Ramallah – On January 17th last year, the occupation authorities arrested the lawyer and human rights activist Deala Ayesh after detaining her at the military Container Checkpoint between Bethlehem and Ramallah. Her family only knew about her fate through passengers of public transportation who informed them of her arrest after being detained and her ID card checked.
Later, prisoner support institutions informed them that Deala was being held at Ofer Prison, then transferred her to the Sharon Crossing and from there to Damon Prison, and was subjected to 4 months of administrative detention.
The Prisoners’ Affairs Institution stated that Deala was subjected to assault, threats, and insults by occupation soldiers during her arrest, and was held under difficult conditions after her arrest, where she was placed in a bad cell.
Deala is known as a lawyer and a human rights activist who has worked as a lawyer for detainees in occupation prisons and political detainees over the past five years. The occupation authorities did not find specific charges against her, so they resorted to administrative detention, which means detention based on secret files inaccessible even to her lawyer, a charge that she does not face in the eyes of the Israeli occupation authorities, similar to Deala and about 3500 Palestinians currently imprisoned in Israeli jails.
Deala’s father told Al Jazeera Net that “the occupation is trying through these arrests to marginalize activists from the Palestinian streets,” and his remarks confirm that Deala was visiting prisoners at Ofer Prison just days before her arrest without facing any restrictions from the occupation authorities. So, how did she end up being administratively detained shortly after?
Unprecedented Increase
What Deala’s father said aligns with the interpretation of prisoner support institutions that have been monitoring these arrests for years, noting that there has been an increase in the number of administrative detention cases since the start of the Israeli aggression on Gaza. According to the Palestinian Prisoners Club, the number of documented administrative detainees by the end of January reached 3484 prisoners, including 40 children, 11 women, and 21 journalists.
Israel detains activists, lawyers, lecturers, freed prisoners, and public figures under this arrest, according to Palestinian Prisoners Club spokesperson Amani Sarahneh, all with the aim of undermining any confrontation in the West Bank, a practice that is repeated during every confrontation period with the occupation.
Sarahneh told Al Jazeera Net, “The rise in administrative detention cases in Israeli prisons started two years ago, but the unprecedented increase in over 35 years was during this war,” adding that most of those currently under administrative detention are former prisoners who spent years in jail, emphasizing that this Israeli action is not associated with any organization other than that.
Intermittent Time
The arrest of lawyer and human rights activist Deala Ayesh was her first arrest, but for a significant number of administrative detainees, their administrative sentences in Israeli prisons have exceeded ten years and more, as is the case with journalist Nidal Abu Akar from Dheisheh Camp near Bethlehem.
Nidal’s last administrative arrest was in July 2022, and he was released just 40 days before being administratively arrested for two continuous years, and until now, he remains in detention after the Israeli occupation renewed his arrest for the fourth time on January 28 last year.
Abu Akar spent 18 cumulative years in Israeli prisons, 13 of which were spent as an administrative detainee without charges, with the longest duration being a continuous detention for 5 years, as the occupation prosecution accused him of circumventing the duration of his detention.
Nidal’s wife, Manal Abu Akar, told Al Jazeera Net, “We now deal with his repeated arrests as someone who goes out to spend intermittent time. Every time we know he will not spend a long time with us.”
Manal, who raised their three children until they graduated from schools and universities, cannot recall any occasion where Nidal was present, even when her father-in-law passed away or when her father passed away. She is more saddened by her husband’s inability to continue his beloved journalistic work, where he hosted a program on Al-Wahda Radio in Bethlehem about prisoners.
