⭕ Israeli Occupation Escalates Arrests of Palestinian High School  Students During Final Exams Period

⭕ Four Students Arrested in Nine Days, Among Them One Sentenced to Six Months Detention Without Trial or Charge

Palestinian Prisoner’s Society

June 29, 2026 

Ramallah, occupied Palestine – The Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS) stated that Israeli occupation authorities are continuing to escalate their targeting of Palestinian high school students in the West Bank. Among the victims are four high school students who were arrested during the General Secondary Education Certificate (Tawjihi) examination period. Prior to and during the current year, occupation forces had already arrested 65 male and female high school students.

The PPS clarified that since June 20 when final exams began, occupation forces have arrested four students so far. They are: Fajr Ahmed Al-Mashni (17 years old) from the town of Al-Shuyoukh/Hebron, who was placed under administrative detention (no trial or charge) for six months; Salah Al-Din Muhammad Al-Azza (18 years old) from Al-Fawwar camp/Hebron, who is injured; Usayd Mustafa ‘Umour (17 years old) from the town of Rummanah/Jenin; and Abdulkarim Issa Safi (17 years old) from Al-Jalazone refugee camp/Ramallah, who was arrested by occupation forces on Monday morning.

The PPS added that since the beginning of the genocide in Gaza, occupation forces have escalated arrest campaigns targeting students across various educational levels, as part of broader arrest operations that have affected tens of thousands of Palestinians. They have transformed the most critical stage of a high school student's educational journey into a station for abuse, by detaining them and depriving them of the chance to take their exams.

The PPS pointed out that this escalation is not limited to the widening scope of student arrests, but is also reflected in the conditions of detained students and children in occupation prisons, who are entirely deprived of their right to education. The PPS emphasized that stripping prisoners of their right to education marks one of the most serious shifts imposed by the prison system in the wake of the genocide.

The PPS noted that for many years, the right to education was one of the most prominent rights that prisoners fought to secure and maintain, despite repeated attempts by the prison administration to strip them of it. However, since the start of the genocide, the prison system has stripped prisoners of all their rights, turning the prisons into an environment wide open to round-the-clock torture, abuse, and systematic violations.

The PPS stressed that the prison system today practices an integrated policy based on systematic torture, humiliation, and abuse, aimed at breaking the prisoners psychologically and physically—practices that also target child prisoners and detained students.

The PPS calls on international human rights organizations, UN bodies concerned with human rights, children's rights, and the right to education, to assume their responsibilities regarding the escalating crimes faced by detained Palestinian students. It urged them to act urgently to pressure the occupying state to halt its policy of targeting students and depriving them of their education, to ensure protection for captive children and students, and to end the systematic torture policies that blatantly violate the rules of international humanitarian law, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.