Analysis | Why is this director of a Palestinian community center imprisoned by Israel without charges?
Khaled Daoud, a highly esteemed, chronically ill educator from a refugee camp near Bethlehem, is wasting away in an Israeli prison. His story exemplifies all that is wrong with Israel's widespread policy of administrative detention
A protest performance in Tel Aviv's Habima Square against administrative detention. Credit: Meged Gozani
Khaled Daoud, a highly esteemed, chronically ill educator from a refugee camp near Bethlehem, is wasting away in an Israeli prison. His story exemplifies all that is wrong with Israel's widespread policy of administrative detention
Maya Rosenfeld
05:43 PM • December 31 2025 IST
On November 19, High Court justices Noam Sohlberg, Alex Stein and Chaled Kabub denied a petition by my friend Khaled Daoud, 67, a resident of the Dheisheh refugee camp in the West Bank and director of a community center there, against extending his administrative detention – detention without trial. The decision was made even though the three justices were presented with extensive evidence demonstrating that there were never reasonable grounds for holding Daoud in detention, let alone extending it, and even though they did not raise reservations about the evidence.
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