During her arrest, Ayesh was subjected to assault, threats, and insults by Israeli soldiers, according to the Addameer human rights organisation. She was transferred to Israel’s Hasharon Prison before being later taken to Damon Prison, where she is now being held.
Ayesh’s work as a human rights defender rose to the fore during her time at the Ramallah-based Lawyers for Justice, representing Palestinian political detainees in PA prisons. In July, she attended a session on behalf of the group at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland.
Tala Nasser, from the Addameer prisoners’ rights group, explained that Ayesh’s arrest comes amid a “violent mass arrest campaign” carried out by Israel since October 7.
The fact that the vast majority of the more than 6,900 Palestinians arrested in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem since October 7 have been transferred to administrative detention highlights the arbitrariness of Israel’s arrests, she said.
“This campaign includes activists, human rights defenders and political leaders,” Nassar told Al Jazeera, noting that it is “an attempt to silence them and prevent the exposure of the occupation’s crimes across the whole country”.
In December, Israeli forces also arrested political and civil society leader Khalida Jarrar, who was similarly transferred to administrative detention.
Despite releasing all but three Palestinian female detainees during the latest prisoner exchange with Hamas at the end of 2023, the Israeli army rearrested dozens. Some 80 female prisoners are being held today, all of whom are in the Damon Prison.
Among the 80 are dozens of women from the besieged Gaza Strip, but lawyers are forbidden from visiting them or knowing anything about them.
Several reports have emerged of female detainees from Gaza being physically beaten and abused, including an unknown number of them being held at Israeli military bases and not in prison.
Lawyers say conditions for all Palestinian detainees, including women, are unprecedentedly difficult. Eight Palestinian male prisoners have also died or were killed in Israeli custody since October 7, most of them in the days and weeks after their arrest.
Over the past few months, many videos have emerged of Israeli soldiers stripping, torturing and abusing male prisoners from both the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
“It is important to note that every female that is arrested is violated in one way or another,” said Nasser. “They are all facing threats, intensive strip searches, verbal assault and physical violence.”
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