RAMALLAH, occupied West Bank / PNN /

Israeli forces detained or subjected about 95 Palestinians to field interrogation overnight across the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society said Thursday, describing the campaign as part of a broader pattern of raids and arrests that has increasingly affected families and communities.

Most of those targeted were subjected to field interrogation rather than formal arrest, according to the prisoners’ rights group.

The overnight campaign stretched across several areas, including Aqaba in Tubas, Madama in Nablus, Yatta in Hebron, and parts of Jenin, Bethlehem and Al-Bireh.

In Qalqilya, Israeli forces carried out a wide arrest campaign targeting former prisoners and their relatives. Among those detained or questioned were the mother of a former prisoner and the wife of a current prisoner, according to the society.

The raids also involved dozens of homes. Among them was the home of Muayyad Shaaban, head of the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission, which was reportedly vandalised during the operation. Residents were also subjected to physical assault, the prisoners’ society said.

For families across the West Bank, such raids can mean more than the loss of a family member. They can bring fear into homes, disrupt daily life and leave relatives uncertain about whether a loved one will return or face further detention.

The prisoners’ society linked the latest campaign to an escalation in settler attacks against Palestinian towns and villages, particularly during the olive harvest, when Palestinian farmers return to their land.

It said Palestinians have faced threats, attacks on people and property, land seizures and the expansion of Israeli settlements during the harvest season.

Detention as a tool of control

The Palestinian Prisoners’ Society said detention and field interrogation have increasingly been used alongside other measures to exert control over Palestinian communities and land.

It described mass arrests, interrogations, allegations of torture, demolitions and attacks on Palestinian homes and property as interconnected elements of a wider system of repression across the occupied Palestinian territories.

The group said the scale and intensity of such measures have increased sharply since the start of the war in Gaza, while warning that Palestinian families are bearing much of the human cost.

For relatives of detainees, the uncertainty can be particularly difficult, with families often left waiting for information about where their loved ones have been taken, why they were detained and whether they will be released.

More than 26,000 arrests since October 2023

Palestinian prisoners’ institutions say more than 26,000 arrests have been documented in the West Bank since the start of the war in Gaza in October 2023, in addition to thousands of Palestinians detained in the Gaza Strip.

Israeli authorities said Wednesday that they had carried out about 46,000 arrests and interrogations of Palestinians in the West Bank since the start of the war.

The figures could not be independently reconciled.

The prisoners’ society said the continued absence of international accountability has allowed arrests, interrogations and other forms of repression to continue.

It called on the international community and human rights organisations to press for accountability and to investigate allegations of mass arrests, ill-treatment, torture and unlawful killings, as well as policies linked to settlement expansion and land seizures.

The society said Palestinians should not have to live with the fear that a nighttime raid could take a family member away or turn a home into the scene of an arrest operation.