Unborn Children Behind Bars: The Tragic Conditions of Pregnant Female Prisoners in Israeli Occupation Prisons
21/7/2026 – Union for Justice Foundation
The Union for Justice Foundation stated that it is following with grave concern the ongoing and systematic deterioration of the living and humanitarian conditions endured by Palestinian female prisoners held in detention and incarceration facilities operated by the Israeli occupation authorities, particularly at Damon Prison, which has become a center for the violation of the most basic human rights. According to the Foundation’s latest field monitoring and documentation, the number of Palestinian female prisoners currently held in Israeli prisons has reached 93, including three pregnant women who are enduring the most delicate and critical stages of pregnancy under extremely harsh conditions of detention and abuse. This constitutes a flagrant and explicit violation of all international humanitarian conventions, norms, and laws, and amounts to crimes against humanity amid the prevailing international silence.
The Foundation confirmed that its legal teams have documented the three cases of pregnant female prisoners whose lives, as well as the lives of their unborn children, are under genuine threat due to the complete absence of any form of medical or humanitarian care. The first case is Manar Ibrahim Karaja, aged 28, from Ramallah, a mother of two who is currently in her fourth month of pregnancy. She has been detained since 30 April 2026 and remains in custody without a fair trial under continuous extensions of her detention. The second case is Dana Anad Joudeh, aged 35, from Nablus, a mother of one who is currently in her fifth month of pregnancy. She has been subjected to arbitrary administrative detention for six months without charge or trial since her arrest on 18 April 2026.
The third case is Amina Shaher Al-Tawil, aged 37, from Qalqilya, a mother of four who is currently in her fourth month of pregnancy. She has been detained since 18 March 2026 and remains held under suffocating conditions of isolation.
The Union for Justice Foundation explained that the occupation authorities and prison administrations have adopted systematic and carefully orchestrated punitive and retaliatory measures instead of providing the close and essential healthcare required during pregnancy. Pregnant female prisoners are subjected to a series of grave structural violations, foremost among them the policy of deliberate medical neglect (slow killing). They are completely denied routine medical examinations necessary to monitor fetal development and are deprived of essential nutritional supplements and vitamins required to protect mothers from severe weakness and malnutrition, placing their unborn children at risk of congenital abnormalities or death before birth. This medical neglect is compounded by a harsh policy of starvation, whereby prisoners are provided with extremely limited food portions that are often contaminated and devoid of nutritional value, directly endangering the physical well-being of pregnant prisoners.
The Foundation further noted that the suffering extends beyond material deprivation and medical neglect to systematic psychological and physical torture. Prison repression units deliberately raid the rooms of pregnant female prisoners repeatedly, often late at night, and conduct humiliating and provocative searches that include forcing them to stand for prolonged periods in order to intimidate them and instill fear, causing severe psychological stress and nervous tension that adversely affect the stability of their pregnancies. In addition, the prison authorities impose a policy of suffocating isolation by separating pregnant prisoners from other female prisoners and from the outside world through a comprehensive ban on family visits. The restrictions also extend to preventing legal teams and lawyers from meeting them and prohibiting the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and any independent United Nations organizations from accessing and inspecting their living and health conditions, leaving them to face this unknown fate entirely alone behind prison walls.
In the conclusion of its statement, the Union for Justice Foundation stressed that the occupation authorities’ insistence on continuing to detain these pregnant female prisoners, while refusing either to release them or to provide them with the necessary medical care, constitutes a blatant and direct violation of Article 76 of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, which obliges the occupying power to afford pregnant women and mothers special treatment appropriate to their biological and health conditions. It also represents a flagrant disregard for all international conventions and rules of international law relating to the protection of women during armed conflict and detention. In light of these grave facts, the Union for Justice Foundation issued an urgent appeal to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, the United Nations Human Rights Council, and all international and regional human rights organizations to take immediate, serious, and effective action to pressure the occupation authorities to secure the immediate and unconditional release of the three pregnant female prisoners and to establish an independent international investigation into the crimes and violations committed against them and against all Palestinian female prisoners, in order to protect innocent lives and the unborn children whose lives remain suspended behind iron bars.
End
