history of abusive treatment
While the abusive treatment of Palestinian detainees has intensified since October 7, rights groups have consistently reported widespread mistreatment of detainees, including children.
In July 2023 — three months before Al-Aqsa Flood — Save the Children reported the following:
During arrest, 42% of children were injured, including gunshot wounds and broken bones, and 65% of children were arrested during the night, mostly between midnight and dawn. Half of all arrests took place in the children’s home.
The majority of children experienced appalling levels of physical and emotional abuse, including being beaten (86%), being threatened with harm (70%), and hit with sticks or guns (60%).
Some children reported violence and abuse of a sexual nature, including being hit or touched on the genitals and 69% reported being strip searched.
60% of children experienced solitary confinement with the length of time varying from one 1 day to as long as 48 days.
Children were denied access to basic services, 70% said they suffered from hunger and 68% said they didn’t receive any healthcare.
58% of children were denied visits or communication with their family while detained.
The majority of children detained are boys – a trend reflected by the survey, with boys representing 97% of the respondents.
In December 2023, a former US State Department official, Josh Paul, recounted a stunning story of Israeli abuse in which Israel designated DCI‑P a terrorist entity merely for highlighting the case of a 13‑year‑old boy who was raped in an Israeli dungeon:
A charity called Defence for Children International – Palestine (DCI-P) drew our attention at the State Department to the sexual assault, actually, the rape of a 13-year-old boy that occurred in an Israeli prison, in Al-Moskibiyya, in Jerusalem.
We examined these allegations, we believed they were credible, we put them to the government of Israel, and you know what happened the next day? The IDF went into the DCI-P offices and removed all their computers and and declared them a terrorist entity.
The case of Ahmad Manasra
Earlier this year, Israelis released Ahmad Manasra, now 23, after nearly a decade in captivity. Arrested at just 13, Ahmad has become emblematic of the abusive treatment meted out to Palestinian children in Israeli dungeons.
Accused of involvement in a stabbing operation in an East Jerusalem settlement alongside his cousin, 15-year-old Hassan — who was shot and killed — an unarmed Ahmad was run over by an Israeli vehicle. As he lay bleeding, nearby Jewish squatters hurled abuse at him and wished for his death. He was subsequently taken captive and, after brief medical treatment, swiftly transferred to an interrogation facility.
His harsh interrogation, without the presence of a lawyer — a common Israeli practice — was caught on camera, and revealed Israeli brutality to the broader world.
Ahmad was sentenced to 12 years in prison — later reduced to nine and a half — for his mere presence at the scene of the stabbing. His mental health deteriorated in prison, but this did not prevent Israeli authorities from placing him in solitary confinement for months at a time, or from ignoring repeated appeals by multiple human rights organisations to release him on humanitarian grounds.
When he was eventually freed in April of this year, Ahmad’s — and his family’s — ordeal was far from over. He was released 50 kilometres away from where his family had been waiting to pick him up. Ahmad was banned from speaking to the media, his relatives were denied the right to welcome him, and they were threatened should they organise any reception.
Also read: Inside Israeli dungeons: Torture, murder, and the spirit of resistance
Born in captivity
Tahani Abu Samhan, a 33-year-old teacher from the Bedouin village of al-Zarnuq in the Naqab region in southern occupied Palestine was arrested in June this year on charges of spying for Iran.
Pregnant at the time of her arrest, Tahani gave birth to her son, Yahya, in Damon Prison earlier this week. Yahya has now become the youngest Palestinian in an Israeli dungeon.
The continued detention and abuse of Palestinian children demand immediate international attention and intervention to uphold human rights and justice. However, with the Israelis wiping their backsides with international law and basic human decency since before the illegal “founding” of their illegitimate state — and even more blatantly since October 7 — appeals to justice and calls for international intervention appear to be exercises in futility.
Going by historical precedent, it is only the resistance — not diplomacy, and certainly not appeals to the Israeli genocidaires — that has proven most capable of securing freedom for its people.
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A nation of psychopaths skilled at manipulating their own children is not going to be capable of doing anything to the children of their supposed enemies that doesn’t involve psycho-physical degradation, with rape always the first choice as the ultimate expression of power dominance by Zionist cowards cringing in the face of Al-Qassam heroism. It all fits together as a perfect portrait of the sickest society ever created.
Such evil. Thank you for your tireless and heroic reporting.