The war has unleashed a dramatic surge in detentions across the occupied territories, creating what rights groups call a collapsing detention system — where imprisonment has become widespread, indiscriminate, and brutal. Authorities have reportedly arrested tens of thousands of Palestinians, including men, women and children, often without charge or due process, under sweeping orders that treat detention as a tool of collective punishment.
Former detainees and human-rights monitors describe overcrowded jails, poor sanitary conditions, inadequate food or medical care, and frequent denial of legal rights or family visits.
The escalation — including a sharp rise in administrative detentions and widespread use of military courts — signals that what began as wartime arrests has evolved into a systematic framework for repression, deeply entangling the war on Gaza with a broader campaign of punitive control across the West Bank and beyond.
For many Palestinians, the risk of being detained now looms daily — not because of proven crimes, but often based on vague suspicions, old social-media posts, or arbitrary security claims.
