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RAMALLAH, October 6, 2011 (WAFA) - Since occupying the Palestinian Territory in 1967, Israel has detained about 750,000 Palestinian citizens, including 12,000 women and tens of thousands of children, said a Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics press release.

PCBS said that prisons, detention camps and interrogation centers have been established in almost all parts of Palestine; one or all members of almost every Palestinian family have been detained, often multiple times.

The release said Israel also holds tens of bodies of male and female Palestinians killed during the second Intifada as well as hundreds of corpses of others killed in previous years.

Since the breakout of the second (Al-Aqsa) Intifada on September 28, 2000, more than 70,000 Palestinians have been detained, including 8,000 children, members of parliament, former ministers and 850 women detainees. Four women have given birth in prison during the Intifada and were later released. More than 20,000 decisions have been issued either to renew detention of detainees or detain new ones under administrative detention.

Currently, about 6,000 detainees are held in Israeli prisons, including 35 women and 285 children. Hundreds of detainees were taken in as children and grew up in prison. 270 detainees are held under administrative detention, another 21 are members of parliament and a number of political leaders are also held. In addition, 820 detainees have been sentenced to life once or multiple times.

More than 200 detainees have died in prison since 1967 as a result of torture, medical negligence, or murder in prison by soldiers and guards: 70 detainees were killed under torture, 51 were killed due to medical negligence, 74 were killed directly after detention and 7 detainees were shot dead in prison by soldiers and guards.

PCBS added that there are 302 detainees who were detained before signing the Oslo accords and establishing the Palestinian National Authority in May 1994. These detainees are called “veteran detainees,” as they are the longest-serving detainees who have spent at least 17 years in prison. There are also 136 detainees who spent more than 20 years in prison and these are called “deans of detainees.”

“Generals of patience” is a term given to detainees who spent more than 25 years in prison. Their number will reach 41 by the end of October, 2011, including one Arab detainee from the occupied Syrian Golan Heights and four detainees who have spent more than 30 years in prison. These detainees are: Na'el Barghouti, Fakhri Barghouti, Akram Mansour and Fouad Al-Razem.

M.H./F.J.