We keep the record, and we ask for a lawyer.
Palestine Defense Force is a legal-defense desk. It follows Palestinians held by Israel and the communities facing its orders, explains the laws used against them, and points people to the lawyers and rights groups who can act.
The name is about defense in the sense a court uses it: the side that answers the charge. Most of the people on our docket never meet a charge to answer. They are held on a secret file, or held outside any court at all. Defending them starts with saying they are there.
So the first thing on our front page is a count: every person held, grouped by the law that holds them. The bracket around each group in our mark and on our pages is the process that law allows. Sentenced people have a closed record. People on remand have an open one. People in administrative detention have only the bracket’s ends: a file that exists and that no one may read. People held as “unlawful combatants” have no bracket at all.
Everything we publish is summarised from sources we link on the same page: rights groups, courts, UN bodies and news outlets. When one outlet carries a story alone, we say so.
Someone you know was arrested tonight?
Write down the time, the place, the unit if you saw it, and the names of everyone taken. Then ask for a lawyer: the first hours decide what the record will say.