Warning: This article contains details that may be distressing to some readers.
According to Israel’s foremost human rights organization, conditions within Israeli prisons holding Palestinian detainees equate to torture. B’tselem’s report, titled “Welcome to Hell,” presents harrowing testimonies from 55 recently released Palestinian detainees, indicating a severe deterioration in prison conditions since the onset of the Gaza conflict 10 months ago. This report follows a recent UN investigation revealing shocking claims of abuse against Palestinian prisoners.
B’tselem highlights the alarming consistency in the detainees’ accounts. Yuli Novak, the executive director of B’tselem, states, “The reports are uniform in their depiction of persistent abuse, daily violence, physical and psychological torment, humiliation, sleep deprivation, and starvation.”
Novak’s assessment is severe: “The Israeli prison system, in relation to Palestinians, has effectively become a network of torture facilities.”
‘Overcrowded, unsanitary conditions’
Since the devastating Hamas attacks on October 7, which resulted in the deaths of approximately 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals, the number of Palestinian detainees has surged to around 10,000. Israel’s prisons, managed by both military and civilian authorities, are now overwhelmed. Facilities are packed, with many cells intended for six individuals accommodating a dozen or more.
The report from B’tselem describes overcrowded, unsanitary cells where prisoners sometimes have to sleep on the floor without mattresses or blankets. Some detainees were captured immediately after the Hamas attacks, others during Israel’s subsequent invasion of Gaza, or were arrested in Israel or the occupied West Bank. Many of these detainees have been released without facing formal charges.
Firas Hassan was already in detention as of October, held under “administrative detention”—a policy predominantly applied to Palestinians—which allows for indefinite detention without formal charges. Israel maintains that this measure is essential and in line with international law.
Firas, reflecting on his experience during a meeting in Tuqu’, a village south of Bethlehem, described the situation as a dramatic shift: “Life totally changed. I refer to what happened as a tsunami.”
Hassan, who has faced incarceration since the early 1990s and has been charged twice with membership in the Palestinian Islamic Jihad—a group labeled as a terrorist organization by Israel and much of the international community—was accustomed to prison life. However, nothing had prepared him for the conditions that emerged following October 7.
He recounted a harrowing experience from two days after the attacks: “We were brutally beaten by 20 officers—masked individuals wielding batons, sticks, and accompanied by dogs and firearms. We were restrained, blindfolded, and severely beaten. Blood was pouring from my face, and the beating continued for 50 minutes. I could see through the blindfold that they were filming the abuse.”
Firas was released without charge in April, having lost around 20 kilograms (3 stone) during his detention. A video taken on his release shows his visibly emaciated condition. Reflecting on his past 13 years in prison, he told B’tselem researchers, “I have never endured anything like this before.”
But the allegations of abuse in Israeli prisons extend beyond Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank.
Israeli citizens, including Sari Khourieh, an Israeli Arab lawyer from Haifa, also report experiencing mistreatment. Khourieh was detained for 10 days at Megiddo Prison in northern Israel last November, accused by the police of glorifying Hamas in two Facebook posts—a charge that was quickly dismissed.
Khourieh’s first-time experience in prison nearly shattered him. “They just lost their minds,” he describes, referring to the chaos he witnessed at Megiddo. “There was no law. There was no order inside.”
Although Khourieh claims he was not subjected to the worst abuses, he was deeply disturbed by the harsh treatment of other inmates. “They were being beaten severely without reason,” he recounts. “The detainees were shouting, ‘We didn’t do anything. You don’t need to hit us.’”
Conversations with fellow prisoners revealed that conditions had deteriorated significantly since October 7. Khourieh learned that while mistreatment was not uncommon before this date, it had become far worse since.
During a brief stay in a section of isolation cells known among prisoners as Tora Bora—named after al-Qaeda’s cave network in Afghanistan—Khourieh heard a prisoner in an adjacent cell pleading for medical assistance. Despite attempts by doctors to revive him, the inmate died shortly afterward.
According to a UN report released last week, “announcements by the Israel Prison Service (IPS) and prisoner organizations reveal that 17 Palestinians have died in IPS custody between October 7 and May 15.” Additionally, on May 26, Israel’s military advocate announced an investigation into the deaths of 35 Gaza detainees held by the army.
Several months after his release—again, without charge—Sari Khourieh is still grappling with the experiences he encountered at Megiddo Prison. “I’m an Israeli…I’m a lawyer,” he reflects. “I’ve seen the world outside the prison. Now I’m inside, and I see another world.” His belief in citizenship and the rule of law has been deeply shaken. “It was all crushed after this experience,” he says.
We presented these claims of widespread mistreatment of Palestinian detainees to the relevant authorities. The army responded by “outright rejecting allegations of systematic abuse of detainees,” stating that “concrete complaints regarding misconduct or unsatisfactory conditions of detention are forwarded to the relevant IDF bodies and addressed appropriately.” Meanwhile, the prison service claimed it “was not aware of the incidents described and, to the best of our knowledge, no such events have occurred.”
Since 7 October, Israel has refused to grant the International Committee of the Red Cross access to Palestinian detainees, as international law requires.
No explanation has been given for this refusal, but the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has frequently expressed its frustration over the ICRC’s failure to gain access to Israeli and other hostages being held in Gaza.
The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) has accused the government of “consciously defying international law”.
Last week, the treatment of Palestinian prisoners ignited a furious public row, as far right demonstrators – including members of Israel’s parliament – violently tried to prevent the arrest of soldiers accused of sexually abusing a prisoner from Gaza at the Sde Teiman military base.
Some of those protesting were followers of Israel’s hardline security minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, the man in overall charge of the prison service.
Mr Ben Gvir has frequently boasted that under his watch, conditions for Palestinian detainees have deteriorated sharply.
“I’m proud that during my time we changed all the conditions,” he told members of Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, during a rowdy session in July.
For B’Tselem, Mr Ben Gvir bears a heavy responsibility for the abuses now being reported.
“These systems were put in the hands of the most right wing, most racist minister that Israel ever had,” Yuli Novak told us.
For her, Israel’s treatment of prisoners, in the wake of the traumatic events of 7 October, is a dangerous indicator of the nation’s moral decline.
“The trauma and anxiety walks with us each and every day,” she says.
“But to let this thing turn us into something that it not human, that doesn’t see people, I think is tragic.”
