Palestinian teen’s case casts spotlight on Israel detentions
SILWAD, Palestinian Territory — High school student Hamza Hamad spent 10 months in an Israeli jail for alleged links to the Islamic militant Hamas group, but was never charged with a crime.
The 16-year-old is one of the youngest among thousands of Palestinians who have been held in so-called administrative detention in half a century of Israeli military occupation.
The teen’s case spotlights one of Israel’s perhaps most contested policies, under which it can hold suspects for months or sometimes several years without charges. Israel says the policy is a key tool in preventing attacks on civilians, but rights activists say it violates due process.
Numbers of detainees have fluctuated, from a few dozen to hundreds at any given time, with spikes during violent periods. Detainee figures are up again since October 2015, when Palestinians, mostly acting on their own, began stabbing or ramming cars into Israelis in a series of deadly attacks.