The agreement between Hamas and Israel has allowed the exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners. Those released, yes, are children and women who were arrested, many of them, in arbitrary detentions. This is the case of Marah, who She had been detained in an Israeli prison for 8 years and she was arrested when she was only 16 years old. Or that of Fátima, who has also returned home. They, along with 22 other Palestinian women, were released this Friday, as well as 15 minors.

Fatima says that they were “attacked many times in prison.” “We also heard how minors faced the same situationthey were attacked, left without food, transferred to individual cells to isolate them,” says the young woman.

There was also a lot of emotion to receive the 15 children, minors, some only 14 years old. “We couldn’t leave our cells, we didn’t have food, we were hungry. There is nothing good in prison, the situation is very catastrophic,” explains Othman, a child of those released. Many were arrested for insulting or throwing stones at Israeli agents. It’s what Israel calls administrative detentions.

According to Esteban Beltrán, president of Amnesty International in Spain (AI), these detentions “are not administrative, but arbitrary.” “They are detained simply because the soldier or guard says it affects national security,” he explains, adding that these prisoners “can go months or years without any type of charge or any type of trial“.

These arbitrary arrests are multiplying

Before the Hamas attack, there were already more than 5,000 Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli prisons, more than a thousand of them without a firm accusation. Beltrán points out that “they are not accused of anything, those people are detained because they are Palestinians.

Arbitrary arrests that have multiplied since last October 7Now, in addition, according to humanitarian organizations, they are in conditions of isolation and even suffer torture. AI assures that these prisoners suffer “insults”, are forced to “cheer for Israel” and are subjected to “physical abuse.” “They are subjected to collective punishment for being Palestinian prisoners,” he adds.

Some 150 Palestinian prisoners will leave Israeli prisons these days, but thousands more will remain there overcrowded, without water, without food, without lawyers, without charges and without trials.