Al Jazeera Discovers 'Captives' Who Weren't Kidnapped
Al Jazeera reports on the 'release' of Palestinian 'captives' by Israel following a prisoner exchange. What the headline conspicuously omits is that many of these 'captives' were never charged, tried, or convicted of anything remotely resembling a crime in a fair legal system. They are administrative detainees—held indefinitely by military order, a relic of the British Mandate that critics across
human rights organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have consistently condemned as a flagrant violation of international law. (Human Rights Watch, 'Israel: Arbitrary Detentions and Discrimination,' 2023) The framing sanitizes an occupation that routinely jails children and adults without due process, turning arbitrary detentions into 'captives' who can be 'released'
as if they were legitimately held. One might wonder why there's no equivalent explainer on how actual Palestinian children, like 17-year-old Fozia, seized from her Jerusalem home at 2 AM for alleged stone-throwing, became a 'security threat' worthy of months in Israeli military prison. It appears some 'captives' are more newsworthy than others, especially when they serve a convenient narrative of
exchange rather than expose systemic abuse.