In the Hamas/Israel war, why does Palestine have "hostages" but Israel has "prisoners"?
This occurred to me while listening to the news. When they exchange people it’s always hostages for people held in Palestine and prisoners for people held in Israel. Why is that? Is it just perception or is there a practical difference?
Lot of bad takes and sensationalism in this thread. The real difference is that one group (prisoners) were charged with crimes, and the others (hostages) weren't.
Whether those criminal charges are valid or not is another story, but that's why they're using different terms for each group, as they're not captive under the same pretense as the other.
Many Palestinian prisoners aren’t charged with crimes and have “secret evidence” held against them. Given Israel’s track record of lying and colonialist activity, I’ll leave you to decide if they actually do have that evidence. aljazeera.com/…/more-than-600-palestinians-held-b…
On top of that, the vast majority of the actual crimes are incredibly minor like rock throwing, and it doesn’t matter if you’re a child. The conditions and treatment in Israel prisons for Palestinians is incredibly grim as well.
There’s a thin vaneer of an unjust legal framework, and the aims of Israel aren’t as explicit to hold them for trade, but they’re a whole lot closer to being hostages than most people care to admit.
How about this source, the actual human rights organization that produced the report?
hamoked.org/document.php?dID=Updates2136
Administrative detention constitutes a draconian violation of a person’s rights to liberty and due process. International humanitarian law permits this detention without trial only as an exceptional measure when there is a substantial security threat that cannot be otherwise avoided. But Israel’s use of this measure toward Palestinians is not exceptional at all; Israel holds hundreds of Palestinians from the West Bank in administrative detention for periods of months and even years. Furthermore, administrative detention orders are based on “classified material” such that the detainee has no way to refute the allegations against them. And the Israeli military can extend the period of administrative detention without limit. The infringement of rights of administrative detainees is exacerbated by the fact that many of them are held inside Israel, in blatant violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits the transfer of inmates outside the occupied territory.
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