Israeli forces detain 15 Palestinians, including minors, in West Bank

Israeli forces detain a Palestinian man following a demonstration against the expropriation of Palestinian land by Israel in the village of Kafr Qaddum, near Nablus, in the occupied West Bank on December 30, 2016. (Photo by AFP)

At least 15 Palestinians, including eight minors, have been arrested by Israeli forces during overnight military raids in the occupied West Bank.

Palestine’s Ma'an news agency said three of the detentions took place in an area near a military checkpoint in the western part of the occupied West Bank city of Tulkarm on Monday.

The Palestinian Prisoners' Society (PPS) said in a statement that eight Palestinians, including five minors aged between 15 and 17 years old, had also been arrested in occupied Jerusalem al-Quds.

Local sources said the rest of the detentions took place after Israeli forces invaded the town of Beit Ummar, located eleven kilometers northwest of al-Khalil (Hebron).

The Tel Aviv regime only confirmed a total of three overnight detentions, two from Beit Ummar and one from al-Khalil.

Israeli forces conduct night raids across the occupied Palestinian territory on a nearly daily basis. According to United Nations documents, Israel carried out 178 military raids in the occupied territories between December 13 and 26, 2016 to detain Palestinians. 

This file photo shows blindfolded Palestinian prisoners in an Israeli detention facility.

More than 7,000 Palestinians are reportedly held at Israeli jails. Hundreds of the inmates have apparently been incarcerated under the practice of administrative detention, which is a policy under which Palestinian inmates are kept in Israeli detention facilities without trial or charge.

Some Palestinian prisoners have been held in administrative detention for up to eleven years.

The Palestinian inmates regularly stage hunger strikes in protest at the administrative detention policy and their harsh prison conditions.

The occupied Palestinian territories have witnessed tensions ever since Israel imposed restrictions on the entry of Palestinian worshipers into the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in East Jerusalem al-Quds in August 2015.

More than 270 Palestinians have lost their lives at the hands of Israeli forces in the tensions since the beginning of October that year.