In Apartheid South Africa, women like Winnie Mandela, were a particular target for detention. Similar scenes are playing out behind prison walls in Israel where Palestinian women, including minors, a pregnant detainee, and patients with serious illnesses, are being held under conditions rights groups describe as harsh and degrading.
Palestinian prisoners’ rights organisations say 90 Palestinian women are currently held in Israeli prisons, where concerns continue to grow over treatment, access to healthcare, and conditions of detention.
According to the Palestinian Prisoner Society, most of the women are detained at Damon Prison in northern Israel. Among them are two minors and a pregnant woman, alongside detainees with serious medical conditions.
The group says 25 of the women are held without charge or trial under administrative detention. Others include three journalists and two women battling cancer.
Reports from the organisation describe a pattern of poor conditions inside detention facilities, including hunger, lack of medical care, solitary confinement, and repeated strip searches. The group also alleges instances of physical mistreatment and degrading treatment during detention.
Many of the arrests, it says, are linked to accusations of incitement, particularly in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Since the escalation of the Gaza war in October 2023, the Palestinian Prisoner Society says more than 700 women have been detained. However, it notes that figures from Gaza remain unclear due to limited access and reporting constraints.
The conditions described evoke a broader historical memory. In South Africa’s apartheid era, political figures such as Winnie Madikizela-Mandela were repeatedly detained without trial and held under harsh prison conditions, becoming one of the most visible examples of how imprisonment was used as a tool of political pressure during that period.
Earlier this month, a joint statement by the Palestinian Prisoner Society, Addameer, and the Commission of Detainees’ Affairs estimated that more than 9,600 Palestinians are currently held in Israeli prisons. This includes around 86 women and approximately 350 children.
According to Palestinian sources, more than 1,100 people have been killed in the occupied West Bank, thousands injured, and nearly 22,000 arrested amid continued military raids and settler violence, since October 2023.
As arrests continue to rise, Palestinian rights groups warn that what is unfolding inside Israeli prisons is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.