The number of detained Palestinians include 651 children and four journalists. Over 400 are jailed without charges or trial.   

According to a joint report by human rights groups, Israel’s occupation forces have detained 3,533 Palestinians, including 651 children and four journalists, during the first semester of 2018.

On Tuesday, human rights organizations Palestinian Prisoners Club, Addameer Prisoners Support and Human Rights, The Prisoners Commission and Al Mezan Center for Human Rights issued a joint report detailing the arrests and detentions.

According to the joint report, Israel issued 502 administrative detention orders. Administrative detention is a controversial policy because it allows occupation forces to hold detainees without a charge or trial while maintaining the alleged evidence under confidentiality. Currently, there are 430 Palestinians held under administrative detention.

Israeli human rights group B’tselem, which also monitors administrative detentions, has denounced the complicity of Israel’s judicial system.

“The state makes sure to lend this policy a guise of legality by requiring the courts to review every detention order. In these proceedings, the detainees are represented by counsel; they may appeal the judge’s decision, and the hearings follow procedural and evidentiary rules. However, this is merely a façade of judicial review, as the detainees have no real opportunity to mount a reasonable defense against the allegations,” B’tselem explains in their website.

In June, the largest number of Palestinians detained were from the occupied city of Jerusalem, where 117 detentions were carried out.

In May, during the height of the Great March of Return, the rights organizations reported 604 Palestinians were detained, including 94 children. As it happened in June, most detainees are from East Jerusalem.

Until the end of May, there were 6,000 Palestinians being held in Israeli prisons, including 350 child prisoners.