At least 23 Palestinian child prisoners have been released by Israel as part of the ceasefire deal, bringing into focus Israel’s systematic prosecution of Palestinian children in military courts.

At least 290 Palestinian prisoners have been released in two batches since the Hamas-Israel ceasefire came into effect on January 19, ending 15 months of nonstop Israeli bombardment of Gaza.

According to Adameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, a rights group based in the occupied West Bank, 320 children were being held in Israeli prisons before the latest prisoner exchanges.

So, what do we know about Palestinian child prisoners and why are they tried in military courts?

What do we know about Palestinian child prisoners in Israel?

In 2016, Israel introduced a new law allowing children between the ages of 12 and 14 to be held criminally responsible, meaning they could be tried in court as adults and be given prison sentences. Previously, only those 14 or older could be sentenced to prison. Prison sentences cannot begin until the child reaches the age of 14, however [PDF].

This new law, which was passed on August 2, 2016 by the Israeli Knesset, enables Israeli authorities “to imprison a minor convicted of serious crimes such as murder, attempted murder or manslaughter even if he or she is under the age of 14”, according to a Knesset statement at the time the law was introduced.

This change was made after Ahmed Manasra was arrested in 2015 in occupied East Jerusalem at the age of 13. He was charged with attempted murder and sentenced to 12 years in prison after the new law had come into effect and, crucially, after his 14th birthday. Later, his sentence was commuted to nine years on appeal.

An estimated 10,000 Palestinian children have been held in Israeli military detention over the past 20 years, according to the NGO Save the Children.

Reasons for the arrest of children range from stone-throwing to participation in a gathering of merely 10 people without a permit, on any issue “that could be construed as political”.

Under what law are children detained by Israel?

Controversially, Palestinian prisoners are tried and sentenced in military rather than civil courts.

International law permits Israel to use military courts in the territory that it occupies.

A dual legal system exists in Palestine, under which Israeli settlers living in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem are subject to Israeli civil law while Palestinians are subject to Israeli military law in courts run by Israeli soldiers and officers.

This means that a large number of Palestinians are imprisoned without basic due process.

“Israeli authorities, however, regularly arrest Palestinian children during nighttime raids, interrogate them without a guardian present, hold them for longer periods before bringing them before a judge and hold those as young as 12 in lengthy pretrial detention,” Omar Shakir, the Israel and Palestine Director at Human Rights Watch, wrote in November 2023.

Nearly three-quarters of Palestinian children in the occupied West Bank were kept in custody until the end of proceedings, compared with less than 20 percent for Israeli children, according to the Association for Civil Rights in Israel’s report from 2017.

HaMoked, a human rights NGO assisting Palestinians subjected to human rights violations under the Israeli occupation, said minors being held in prisons were allowed a 10-minute phone call to their families once every two weeks during 2020.

How many Palestinian prisoners released so far as part of the Israel-Hamas deal are children?

Israel released 200 Palestinian prisoners, 120 of them serving life sentences, from its jails on Saturday as part of the ceasefire deal.

Two of them were children, both 15 years old. The oldest prisoner, Muhammad al-Tous, was 69. He had spent 39 years in jail, having first been arrested in 1985 while fighting Israeli forces.

The swap on Saturday was the second exchange since a ceasefire came into effect on January 19. Three Israeli captives and 90 Palestinian prisoners (69 women and 21 children) were released in the first swap.

Only eight of the 90 prisoners were arrested before October 7, 2023, when Hamas-led Palestinian groups carried out attacks in southern Israel. The attacks killed more than 1,100 people, saw about 250 taken captive and triggered Israel’s devastating war on Gaza.

Some Palestinian prisoners have been held in Israeli prisons for more than three decades.

Prominent Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti – who was the co-founder of the Palestinian National Liberation Movement, also known as Fatah, the party that governs the West Bank – has been in prison for 22 years.

Tamer Qarmout, an associate professor at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, told Al Jazeera that the release of Palestinian prisoners is a “huge relief” for families, although it is happening under the “horrible realities of [the Israeli] occupation”.

“These prisoners should have been released through a bigger deal that ends the conflict, that brings peace through negotiations, through ending occupation, but the harsh reality in Palestine is that as we talk, occupation continues,” Qarmout told Al Jazeera.

How many Palestinians are in Israeli prisons? Have they faced abuse while in custody?

As of Sunday, about 10,400 Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank were in Israeli captivity, according to estimates from Addameer.

In the occupied Palestinian territory, one in every five Palestinians has been arrested and charged at some point. This rate is twice as high for Palestinian men as it is for women – two in every five men have been arrested and charged.

There are 19 prisons in Israel and one inside the occupied West Bank that hold Palestinian prisoners. Israel stopped allowing independent humanitarian organisations to visit Israeli prisons in October, so it is hard to know the numbers and conditions of people being held there.

Palestinian prisoners who have been released have reported being beaten, tortured and humiliated before and after the start of the war on Gaza on October 7.

How many Palestinian prisoners are being held without charge?

About 3,376 Palestinians being held in Israel are under administrative detention, according to Addameer. An administrative detainee is someone held in prison without charge or trial.

Neither the administrative detainees, who include women and children, nor their lawyers are allowed to see the “secret evidence” that Israeli forces say forms the basis for their arrests. This practice has been in place against Palestinian detainees since the establishment of Israel in 1948.

These people have been arrested by the military for renewable periods of time, meaning the arrest duration is indefinite and could last for many years.

The administrative detainees include 41 children and 12 women, according to Addameer.

What’s next?

Twenty-six other captives should be released in the ceasefire’s six-week first phase, along with hundreds more Palestinian prisoners. The next exchange is next Saturday.

Many hope the next phase will end the war that has displaced the vast majority of Gaza’s 2.3 million people and left hundreds of thousands at risk of famine. Talks start on February 3.