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JERUSALEM (Ma’an) – Israeli forces launched multiple house-to-house predawn military raids Sunday in the occupied East Jerusalem village of Sur Bahir and detained at least eight Palestinians, seven of whom are teenagers, a human rights lawyer told Ma'an.

Muhammad Mahmoud, a lawyer from Addameer human rights group, identified the detainees as Muhammad Jadallah, 16, Yasin Atrash, 17, Muhsin Attun, 17, Abdullah Abu Kaf, 18, Muhammad Bkeirat, 18, Mahir Attun, 18, Ahmad Jadalah, 18, and Nael Rabayaa, 21.

During the month of October more than 1,000 Palestinians, including at least 147 children, were detained by Israeli forces, according to documentation by Addameer.

A spokesperson for the group said that it was not yet clear how many prisoners were still being held and how many had been released, although Addameer estimated that there were now some 6,300 Palestinians in Israel's prisons in total, up from 5,620 at the end of November.

Other monitoring groups have said that as many as 1,200 or 1,300 Palestinians have so far been detained in October.

Earlier this week, an Israeli prisons spokesperson, Sivan Weizman, told Ma'an that there were around 5,800 "security prisoners" inside Israel's jails, although she said she had no information on how many new prisoners there were in October.

According to UN figures, there has been a weekly average of 78 Israeli army "search and arrest operations" carried out across the occupied West Bank, with a sharp increase since protests spread across the occupied territory earlier this month.