OCCUIED PALESTINE — While the world has been calling for the release of Israeli captives held in Gaza over the past 20 months, more than 10,800 Palestinians, including children, women, and journalists, are being held in Israeli jails, amid reports of torture and medical negligence.
According to the latest update issued on July 8 by Palestinian prisoners’ advocacy groups, from October 2023, when Israel launched its assault on Gaza, to this date, the number of Palestinian hostages doubled, rising from 5,000 to around 10,800.
According to the Palestinian Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Priosner’s Society (PPS), since 1967, Israeli forces have detained an estimated one million Palestinians, or approximately 20 percent of the Palestinian population. Statistically, this means one out of every five Palestinians has been imprisoned at some point in their life.
Administrative Detention
The groups said they have documented a “dangerous increase” in the number of Palestinians held under administrative detention in Israeli prisons.
The latest figure of administrative detainees as of the beginning of July stands at 3,629 people, which the monitor said is the highest number recorded since this type of detention began being used on a wide scale.
Israel routinely uses administrative detention and has, over the years, placed thousands of Palestinians behind bars for periods ranging from several months to several years, without charging them, without telling them what they are accused of, and without disclosing the alleged evidence to them or their lawyers.
According to Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Western states rarely employ administrative detention and in some countries, the practice does not exist at all. Israeli occupation authorities use it mainly in the West Bank against Palestinians “while its use against Israeli citizens, particularly Jewish ones, is rarely employed.”
Silent Death
According to the Palestinian Prisoner advocacy groups, 73 known detainees have died in Israeli prisons since the start of the Israeli genocide in Gaza. Among them are at least 45 detainees from Gaza and a child, the highest number in history.
Since 1967, a total of 310 Palestinian prisoners have died in Israeli occupation prisons. The group said the identities of many martyrs among Gaza’s detainees remain undisclosed, as the Israeli occupation continues to conceal them, making this the “bloodiest stage in the history of the prisoner movement.”
Of those, Israel continues to withhold the bodies of 81 detainees, including those who died since the start of the Israeli assault. Additionally, dozens of detainees from Gaza remain forcibly disappeared, with no confirmed information on their fate.
Israeli occupation authorities have been accused of torturing Palestinian detainees. This includes being handcuffed and shackled 24 hours a day, seven days a week, even while sleeping, eating, and using the restroom.
Testimonies also describe regular beatings by guards, extreme overcrowding, humiliation, and inadequate hygiene.
An Israeli reserve soldier exposed lately shocking abuses at Israel’s infamous Sde Teiman military base, describing it as a “sadistic torture site” where dozens of Palestinian detainees from Gaza died under brutal conditions.
The soldier described Sde Teiman as a place where “people enter alive and leave in body bags.” He said the death of detainees was no longer surprising. “The real surprise,” he added, “is if someone survives.”
He stated that Israeli occupation authorities oversee systematic abuse.
According to his account, Palestinian detainees suffered starvation, untreated war wounds, and denial of basic hygiene needs. “Some urinated and defecated on themselves because they weren’t allowed to use the bathroom,” he said.
In August 2024, the Israeli rights group B’Tselem accused Israeli occupation authorities of systematically abusing Palestinians in “torture camps”, subjecting them to severe violence and sexual assault.
Its report, titled “Welcome to Hell”, is based on 55 testimonies from former detainees from the Gaza Strip, the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem, and citizens of Israel. The overwhelming majority of these detainees were held without trial.
According to the Palestine Center for Prisoners Studies, more than half of the Palestinian prisoners who have died since October 2023, were killed primarily as a result of torture and abuse.
Due to the sharp rise in arrests, particularly among Gazans, Israel has opened new detention and interrogation centers operated directly by its military. According to the Center, these facilities have become sites of “systematic torture and mistreatment, in clear violation of international law and human rights.”
The center also revealed that Israel has officially acknowledged the deaths of 37 detainees in Sde Teiman detention center since October 2023, though this number is likely only a fraction of the true toll.
