Dozens of Palestinians from Gaza remain imprisoned after completing their sentences, with at least seven more expected to face the same fate by the end of the year, a Palestinian prisoners' rights expert has told The New Arab.
Riyad al-Ashqar, director of the Palestine Centre for Prisoners' Studies, told TNA that Israeli authorities were continuing to hold at least 36 Palestinians from Gaza who were arrested before the outbreak of the war in October 2023, despite them having completed their prison terms.
Israel is refusing to release them under emergency measures imposed following the 7 October 2023 attacks, he said.
The figures come as the Prisoners' Media Office found that 43 detainees from the Gaza Strip remain in Israeli custody despite having completed, or being close to completing, their sentences.
It said that their imprisonment remains "without any legal basis or judicial order justifying their continued imprisonment" in a clear violation of international humanitarian law.
Al-Ashqar told The New Arab that seven more prisoners are due to complete their sentences before the end of 2026 and are likely to remain in detention, despite some being over the age of 60.
He said Israeli authorities were deliberately keeping the prisoners behind bars as part of a broader policy of retaliation against residents of the Gaza Strip.
Some have spent more than a decade in Israeli prisons. Among them is Mohammed Youssef al-Qudra from Khan Younis, who completed his 11-year sentence in June 2025 but remains in custody.
Mohammed Abdul Karim al-Qadi is also still imprisoned despite completing a 10-year sentence more than a year ago.
Israeli forces have detained more than 15,000 Palestinians from Gaza since the war began, including women, children, elderly people, wounded civilians and people with disabilities, al-Ashqar said.
While many have since been released after varying periods of detention and interrogation, he estimates that around 2,000 Palestinians from Gaza remain in Israeli custody.
He added that Israeli authorities have publicly identified only around 1,400 detainees, leaving hundreds of Palestinian families without information on the whereabouts of their relatives.
Al-Ashqar also said Israel has established new military-run detention facilities for Gazans outside the Israeli Prison Service, including the notorious Sde Teiman camp, where Palestinian rights groups have documented allegations of torture, sexual abuse and deaths in custody.
He further accused Israel of subjecting detainees from Gaza to systematic starvation and medical neglect, saying prisoners receive inadequate food and healthcare, leading to severe malnutrition and worsening health conditions.
In November 2025, Physicians for Human Rights Israel documented the deaths of at least 98 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli custody, while warning the actual figure was likely to be significantly higher because of limited transparency by Israeli authorities.