[OGT] Free the Hostages
As a loud and proud Jewish critic of Israel’s apartheid regime, I’m sometimes asked this question: why don’t you spend more energy calling for the release of the hostages? In this brief article, I’ll share my answer to that question.
Many people don’t seem to know, or perhaps don’t want to know, that thousands of Palestinians are being held in Israeli prisons indefinitely, without being told why, without a trial, and without due process. Israel’s own human rights organization B’Tselem notes:
Israel routinely uses administrative detention and has, over the years, placed thousands of Palestinians behind by bars for periods ranging from several months to several years, without charging them, without telling them what they are accused of, and without disclosing the alleged evidence to them or to their lawyers.
The official name for this policy is “adminstrative detention”.
In administrative detention, a person is held without trial without having committed an offense, on the grounds that he or she plans to break the law in the future. As this measure is supposed to be preventive, it has no time limit. The person is detained without legal proceedings, by order of the regional military commander, based on classified evidence that is not revealed to them. This leaves the detainees helpless – facing unknown allegations with no way to disprove them, not knowing when they will be released, and without being charged, tried or convicted.
Can you imagine a more Orwellian policy than imprisoning someone because someone else thinks they might commit some crime at some point in the future? Here’s what we know about how many people are imprisoned on this basis:
According to figures provided by the IDF Spokesperson, from the beginning of 2015 to the end of July 2017, 3,909 administrative detention orders were issued. Of these, 2,441 (62.4%) were extensions of existing orders. Only 48 (1.2%) were cancelled by a military court.
To make matters worse, children are being held under this program. According to B’Tselem, as of December 2024, the Israel Prison Service (IPS) was holding 113 Palestinian minors in detention or in prison on what it defined “security” grounds and 93 Palestinian minors for being in Israel illegally.
As of this writing, 59 Israeli hostages remain in Gaza, whereas well over 3,000 Palestinians, including more than 100 minors, are held hostage by Israel’s cruel, inhumane, and illegal administrative detention policy. So, when someone asks me why I don’t spend more energy calling for the release of the Israeli hostages in Gaza, I ask why they don’t call for the release of the Palestinian hostages in Israel.
If Israel is serious about wanting Israeli hostages freed, freeing thousands of Palestinian hostages would be a good start.