Palestinian says he was arrested six times after exchange — Al Jazeera
In the occupied West Bank, Palestinian Ahmed Abed, who uses a pseudonym for security reasons, said that after his release from an Israeli prison he was arrested six times and summoned for questioning another five times. As Al Jazeera reports, the man was released as part of a prisoner exchange between Hamas and Israel in January 2025 after 22 years in prison.
Repeated interrogations and raids
According to 43-year-old Abed, Israeli intelligence summoned him several days after his release. There, he claims, he was warned that he could be imprisoned again over the slightest violation. During each arrest, the man said, military personnel raided his home and family members were subjected to intimidation.
Abed said that during the arrests he was forced to walk several kilometres in handcuffs and blindfolded. He also stated that at detention facilities he was deprived of food and water, beaten, and threatened with being returned to prison. Due to the risk of further arrests, the man avoids family gatherings and limits his contact to his closest relatives.
Despite earning bachelor's and doctoral degrees in prison, Abed has been unable to find work. According to him, employers refuse to hire him after learning about the repeated arrests, so he gets by on day labour.
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Job losses and an atmosphere of fear
Another former prisoner from Qalqilya, who did not give his real name, said that he is detained on average twice a week during Israeli military operations in the city. He works as a football referee and stated that during one interrogation he was threatened with arrest if he appeared on a football field.
Another Qalqilya resident, Abdullah, said that since his release in 2000, he cannot count all the subsequent arrests. He claims that he spent another 17 years in custody in total, including in administrative detention from November 2023 to February 2025. The man also said that he lost his job because of regular detentions and cannot properly cultivate an inherited plot of land.
Palestinian prisoner rights organisations documented about 26,000 arrests in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, from October 2023 to early October 2026. According to their data, those detained included more than 800 women and nearly 2,000 minors. Amani Sarahneh, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society, said that constant detentions create an atmosphere of fear among residents and affect not only detainees but also their families.
