On Day 128, Palestinian prisoners keep boycotting Israeli military courts

The boycott includes initial hearings to uphold the administrative detention order, as well as appeal hearings and later sessions at Israel’s ‘high court.’

The Palestinian captives say their move is a continuation of longstanding efforts to end the “unjust administrative detention practiced against our people by the occupying forces.”

They say the courts are a “barbaric, racist tool that has consumed hundreds of years from the lives of our people under the banner of administrative detention, through nominal and fictitious courts – the results of which are predetermined by the military commander of the region.”

Zionist regime’s use of administrative detention, the prisoners believe, has expanded in recent years and many women, children and the elderly have been incarcerated under the thorny policy.

More than 450 Palestinian captives have so far registered their protest against the controversial policy by refusing to show up for their military court hearings since the beginning of the year.

Over 7,000 Palestinian captives are currently held in some 17 Israeli jails, with dozens of them serving multiple life sentences.

Palestinian captives are held for lengthy periods without being charged, tried, or convicted, which is in sheer violation of human rights. Advocacy groups describe Israel’s use of the detention as a “bankrupt tactic” and have long called on Israel to end its use.

The Israeli Prison Service (IPS) keeps Palestinian captives under deplorable conditions lacking proper hygienic standards. They have also been subjected to systematic torture, harassment and repression all through the years of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories.

According to the Palestine Detainees Studies Center, about 60% of the Palestinian captives detained in Israeli jails suffer from chronic diseases, a number of whom died in detention or after being released due to the severity of their cases.