Negotiations around the release of Israeli women and children held hostage in the Gaza Strip have centred on an exchange for Palestinian women and minors held in Israeli prisons. The size of that group has grown quickly during the six weeks of war and upheaval since the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, according to a Palestinian prisoners’ rights group.

The group, Addameer, says about 200 boys, most of them teenagers, were in Israeli detention as of this week, along with about 75 women and five teenage girls. Before October 7, about 150 boys and 30 women and girls were in Israeli prisons, it said, and since then, many other detentions have occurred, as well as many releases.

Addameer said that it compiled the figures using data from the Israel Prison Service, which administers the country’s jails, and information from the families of detained people.

Many of the most recent arrests came during raids across the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where protests and violence have surged, including attacks on Palestinians by Israeli settlers. Israel has said that the arrests are part of a counter-terror operation against Hamas in the West Bank.

There are also about 700 people missing from Gaza who are believed to be in Israeli prisons, but information on their whereabouts is murky, said Tala Nasir, a spokesperson for Addameer.

It was not clear how many of those people, if any, were women or minors. The Israeli military has said it has apprehended 300 people in Gaza during the ground invasion who it claimed were connected to armed Palestinian groups.