Over the past two weeks, according to officials and rights groups, Israel has arrested some 4,000 labourers from Gaza who were working in Israel and is holding them in military bases. Separately, it has also arrested 1,070 other Palestinians in overnight army raids in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
“Arrests are taking place 24 hours a day,” Sahar Francis, head of the Ramallah-based Addameer prisoners’ rights group, told Al Jazeera.
Most of the people from Gaza are being held at a military base called Sde Teyman, near Beer al-Sabe (Be’er Sheva) in the southern Naqab desert, she said.
Hundreds of others are being held in Ofer prison near Ramallah, and in the Anatot military camp near the village of Anata in occupied East Jerusalem.