JERUSALEM: The number of Palestinian children held by Israel without charge or trial has nearly doubled in just over a year, according to prison data obtained by the Israeli human rights organization Parents Against Child Detention. Dozens have been detained for more than 12 months.
The figures reveal that 191 Palestinian minors were held in administrative detention in March this year, compared with 103 in January 2025, the Times of Israel reported.
The number subjected to prolonged detention increased more than eightfold; 50 Palestinian minors had been held under administrative detention for more than a year by March, compared with six 12 months earlier.
Administrative detention orders allow Israeli authorities to incarcerate individuals without filing charges or bringing them to trial. The orders can be renewed repeatedly, and evidence used to justify detention can be withheld from detainees and their lawyers on security grounds. Israel says this is necessary in some cases to prevent serious and immediate security threats because revealing intelligence could compromise sources or operations.
Rights groups have long criticized the extensive use of administrative detention against Palestinians, arguing that prolonged incarceration without charge or access to the evidence denies detainees the basic protections of due process.
Israel Prison Service figures indicate that administrative detention also accounts for an increasing share of Palestinian children in Israeli custody. At the beginning of 2025, about one in three Palestinian minors detained by Israel were held under administrative orders. By March this year, the proportion had risen to nearly one in two, The Times of Israel said.
Tito Carmel, the executive director of Parents Against Child Detention, described the increase as alarming, particularly because children were being detained for increasingly lengthy periods without trial.
“While children in Israel and around the world are enjoying their summer vacation, a growing number of Palestinian children are being held in harsh conditions identical to those of adults,” she said in a statement.
The detention of Palestinian children in the West Bank has escalated since the start of the war in Gaza in October 2023, according to UN data.
Israel Prison Service data cited by The Times of Israel reveals that a total of 3,198 Palestinians were being held under administrative detention, the vast majority from the occupied West Bank. The figure does not include Palestinians detained in Gaza and classified by Israel as “unlawful combatants,” who are held under a separate legal framework.
