Palestinian Prisoner Advocacy Group Reports 370 Children Held in Israeli Prisons, Doubling in Eight Months

As of early August 2026, approximately 370 Palestinian children were being held in Israeli prisons, according to a report released by the Palestinian Centre for Prisoners Advocacy. Most are held in Megiddo and Ofer prisons, the report states, among a total Palestinian prisoner and detainee population exceeding 9,400.

The organization calls the figure "an unprecedented figure compared with previous periods." By the end of 2025, the report says, the number of detained children stood at 180, meaning the child detainee population has more than doubled in the first eight months of 2026.

"As of early August 2026, approximately 370 Palestinian children were being held in Israeli prisons, most of them in Megiddo and Ofer prisons, among more than 9,400 Palestinian prisoners and detainees."

The report ties the rise to what it describes as Israel's continued use of administrative detention, a practice that allows Israeli military authorities to hold Palestinians, including minors, without formal charge or trial, on the basis of secret evidence. That characterization is the report's own analytical framing rather than an independently adjudicated finding, though administrative detention itself is a long-documented feature of Israel's military court system in the occupied West Bank.

Middle East Eye reported the figures from the Palestinian Centre for Prisoners Advocacy's document but did not cite independent confirmation from Israeli prison authorities. The Israel Prison Service has not been quoted in the reporting responding to the specific child-detention numbers cited.

The named facilities, Megiddo and Ofer, are longstanding sites in Israel's West Bank and northern detention network and have previously been the subject of separate reporting on conditions for Palestinian detainees, including minors. The advocacy group's report does not detail its data-collection methodology beyond the figures cited, and the numbers have not yet been independently corroborated outside the organization's own publication and Middle East Eye's coverage of it.

The scale described, hundreds of minors held at a single moment, sits inside a much larger detained population of more than 9,400 Palestinians overall, a figure the report presents without further breakdown by charge status, age bracket, or length of detention.