Torture, abuse, and contempt for life are not just the norm for Palestinians held within Israel’s prison network; they are also the norm.
According to a report released this week by the non-profit Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHRI) [PDF].
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At least 94 Palestinian prisoners were killed while being held in Israeli custody, according to the report’s PHRI. The authors of the report acknowledge that the actual figure is likely much higher. All those who were killed perished from malnutrition, torture, assault, or willful medical neglect.
A number of human rights organizations have published a number of pieces of evidence of abuse and torture, both domestically and internationally, in the report.
Oneg Ben Dror, one of the report’s authors, told Al Jazeera, “It’s not just far-right national security minister Itamar] Ben-Gvir’s policy; it’s an Israeli policy directed at Palestinians both in Israeli custody and military and civilian deterioration facilities.”
The West Bank resident Abd al-Rahman Mar’i, 33, whose body was a latticework of bruises, contusions, and fractures after his death in Megiddo prison in November 2023, was included in the testimonials]PDF].
Walid Khaled Abdullah Ahmad, 17, from Nablus, was released from prison and returned to his family with next to no muscle or fat on his body despite his family’s claim that he had been an athlete prior to his arrest in September 2024. Walid passed away six months after his arrest, according to a post-mortem report that revealed his condition had “severe and prolonged malnutrition.”
Arafat Hamdan, 25, from Beit Sira, an occupied West Bank villager, spent just two days in military custody before passing away. Arafat, a type 1 diabetic, needed frequent insulin injections to maintain his health. Arafat’s death was the subject of brutal beatings and the withholding of his medication, according to witnesses.
hatred-related systems
According to testimony, official records, and extensive evidence gathered by PHRI and other organizations, there has been a never-before-seen assault campaign against Palestinians detained after Israel’s genocidal war against Gaza.
Since the start of the Gaza War in October 2023, it is thought that Israel has detained more than 18,500 Palestinians. Many of those have been the victims of routine abuse perpetrated by organizations like Human Rights Watch (HRW), B’Tselem (Israel), and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR).
Unknown numbers of people were taken as part of an Israeli policy of enforced disappearances in the first few months of the war, which Israel’s Unlawful Combatants Law legalized, in addition to the thousands whose detention has been documented.
Many of those who disappeared may no longer be alive two years later. “The Israeli military reportedly took hundreds of Palestinians from Gaza, of whom, according to reports, thousands are missing.” Many of them are no longer alive, according to Ben Dror, which raises questions.
Nearly the entire war has been alleged that Israel has been torturing its prisoners, including members of the UN. In its report on the Israeli prison system, B’Tselem outlined the physical, psychological, and sexual abuse perpetrated against Palestinians who were taken into Israeli custody in August 2024.
In blatant violation of international law, both PHRI and HRW have previously investigated the specific acts of the Israeli military against healthcare workers. Among other instances of brutal treatment were threats to cut off prisoners’ hands because they were “dentists,” and forcing doctors to bray like donkeys.
Israel has previously stated that it treats Palestinian prisoners in accordance with international law.
System of denial
Ben Dror’s account of the gang rape of a Palestinian man in the Sde Teiman military prison in July 2024, whose prosecution, if not actual murder, has divided Israeli society, is “the only case that has reached the Israeli public, but we are aware of many more.”
Delegates to a public hospital where a large number of people became aware of the case, “Sde Teiman was only reported because the injuries were so extensive,” she continued.
Israel hasn’t received much attention from any other reports of rape and sexual abuse committed against Palestinian prisoners, including the suspected, ultimately fatal, rape of Dr. Adnan al-Bursh in the Ofer prison in March 2024.
Instead, Israeli politicians who are in charge of the country’s prison system are self-assured enough to boast about ensuring that prisoners’ food is only served when they are “minimum of the minimum,” in contrast to a report released in July from the Palestinian rights organization Addameer that documented what researchers called the deliberate and drastic reduction in the amount of food and water given to prisoners.
According to Israeli political analyst Nimrod Flaschenberg, who refers to the well-known liberal Israeli news outlet Haaretz, “Haaretz tends to cover these things, but that’s about it.” However, if I examine the coverage provided for this most recent [PHRI] report, nothing is missing. That’s it, though, because a few individual leftist websites may have picked it up.
“People simply don’t know,” he said. He continued, “I’m not saying there would be a great moral outcry, but there would be something there,” he continued. “For the moment, statements like those made by Ben-Gvir about prison conditions are common. If they weren’t, he wouldn’t say them.
However, in spite of the mounting allegations of abuse in Israel’s prison networks, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz extended the restriction on inspection of its prisons until late October.
