A MONTHS-LONG investigation by a human rights group has discovered that Palestinian prisoners have endured systemic abuse and that Israel’s prisons should be labelled “torture camps”.
B’Tselem, a Jerusalem-based non-profit organisation which documents human rights violations in Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, interviewed 55 former prisoners housed in 16 Israeli prison service jails and detention centres.
The group mapped the scale and nature of abuse dealt to Palestinian prisoners at the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) run incarceration sites.
Violence, extreme hunger, humiliation, denial of critical medical care and other abuse was discovered to have been rife throughout the Israeli prisons and detention centres.
The investigation offers a glimpse of what Israel prison conditions are like since journalists, lawyers, family members and Red Cross inspectors have all been locked out from the jails since the October 7 attacks.
Yuli Novak, executive director of B’Tselem, said it may be uncomfortable to say that Israel is running “torture camps” but that’s exactly what is happening.
He said: “When we started the project we thought we would find sporadic evidence and extreme cases here and there, but the picture that has emerged is completely different.
“We were shocked by the scale of what we heard. It is uncomfortable as an Israeli-Palestinian organisation to say Israel is running torture camps. But we realised that is what we are looking at.”
At least 60 people have died in Israeli custody since the start of the war in Gaza, compared to one or two deaths a year previously.
According to B'Tselem and testimony from detainees, the mistreatment of Palestinian prisoners has become an integral part of Israel’s detention system and has been orchestrated by the far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir.
The Guardian also carried out separate interviews with eight detainees and found a similar pattern of abuse which matched those documented by B’Tselem.
The investigation found the majority of people were arrested without charge and released without trial.
Field researchers in Israel and occupied East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza also collected multiple testimonies, medical reports, autopsies and other evidence into the abuse faced by prisoners.
They found consistent and widespread testimony of severe violence, sexual assault, humiliation and degradation, starvation, deliberately unhygienic conditions, overcrowding, denial of medical treatment, prohibitions on religious worship, and denial of legal counsel and family visits.
The Israel Prison Service (IPS) told The Guardian it operated according to the law and under the oversight of the state comptroller.
In a statement it said: “We are not aware of the claims you described and as far as we know, no such events have occurred under IPS responsibility.”
The IPS also claimed that several petitions regarding jail conditions filed by human rights organisations had been rejected by the supreme court.
The IDF also told The Guardian it “rejects outright allegations concerning systematic abuse of detainees in detention facilities” and acts “in accordance with Israeli law and international law”.
In a statement, the IDF also said allegations of abuse were thoroughly examined and conditions for detainees had significantly improved throughout the war.