Many prisoners from Gaza have been subjected to forced disappearance and held incommunicado under inhumane conditions, creating an environment where extrajudicial killings can occur without oversight or accountability.
In addition to torture, the center documented 29 deaths resulting from medical negligence. Israel is reported to routinely deny prisoners access to basic medical care, holding them in unsanitary, disease-ridden conditions and delaying or outright refusing necessary treatment for extended periods.
In many cases, prisoners are only transferred to hospitals when they are on the brink of death.
“Unlawful Combatants”
The Israeli occupation forces have abducted more than 2000 known Gazans during the ongoing genocide, a number that is likely even higher, and are holding them in indefinite incommunicado detention, without charge or trial, under the Unlawful Combatants Law, in clear violation of international law.
There are currently 2,454 detainees classified as “unlawful combatants”, the highest recorded since the start of the genocide, the advocacy groups said. This figure does not include all Gazan hostages abducted during the genocide and currently held in detention camps run by the Israeli army. The groups noted that this classification also applies to Arab detainees from Lebanon and Syria.
According to Amnesty International, citing former detainees, during their incommunicado detention, which in some cases amounted to enforced disappearance, Israeli military, intelligence and police forces subjected them to torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.
The Unlawful Combatants Law grants the Israeli military sweeping powers to detain anyone from Gaza that they suspect of engaging in attacks against Israel or posing a threat to state security for indefinitely renewable periods without having to produce evidence to substantiate the claims.
“Our documentation illustrates how the Israeli authorities are using the Unlawful Combatants Law to arbitrarily round up Palestinian civilians from Gaza and toss them into a virtual black hole for prolonged periods without producing any evidence that they pose a security threat and without minimum due process. Israeli authorities must immediately repeal this law and release those arbitrarily detained under it,” Amnesty International said.
Israeli forces abducted the detainees from locations across Gaza including Gaza City, Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Khan Younis. The detainees were rounded up at schools housing internally displaced families, during raids on homes, hospitals, and newly installed checkpoints. They were then moved to Israel.
Those detained included doctors taken into custody at hospitals for refusing to abandon their patients; mothers separated from their infants while trying to cross the so-called “safe corridor” from northern Gaza to the south; human rights defenders, UN workers, journalists and other civilians.
One of the most well-known cases is that of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the Director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, who has been imprisoned by Israeli forces for over 180 days, sparking growing fears that he may not “make it out alive.” His family is also concerned for his physical and mental health.
Israeli forces kidnapped Dr. Abu Safiya in December 2024 after storming Kamal Adwan Hospital. Soldiers forced him out at gunpoint, destroying the hospital and putting it out of service. Surrounded by bomb-struck buildings, Abu Safiya walked down the middle of a road strewn with debris, his white medical coat standing out against the rubble as he made his way toward Israeli tanks.
The Israeli military claimed in January that Abu Safiya had been involved “in terrorist activities” and held “a rank” in Hamas that it said had made the Kamal Adwan Hospital a stronghold during the war.
In March, an Israeli court extended the detention of Abu Safiya for six months. The ruling classified him as an “unlawful combatant”.
But according to the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, no formal charges had been made against the hospital director. A spokesperson for the Al Mezan Center said recently that Abu Safiya is still being detained in Ofer Prison in the occupied West Bank, where he faced dire conditions, inadequate food and overcrowded cells.
Underground Cells?
Video clips released by Israeli media in January showed Palestinian detainees chained inside underground cells without mattresses or blankets, enclosed by iron gates, and not exposed to sunlight. The Israeli Broadcasting Authority reported that detainees are shackled and kept in a tiny cell for twenty-three hours every day, with only one chance to leave the cell during the day to enter a tiny, dark courtyard. The underground prison is called Rakevet, located beneath Israel’s Nitzan Prison in Ramleh.
