Tehran – Research reveals that the majority of Palestinians tempted in October 2023 are civilians who are not affiliated with Hamas or the resistance movement.
Joint investigations by Guardian, +972 magazines and local calls reveal that the majority of Palestinians kidnapped by the Israeli occupation regime from Gaza are civilians rather than resistance fighters, many being detained to put pressure on Hamas at ceasefire meetings.
Israeli military information shows that only one in four detainees are classified as suspected resistance fighter jets. In May 2025, 6,000 Palestinians were jailed under the administration’s “illegal combatants” law, but only 1,450 people appeared in the database of Israeli military suspected of Palestinian fighter jets.
The rest includes teachers, doctors, journalists, civil servants, children and seniors, all held without charges, trial or evidence. One prisoner, 82-year-old Fahamiya al-Khalidi, was invited along with a caregiver in Gaza City, and was jailed for six weeks despite suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.
Soldiers stationed in the administration’s infamous Sde Teiman military prison said that so many elderly and disabled people were invited to place them in another hangar known as the “old man’s pen.”
“They brought men in wheelchairs and people without legs,” he recalled. “Perhaps they were arrested for seeing something.”
There are no trials, lawyers, or charges
Under the administration’s “illegal combatants” law, detainees can hold the law for up to 180 days without access to lawyers and 75 days without meeting a judge. Since the genocide began on October 7th, one prisoner lured from Gaza has not been tried.
Even human rights groups and even Israeli professional soldiers say the number of actual fighter jets is much lower than claimed. “At best, one in six or seven people have a real link to Hamas,” said Samir Zakout, deputy director of the Al Mezan Human Rights Centre in Gaza.
One Israeli officer who oversaw the mass arrests at Khan Eunice admitted that the occupying regime soldiers did not distinguish between civilians and fighter jets. “There was no difference between (resistance fighters) and people working at the Water Bureau,” he said.
Sources have confirmed that many civilians are being held as leverage for hostage negotiations rather than for security reasons.
“We continued to release people ‘free’ and that made (soldiers) angry,” said the Israeli soldier. “They’ll say: ‘They’re not returning hostages, so why should we let them go?’
Politicians in the Israeli government have expressed similar views, reinforcing what human rights groups say is now a systematic policy of mass detention.
“Even before October 7th, Israel withheld the Palestinian bodies as negotiation tips,” a spokesman for Al Mezan said.
“Now they’re doing the same thing as the living, embracing thousands of innocent people and gaining political superiority.”
Most detainees are inconsistent without contact with family members, legal representatives, or violations of international law.
“The law was designed to strip civilians of legal protection,” said Hassan Jabarien, director of Palestinian legal rights group Adara. “It allows for indefinite detention without accountability.”
Jessica Montell, director of NGO Hamoked, calls it a case of forced disappearance on a massive scale. “Even hundreds, even thousands, have disappeared, with no accusations, no trials, no communication with the outside world.”
As international pressures grow, rights groups continue to seek the release of detainees who have been detained for no reason, and Israel’s occupation regime is calling for an end to the lives of civilians as a political tool.