Palestinian Prisoner’s Day: What happened in Palestine on April 17, 1971?

On April 17 each year, Palestinian Prisoner’s Day is commemorated to remember the plight of thousands of men, women and children held in Israeli prisons. This year’s remembrance is underscored by Israel’s new death penalty law, which solely targets Palestinians convicted of deadly attacks. Rights groups have called the measure a violation of international law and inherently discriminatory.

The United Nations human rights chief called it a possible “war crime”. Nearly 10,000 Palestinians are now being held in Israeli prisons in Israel and in occupied territory, according to the prisoners’ rights group Addameer. To Palestinians, they are political prisoners who must be freed.

Here’s what we know about Palestinian Prisoner’s Day and the situation facing Palestinians held in Israeli detention. April 17, 1971, was the date when Mahmoud Bakr Hejazi was released in the first prisoner exchange between Israel and Palestine. In 1974, the Palestinian National Council (PNC) officially designated April 17 as Palestinian Prisoner’s Day.

Since then, it has served as a day of national and international solidarity, highlighting the Palestinian struggle against Israel’s continued occupation of Palestinian land. As of early April, more than 9,600 Palestinians were in Israeli custody. Of those in detention: Administrative detention is a longstanding Israeli policy to hold Palestinians – men, women and children – without charge or trial for six-month periods that may be renewed indefinitely.

While Israel says the policy allows authorities to hold suspects while continuing to gather evidence, critics and rights groups say the system is widely abused and denies due process. More than one-third (3,532) of the 9,600 Palestinians detained by Israel as of early this month were being held under administrative detention. Israel is the only country in the world that tries children in military courts, often denying them their basic rights.

According to Addameer, 342 children were being held this month in Israeli prisons. Since the outbreak of the second Intifada in 2000, more than 12,000 Palestinian children have been detained by Israeli forces. Arrested children are often subjected to physical and psychological torture, according to child rights groups.