Widespread torture in Israeli prisons

3 min read EUGENIO GARCIA GASCON 0 comments

EUGENIO GARCIA GASCON

The number of Palestinians killed in Israeli prisons between October 7, 2023 and January 2026 has risen to 84, an alarming figure that is difficult to explain without considering the torture and systematic abuses committed by prison guards and Shin Bet agents against prisoners, a situation that Palestinians continually denounce without anyone listening to them.

This is further compounded by the fact that Israeli authorities have completely banned visits to prisons by employees of the International Committee of the Red Cross, a circumstance that exacerbates the prisoners' vulnerability. Although there have been petitions to compel Israel to allow these visits, the Supreme Court has yet to rule on the matter.

It should be noted that the reports prepared by the International Committee of the Red Cross are confidential and secret. Although the country involved, in this case Israel, receives a copy, the reports are not made public, so in practice they only have the significance that Israel gives them, which is none. Thus, the reports of the International Committee serve no purpose other than to assuage the consciences of Western powers, but they are ultimately useless.

This January, two reports were published confirming the routine nature of torture by soldiers, prison officials, and Shin Bet agents. The first, produced by the Israeli and Jewish human rights organization B'Tselem, is devastating, while the second, an internal report by an official oversight agency, confirms the worst fears.

Currently, the prisons hold around 9.000 Palestinian “security prisoners,” the vast majority of whom have not been tried. A significant number of them were arrested after October 2023 and are considered “illegal combatants,” a classification not recognized by international law, which deprives them of the rights afforded to prisoners of war or common criminals, at least in theory.

Specifically, B'Tselem's latest report describes as "inhuman" the conditions in which prisoners live in the Rakefet wing of Ayalon prison, an underground sector, i.e., without sunlight, which was closed in the 1980s after a noisy international campaign, but has been reopened following instructions from the Minister for National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir.

The Israeli Jewish NGO Physicians for Human Rights has compiled data indicating that 67 percent of the prisoners interviewed experienced at least one serious incident of violence in prison before their release. Testimonies indicate that detainees frequently suffer sexual or other forms of violence, with authorities taking no action to investigate or punish the abuses committed by Shin Bet agents, soldiers, and prison officials.

Other prisoners have stated that they are sometimes denied access to drinking water, a fact also documented in a second report by the Public Defender's Office, an official Israeli agency. The reported torture methods encompass a wide range of practices common in prisons, including food deprivation, extreme living conditions, denial of medical care, and sexual violence.

The B'Tselem report notes that although what is happening is well known both inside and outside Israel, international authorities neither intervene nor denounce the events. It mentions, among others, the testimony of Mohammad Abu Tawila, 35, now released, who stated that during his interrogation, soldiers extinguished cigarettes on his body, burned his back with a lighter, and poured acid on him.

Mohammad Abu Foul, who has since been released from prison, lost his sight due to torture at the makeshift prison in Sde Teyman, in the Negev Desert. Video footage documented the rape of a prisoner at this facility by several soldiers who violently inserted a metal object into his anus.

The Public Defender's Office report reveals that its inspectors visited some prisons in 2024, though not the worst, and documented the presence of emaciated prisoners and acts amounting to torture. This report remained secret by order of the Minister of Justice until a court mandated its release this January.

Israeli inspectors described the prisoners' conditions as "unfit for human beings" and denounced that the prisoners suffer "unnecessary and unjustified violence" "routinely and on numerous occasions," even calling it "sadism" in certain cases.