Former Palestinian detainees in the occupied West Bank say repeated Israeli arrests and interrogation summons are disrupting their families and livelihoods long after their release, according to reporting by Al Jazeera’s Fayha Shalash published Sunday.

The report describes former prisoners facing recurring home raids, threats of renewed imprisonment and difficulty keeping jobs. Those interviewed used pseudonyms or withheld their names because of fears about further arrests.

Ahmed Abed, a pseudonym, told Al Jazeera he had been arrested six times and summoned for interrogation five times since being freed in a January 2025 prisoner exchange between Hamas and Israel. The 43-year-old had served 22 years of a life sentence.

Abed said Israeli intelligence officers summoned him days after his release and warned that he could be imprisoned again for the “slightest mistake”. He alleged that subsequent detentions involved beatings, deprivation of food and water, and being forced to walk handcuffed and blindfolded.

“Whenever there are reports of Israeli military activity in the city, my family goes into a state of high alert; no one sleeps all night,” he told Al Jazeera.

He said employers would not hire him after learning about his repeated arrests, leaving him dependent on day labour despite having earned university degrees in prison.

In Qalqilya, another former prisoner, identified by the pseudonym Abdullah, said recurring detentions had cost him his job and disrupted work on inherited farmland. He told Al Jazeera he had spent a total of 17 years in custody since his release in 2000.

Palestinian prisoner advocacy organisations have documented approximately 26,000 arrests across the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, between October 2023 and early October 2026, according to the report. That figure includes people subsequently released; it is not a count of those currently imprisoned.

Amani Sarahneh, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society, told Al Jazeera that detention operations now take place around the clock, including at checkpoints and during field interrogations. She said the campaigns had created persistent anxiety extending beyond detainees to their families and wider communities.

The supplied report did not include a response from Israeli authorities to the allegations.

Sources