The Israeli occupation authorities continue to target women through systematic arrests, which have escalated in an unprecedented manner since the beginning of the war of extermination. Specialized institutions have documented 525 cases of arrest among women since the beginning of the genocide. Today, the occupation continues to detain 37 female prisoners, based on documentation to date, including two female prisoners who are five months pregnant, namely (Reema Balawi from Tulkarm, and Zahraa Al-Kawazbeh from Bethlehem).

The Prisoners Club said in a statement that the two female prisoners, Balawi and Kawazbeh, are being held in harsh and difficult conditions in Al-Damon prison. Like all male and female prisoners, they are being subjected to systematic and organized crimes, including the crime of starvation, which cast a shadow over the two female prisoners’ testimonies during their recent visit to Al-Damon prison. This is in addition to a series of systematic policies of theft and deprivation, which even affect their basic needs.

The Prisoners Club explained that Balawi (31 years old), a mother of two girls, was arrested from her home in Tulkarm, in February 2025, on the grounds of what the occupation calls “incitement,” while prisoner Kawazbeh (37 years old), a mother of three children, was arrested after the occupation forces set up a military checkpoint, following her return with her family from Jericho, and that was in early April 2025. The occupation courts have extended their detention several times over the past period, and a new court session is supposed to be held for prisoner Balawi on June 15, 2025, while a new court session will be held for prisoner Kawazbeh on May 18, 2025.

The Prisoners' Club noted that prisoner Balawi suffers from blood problems due to thalassemia, while prisoner Kawazba also suffers from nerve problems and requires intensive medical follow-up.

The continued detention of the two female prisoners, Balawi and Kawazbeh, is considered a “double crime,” given that the prison system continues to practice systematic crimes, policies, and procedures to torture, abuse, and kill prisoners, including female prisoners and child prisoners. Over the past months, institutions have monitored unprecedented crimes and violations against female prisoners, starting from the moment of their arrest, through the investigation period, and their transfer to Hasharon Prison as a temporary station, until their permanent detention in Al-Damon Prison.

Female prisoners also suffer double the suffering of being deprived of their children, as the prison system continues to deny families of male and female prisoners visits since the genocide. This deprivation of their children has exacerbated the suffering of many of them, leaving them facing difficult psychological conditions.

He stated that targeting women on the basis of what the occupation claims is “incitement” on social media sites, is today the most prominent issue that has escalated in an unprecedented manner since the beginning of the genocide, which has targeted, in addition to women, all segments of Palestinian society, and has become a central tool with the aim of imposing more control and censorship, and limiting freedom of opinion and expression, noting that what the occupation claims is “incitement” is a vague concept, through which it has worked to expand the circle of arrests that have affected thousands since the genocide, and it constitutes in essence another form of the administrative detention policy, which has affected thousands, including women and children, and it has also constituted the most prominent issue that has witnessed a historical transformation since the genocide.

In this context, the Prisoners Club held the occupation authorities fully responsible for the fate of all female prisoners, including the two prisoners (Balawi and Kawazbeh), and called again on the international human rights system, headed by the United Nations, to restore its necessary role in the face of the continuing atrocities and crimes committed by the Israeli occupation, in light of the ongoing crime of genocide in Gaza, the comprehensive aggression against our people, as well as the systematic crimes against male and female prisoners in the occupation prisons, which constitute another face of genocide and an extension of it.

It is worth noting that the number of prisoners in occupation prisons, until the beginning of May 2025, reached more than ten thousand and 100, including (3577) administrative detainees.