More than half of Palestinian child detainees have no charges

Israeli forces gather on a road during a raid at the al-Faraa camp for Palestinian refugees north of Nablus city in the occupied West Bank on October 10, 2024. (Photo by JAAFAR ASHTIYEH / AFP)

51 percent of Palestinian child detainees are in administrative detention, a record number

Reposted from Defense for Children International, March 18, 2026

Ramallah, March 18, 2026—51 percent of Palestinian child detainees are in administrative detention, a record number.

351 Palestinian children are detained in Israeli prisons as of December 31, 2025, according to the latest data available from the Israel Prison Service (IPS). 180 children, or 51 percent of the total, are held in administrative detention without charge or trial, which is both the highest number and the highest proportion on record since Defense for Children International – Palestine began monitoring these numbers in 2008. The IPS, which typically releases detainee data on a quarterly basis, was over two months late in releasing the data from the fourth quarter of 2025.

The data released by the IPS accounts for prisons under its administration, including Megiddo and Ofer, where children are detained and imprisoned. This data does not include children who are detained at Israeli military detention and interrogation centers. There is no available data for the number of children or adults detained at these sites, though DCIP has gathered firsthand testimonies from previously detained children describing systematic torture and dehumanizing conditions.

These numbers come at a time when Palestinian children consistently report appalling and debilitating conditions within Israeli detention facilities, including being withheld from adequate food and water, being subjected to beatings and verbal harassment, lacking access to medical care, and being subjected to torture, including the use of solitary confinement. Israel continues to disallow the International Committee of the Red Cross from visiting any Palestinian detainees held in Israeli places of detention, as it has done so since October 7, 2023.The use of torture and arbitrary detention against children is in direct contradiction to Article 37 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Israel has ratified.

Lawyers representing Palestinian detainees continue to face increasing barriers to legal representation, including the cancellation of scheduled visits, severe limitations on visiting hours, prolonged delays extending for months, and bans on bringing in even basic case materials. Lawyers are also forbidden from passing on simple messages from families, and children who wish to pass along messages to their families through a lawyer have been beaten.

Defence for Children International is an international non-governmental organisation set up in 1979, during the International Year of the Child, to ensure on-going, practical, systematic and concerted international and national action specially directed towards promoting and protecting the rights of children, as articulated in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child

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