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Twenty Palestinian women and a minor are facing systematic abuse from Israeli prison authorities, two Palestinian prisoners' organisations have said on Saturday.

A report by the Commission of Detainees Affairs' and Palestinian Prisoners' Society released a report on the occasion of International Women’s Day on 8 March.

The 21 female prisoners include a three-month pregnant woman, a cancer patient, and a 12-year-old girl.

They also include a woman from Gaza, where a truce deal between Hamas and Israel has seen the Palestinian group release dozens of captives in return for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and detainees, many of them women and minors.

The swap has taken place in stages since the ceasefire came into effect on 19 January, ending 15 months of war since October 2023 which has seen more than 60,000 Palestinians killed, most of them civilians.

Hamas and Israel have failed to agree on a second phase of the deal, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu - wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes in Gaza - is threatening to resume the war.

What was witnessed during the "genocide" in Gaza and continues today in the targeting of women by Israeli forces is not exceptional but a continuation of long-standing practices at varying degrees, the Commission of Detainees Affairs and Palestinian Prisoners' Society said.

Since 7 October 2023 – the start of the Gaza war – 490 arrests among women have been documented. They include arrests in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem, as well as 1948 territories – a term used to refer to Israel – while there is no clear estimate of the number of women arrested from Gaza, the two organisations said.

The abuses they face in prison include torture, starvation, medical negligence, sexual assaults, repeated break-ins into their prison cells, and methods of psychological torture, the organisations added.