Overnight raids carried out by the Israeli army across the occupied West Bank early Wednesday led to the arrest of five female Palestinian activists all affiliated with local Palestinian health committees, alongside 15 additional Palestinian detainees. The arrests mark a sharp escalation in ongoing targeting of Palestinian women and healthcare workers under occupation, according to local Palestinian advocacy groups. The five detained women come from three major West Bank governorates: Ramallah-based activists Jamila Abu Dahou and Jamila Kanaan, two Nablus natives — previously released detainee Maysar al-Faqih and 26-year-old accountant Faten Hanaysheh — and 66-year-old Etaf Bader from Hebron. All five have ties to the Health Work Committees, a leading Palestinian health and community development organization. Family members of the detainees have detailed the chaotic and aggressive nature of the pre-dawn raids, which left children traumatized and violated basic cultural norms for several of the arrested women. Etaf Bader, a 20-year veteran of the Health Work Committees’ administrative board who has spent decades leading family support and women’s empowerment initiatives, was taken from her family home in Hebron. Her husband Abdul Rahman Bader recounted to Middle East Eye that Israeli soldiers forced their way into the property, demanded his wife’s identification, and took her into custody without disclosing any charges. Soldiers handcuffed and blindfolded Bader, searched the home’s rooms and storage, and transported her to an undisclosed location. “We don’t know where she was taken, and we hope the arrest is temporary and for questioning only,” Abdul Rahman Bader said. In Nablus, 61-year-old Maysar al-Faqih — who had already spent four months in Israeli administrative detention two years earlier and stepped back from women’s rights activism after her release to avoid re-arrest — was seized during a 2:30 a.m. raid on her family home. Al-Faqih’s three married daughters were visiting with their children at the time, and the young kids were roused from sleep by the soldiers’ shouting and aggressive entry into the home. Wael Abu al-Saba, Maysar’s husband, told reporters that Israeli forces acted brutally during the incursion, frightening the children, seized al-Faqih’s mobile phone, and took her into custody after restraining her. The most high-profile incident of cultural disrespect during the raids was documented in the arrest of Faten Hanaysheh, the 26-year-old accountant with the Health Work Committees. Israeli forces first searched for Hanaysheh at her brother’s home in the village of Beit Dajan, east of Nablus, before surrounding her father’s home in the village center and pounding violently on the entry door. When the family opened the door, soldiers immediately announced they intended to arrest Hanaysheh, who was wearing only pajamas. Hanaysheh’s father Murad told reporters he begged soldiers to allow his daughter time to change into street clothes, a request that aligns with basic Islamic cultural norms for modesty. Soldiers refused his request, pushed him back repeatedly, slammed the home door shut, and dragged Hanaysheh away in handcuffs to an undisclosed location. Hours after her arrest, Hanaysheh was able to contact her family to confirm she was being held at the Salem Detention Centre and would face interrogation by Israeli intelligence. Murad Hanaysheh also added that Israeli forces had raided his daughter’s office at the Health Work Committees Nablus headquarters just two weeks prior, seizing work-related documents and her work laptop. In a formal statement following the arrests, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club outlined that Palestinian women have faced a steadily rising tide of targeting as part of Israel’s broad arrest campaigns across the West Bank. Tactics used against detained women include night home raids, hostage detention, aggressive interrogation methods, and growing numbers of arrests based on Israeli allegations of “incitement” on social media platforms. Following Wednesday’s arrests, the total number of Palestinian women held in Israeli detention facilities now stands at 99, the organization confirmed. The statement also added that daily Israeli arrest raids across the West Bank are part of a deliberate, systemic state policy. Since the outbreak of the 2023 Israel-Hamas war, the total number of Palestinians arrested by Israeli forces in the occupied territories has surpassed 24,000. The arrests of the five female health activists come on the heels of two recent high-profile detentions of senior Palestinian medical workers: 71-year-old Dr. Mazen al-Rantisi, arrested during a home raid in Ramallah last week, and 63-year-old Dr. Khaled Ayash, taken into custody days later from his home in Biddu, a town northwest of Jerusalem. The Palestinian NGO Network has condemned this string of arrests, framing them as a deliberate attack on core Palestinian civil society and health infrastructure. In a formal statement, the network called on the international community to ramp up pressure on the Israeli occupation to end the targeting of Palestinian doctors, health workers and humanitarian organizations. The group also demanded the activation of international accountability mechanisms to secure the release of all detained Palestinian health personnel. The network emphasized that these arrests constitute a clear violation of international humanitarian law, and represent an expansion of the occupation’s long-running campaign to dismantle Palestinian health systems across both the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Amid the ongoing war in Gaza, widespread destruction of health infrastructure, and state-led policies of forced displacement, these arrests further block Palestinian civilians from accessing life-saving medical care, the statement added.