Palestinian ex-prisoners in Israeli prisons are reporting widespread abuse and torture, according to the accounts of those who managed to escape.
Publication of the Guardian records a painful reality through interviews with former prisoners, who were arrested after October 7, 2023.
According to the report, the abuse of prisoners is so systemic that the rights group B’Tselem (Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories) notes that it should be considered a policy of “institutionalized abuse.”
B’tselem’s report, “Welcome to Hell, the Israeli Prison System as a Network of Torture Camps,” contains testimonies from 55 recently released Palestinian prisoners, who describe a dramatic deterioration of prison conditions since the start of the war in Gaza 10 months ago.
“When we started the investigation, we thought we would find isolated incidents and rare extreme cases, but the picture that has emerged is completely different,” said Yuli Novak, the agency’s executive director.
“We were overwhelmed by the scale of what we heard. It is uncomfortable as a non-profit organization based in Jerusalem to say that Israel runs concentration camps. But we realized that’s what it’s all about.”
The Israel Prison Service (IPS) said it operated in accordance with the law and under the supervision of the state auditor. “We are not aware of the allegations you have described and, to our knowledge, no such events have occurred under the responsibility of IPS,” it said in a statement. IPS also claimed that several petitions on detention conditions filed by human rights organizations had been dismissed by the Supreme Court.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it “categorically rejects allegations of systematic abuse of detainees in detention facilities” and that guards are acting “in accordance with international law”. Allegations of abuse were thoroughly investigated, a statement said. Conditions for prisoners had improved significantly during the war, they added.
There have been many reports of arbitrary, cruel and degrading treatment of Palestinian prisoners since the October 7 Hamas attack, the only information that has come to light about conditions inside the prisons, as Israel has denied access to lawyers, family members of prisoners and Red Cross inspectors.
At least 60 people have died in Israeli custody since the war broke out in Gaza, compared to two deaths recorded the previous year, according to the Guardian report.
“They were filming us while they were beating us”
One former detainee, Hassan, reported seeing with his own eyes how conditions rapidly deteriorated after 7 October. “Life changed completely,” he said.
Hassan has been in and out of prison since the early 1990s, charged twice with involvement in Palestinian Islamic Jihad. He does not hide his previous participation, saying that he was “active”.
Accustomed to the rigors of prison life, he said nothing prepared him for what happened when officers entered his cell two days after October 7.
“We were brutally beaten by 20 masked policemen using globes, sticks, dogs and guns,” he said. “They tied us up, blindfolded us and beat us severely. Blood was pouring from my face. They kept hitting us for 50 minutes. I saw them under the blindfold. They were filming us while they were beating us.”
Hassan was finally released without charge in April, at which time he said he had lost 20 kilograms. A video taken on the day of his release shows an emaciated figure.
“I spent 13 years in prison before,” he told B’tselem investigators later that month, “and I’ve never experienced anything like this.”
“There was no law”
However, it is not just Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank who are speaking out about the horrors in Israeli prisons. Israeli citizens such as Shari Kurieh, a lawyer from Haifa, also witnessed the violence.
Kurie was held in Megiddo prison in northern Israel for just 10 days last November. Police said two of his Facebook posts had glorified the actions of Hamas – a charge that was quickly dismissed.
But his brief experience in prison – his first – nearly broke him. “They lost their minds,” he said, describing the scenes he witnessed. “There was no law. There was no order.”
He said he escaped the worst. But, he claimed, he was stunned by the treatment of his fellow prisoners. “They were being beaten badly for no reason,” he said. “They were shouting ‘we didn’t do anything.’ You don’t need to hit us.” Talking to other inmates, he quickly learned that what he was seeing was not normal.
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