Israel claims that the prison is reserved for the most dangerous detainees, whom Israel says are members of the Hamas elite and the Hezbollah-affiliated Radwan Forces. Euro-Med Monitor said this claim “does not excuse the violation of international law’s regulations regarding the treatment of detainees and prisoners.”
“This claim is untrue and frequently used as a pretext for torture and retaliation, as evidenced by the fact that thousands of detainees from the Gaza Strip were released after being subjected to cruel torture and unlawful detention conditions under the pretext of elite membership.”
In March, the Commission for Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society revealed disturbing testimonies from detainees from Gaza.
Testimonies were collected during the first legal visits conducted by Palestinian lawyers to detainees held in the secret underground prison, Rakevet. The visits took place under extreme surveillance, with guards accompanying the lawyers at all times and prohibiting any mention of family or events outside the prison.
According to lawyers, detainees showed visible signs of fear and trauma. At first, many were unable to speak freely due to the heavy surveillance, however, after reassurances from the legal teams, some agreed to share their experiences.
One detainee, identified as S.J., said he was arrested in December 2023 and immediately subjected to six days of continuous interrogation under what he called the “disco” and “pampers” methods, references used by detainees for particularly humiliating techniques.
He described being forced to wear adult diapers after being denied access to a bathroom, while enduring continuous loud music, severe food and water deprivation, and being kept blindfolded and handcuffed throughout.
S.J. was then transferred multiple times, from the Sde Teiman to Ashkelon Prison, then to the Moscobiya detention centre for 85 days, followed by Ofer Prison, and finally to the Rakevet section. He said the conditions in Rakevet were the worst he experienced with three detainees per cell, no sunlight, and humiliating exercise time where prisoners were not allowed to lift their heads.
Another detainee, W.N., said he was arrested in December 2024 and endured violent interrogations by Israeli forces and intelligence operatives. He reported being sexually assaulted with a search device, denied medical treatment, and forced to sit on his knees for long periods. Prisoners were made to curse their own mothers, he added, and he sustained a broken finger during transport, a tactic he said guards deliberately use against detainees.
A third detainee, K.D., said he was subjected to repeated interrogations using the “disco” method and stress positions, often tied to a chair for long hours or thrown to the floor, while loud music played continuously, making it impossible to rest or sleep.
He developed scabies in Ofer Prison and received no treatment after being transferred to the Rakevet. He suffer from chest pain made worse by the use of tight restraints and said the prison administration punishes inmates by deliberately breaking their thumbs.
Another detainee, A.G., held for 35 days at Sde Teiman, said he entered prison with an injury and received no medical care.
He developed a high fever and lost consciousness several times. For 15 days, he was shackled and blindfolded around the clock. Later transferred to Rakevet, he described permanent surveillance in cells, bans on prayer, threats of death, and violent assaults during yard time.
The prisoners were allowed to shower only when guards decided, and were given one roll of toilet paper every three days. Food is minimal, and detainees track time by when guards confiscate blankets at dawn.
The two advocacy groups said that Rakevet was one of several facilities repurposed or reopened by Israel to hold Gaza detainees since the start of the Gaza war. Other facilities include Sde Teiman, Anatot, Ofer camp, and the Menashe camp for West Bank detainees.
These sites, they said, have become synonymous with “instantaneous, systematic physical and psychological torture”.
Freedom for Some, Silence for Others
While the world has been calling for the release of Israeli captives held in Gaza over the past 20 months, it remains largely silent about the more than 10,800 Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli jails.
After Hamas and Israel reached an agreement in January, 1,777 Palestinian prisoners, who spent a total time amounting to about 10,000 years in Israeli prisons, were released.
However, Israeli forces have re-arrested several of them. Under the terms of the Gaza ceasefire agreement, which Israel later reneged on when it resumed assault on Gaza, the released Palestinians were not to be re-arrested on the same charges for which they had previously been imprisoned. Rights advocates say Israel’s actions breach terms of the deal. — QNN
