In golf carts, vans and on motorbikes, Hamas fighters have taken dozens of Israeli civilians and soldiers back to the Gaza Strip after their attack on Israel on Saturday.
As Israel’s fighter jets bomb the Gaza Strip in retaliation against the surprise Hamas assault, the Palestinian group has said that it plans to use the captured Israelis to strike a deal for the release of Palestinians in Israel’s prisons.
But just how many Palestinians are currently in Israeli custody? And how many of them are children?
Many would argue that all of Gaza is effectively an open-air prison — 2.2 million people blockaded by Israel in a tiny coastal enclave.
But the number of Palestinians who have actually spent time in Israeli jails too is of a similar order. Since 1967, when Israel occupied East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, it has arrested an estimated one million Palestinians, the United Nations reported last summer.
One in every five Palestinians has been arrested and charged under the 1,600 military orders that control every aspect of the lives of Palestinians living under the Israeli military occupation. That incarceration rate doubles for Palestinian men — two in every five have been arrested.
Source from www.aljazeera.com
