When the Gaza ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas was announced on January 15, Ghassan Alyeean says his first feeling was relief that the mass killing of his countrymen might finally end.

Like everyone in the occupied West Bank, Alyeean was looking forward to celebrating the freedom of 90 Palestinian prisoners who were to be released in the coming days in exchange for three Israeli captives as part of the ceasefire deal.

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But the next day – January 16, three days before the ceasefire took effect – Israeli soldiers raided Alyeean’s home in Bethlehem and abducted his 22-year-old son, Adam, who was supposed to sit university exams in the coming days.

“They took him for no reason,” Alyeean, 60, told Al Jazeera over the phone. “There was no way to defend him or my family.

“We are not saboteurs,” he said, meaning they were not resisting or causing unrest.

Since the announcement of the Gaza ceasefire, Israel has arrested at least 95 Palestinians in raids and at checkpoints for no clear reasons across the West Bank, according to Jenna Abu Hasna, a researcher with Addameer, a Palestinian civil society organisation monitoring arrests and detentions in the occupied territory.

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Many of them were arrested in the few days around the onset of the ceasefire which took effect on January 19.

The mass incarceration of Palestinians is just one feature of Israel’s illegal occupation of the West Bank, which also involves expanding illegal Israeli settlements and the mass killing, injuring and dispossession of civilians, according to rights groups and prisoners’ families.

“The situation we are living through is really difficult right now. We are treated as slaves … or even less than slaves,” said Alyeean, from his home.

Tool of repression

Since Israel captured and occupied East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, Israel has imprisoned some 800,000 Palestinians across the occupied territory, according to the UN and B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights organisation.

“[Mass incarceration] is part of the apartheid regime,” Sharon Parnes, spokesperson for B’Tselem, told Al Jazeera.

“It is part of trying to make Palestinian life miserable in order to make them want to leave,” he added.

Abuhasna from Addameer also said Israel has a track record of rearresting dozens – sometimes hundreds – of Palestinians who have been released in “captive deals”.  Sometimes this happens straight after a deal is actioned, sometimes months or even years later.

She referenced the captive deal for the return of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who had been captured by Hamas during a cross-border raid and brought back to Gaza in 2005.

Five years later, Shalit was finally released in exchange for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners, including Yahya Sinwar who helped orchestrate the October 7 attacks and who Israel killed in Gaza in October last year.

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Three years later, Israel raided homes and rearrested dozens of Palestinians who had been released in the Shalit deal for no obvious reason.

Furthermore, Israel has arrested and rearrested hundreds of people in the West Bank since it struck a captive deal with Hamas during a temporary ceasefire between the two warring parties in November 2023, said Abuhasna.

“The tactic of detaining Palestinians, even during an agreement or when a prisoner exchange is occurring is nothing new,” she told Al Jazeera.

“[The Israeli] occupation continues to detain Palestinians during the same day when prisoners are released and sometimes days or years after because that is what an occupation does: It violates international law,” she added.

A revolving door

Despite the recent arrests, many Palestinian families have been able to welcome loved ones back home after the latest captive exchange on January 20.

Mohamed Amro, a 55-year-old father of seven who lives in Hebron, said he was finally reunited with his 23-year-old daughter, Janin, who had been abducted in the middle of the night from the family’s home during an Israeli raid on December 3, 2023 – less than two months after the start of the war on Gaza.

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He still recalls the events of that harrowing night, which have become a common experience for many Palestinians living under occupation in the West Bank.

“The occupation soldiers broke down the door and stormed in and then abducted her from her bed,” Amro told Al Jazeera.

Janin was held in administrative detention, a process inherited from the United Kingdom’s colonial mandate in Palestine which lasted from 1920 until 1948. During that time, the UK often jailed Palestinian critics and resistance fighters without reason and without trial and on secret charges.

When Israel gained statehood after expelling Palestinians from their land in 1948 – an event referred to as the Nakba, or “catastrophe” – it integrated this process in order to try Palestinians in military courts rather than civilian courts where Israelis are tried.

Amro said his daughter still does not know of any charges brought against her and says she was subjected to extreme mistreatment in prison. “From the day she was taken until the day she was released, Janin slept and woke up on the cold floor every night. Her room was also really freezing … and she was constantly scared,” he said.

Threats and intimidation

Amro was one of hundreds of people waiting out in the cold for about 10 hours in Beitounia, West Bank until Palestinian prisoners from the captive exchange were released.

The prisoners were supposed to be released around 4pm (14:00 GMT) in the late afternoon on January 19, but this was delayed until 2am (00:00 GMT) the next morning. When he finally saw Janin stagger out, he immediately saw that she had lost considerable weight and had dark bags under her eyes from sleep deprivation.

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Amro quickly took his daughter home, so she could rest and finally get a good night’s sleep after spending more than a year in prison.

“She was traumatised,” Amro told Al Jazeera. “She wasn’t able to fully explain how they treated her in prison.”

The next day, Israeli soldiers banged on Amro’s door and warned him not to have a party or celebrate Janin’s release, or else they would arrest her again.

He promised he wouldn’t, but he remains terrified that Israeli soldiers will raid his home again to arrest Janin or one of his other children.

Part of living under occupation, he explained, is realising that your loved ones can be arrested at any time for no obvious reason.

“There is a lot of fear right now because of the escalating situation in the West Bank,” he said, in resignation.

“Every day, the occupation [army] arrests 30 to 40 or even 50 new prisoners.”