Palestinians describe increasingly worse abuses in Israeli prisons

The news agency AP has interviewed four recently released prisoners. Everyone can tell of a dramatic deterioration in what they are being exposed to in the overcrowded prisons, where thousands of Palestinian prisoners are crammed together.

The treatment has left deep traces in some of them. A fifth released prisoner, Muazzaz Abayat (37), is too weak to talk in detail about what he has been through. He can only muster the strength to speak for a few minutes after spending six months in the Naqab prison in southern Israel. Here he was regularly beaten, he says.

Once at home in the family’s home outside Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, he hardly manages to leave the armchair he is sitting in.

– At night, he hallucinates and stands in the middle of the room, in shock or while remembering the torment and pain he went through, says his cousin Aya Abayat.

Like many other Palestinians, he was put in so-called administrative detention, which means that the Israeli authorities can keep people imprisoned indefinitely and without law or judgement.

Deliberate deterioration

According to Mohamed al-Salhi, conditions intensified immediately after the 7 October attack. He then served a sentence of 23 years in prison in Jerusalem for having established an armed group. A few days after the attack, guards removed all equipment from the cell he was in, including radios, televisions and textiles. Subsequently, the number of prisoners increased from 6 to 14, and the curtains in the communal showers were removed. Al-Salhi was released in June after completing his sentence.

Israeli officials have acknowledged that the conditions for imprisoned Palestinians have worsened, and that it has happened by design.

It is not possible to independently confirm the Palestinians’ stories, but everyone has similar stories even if they have had no contact during their prison stay. While Abayat can only say a few sentences about what he has experienced, the other four have spoken in depth to AP. One of them asks to remain anonymous for fear of being arrested again.

The stories are consistent with what human rights groups have documented of abuses in Israeli prisons. These have primarily carried out investigations at military prisons, especially at Sde Teiman, the desert base where ten Israeli soldiers were recently arrested on suspicion of raping a Palestinian prisoner.

This is where most of the Palestinians who have been arrested in the Gaza Strip have ended up.

According to the Israeli army, 35 Palestinian prisoners have died in the military-run prison since October. Some of them are said to have been ill or they had injuries as a result of the war. But the military has not wanted to elaborate on the information.

Hundreds moved

Due to demands that Sde Teiman must be closed, the military has moved hundreds of Palestinian prisoners to prisons run by the Ministry of National Security, which is headed by far-right minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. The question is whether there is anything better here.

According to Munthir Amira, a political activist from the West Bank who has been in Ofer prison, prisoners are often beaten by the guards, either as punishment or for no reason.

He says that he and twelve others had to share one cell with only six beds and a few thin blankets. When prisoners went to the toilet, they were handcuffed. Air trips were limited to 15 minutes twice a week.

Amira was held in administrative detention, allegedly because he had published posts on Facebook that were critical of Israel. In the course of three months, he is said to have lost 33 kilos. The reason was minimal food.

Suicide attempt

The poor treatment almost drove some to madness. Amira remembers one day when he and his cellmates looked through the window and discovered that a prisoner was trying to take his own life by jumping from a high fence. They knocked on the door to call for help. But instead, several soldiers with two large dogs entered the cell, where they tied their hands, lined them up in the hallway and beat them, also on the genitals.

He says that when he was first arrested in December, guards ordered him to dress naked and spread his legs. When he refused, he was beaten until he obeyed. During the ensuing interrogation, a guard poked a metal detector at his genitals.

Israel’s Ministry of National Security says in a statement to AP that it is not aware of the abuse allegations from the five released men. Here it is also claimed that they follow all basic rules that apply to prisoners, and that prisoners can submit complaints which they promise will be thoroughly investigated.

But the statement also states that the prison conditions for Palestinian prisoners have been deliberately reduced to a minimum of what the law requires after 7 October. According to the ministry, the aim is to deter the prisoners from committing terrorist acts.

The number of prisoners doubled

Since the war began, the number of imprisoned Palestinians has almost doubled to nearly 10,000, including those captured in the Gaza Strip and thousands arrested in the occupied territories of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The overview comes from HaMoked, an Israeli human rights group that collects figures from the prison authorities.

Among the inmates, some are suspected of belonging to militant groups, others have been arrested in military raids in the West Bank, while a third group are Palestinians who are suspected of attacks against Israeli settlers and soldiers.

Others have apparently been arrested because of critical posts on social media or because they have engaged in activism in the past, according to a report from the UN Human Rights Office.

All four prisoners who have allowed themselves to be interviewed by AP say that hunger was perhaps the most difficult thing to deal with.

The breakfast consisted of 250 grams of yoghurt and a simple tomato or paprika to be shared between five people, says Omar Assaf, who is a retired professor of Arabic. He too has been locked up in Ofer prison and was questioned about his posts on social media.

For lunch and dinner, a half-full cup of rice was distributed to each person, as well as a bowl of soup to share.

Emaciated

Earlier in August, a few Palestinian families gathered outside Ofer prison to wait for relatives to be released. When the gate was opened, several emaciated men appeared, with bushy hair and unruly beard growth. Once outside, they knelt on the ground to pray.

– The taste of freedom is very good, says Mutasim Swalim, who embraces his father and says that he has been locked up for a year as punishment for a post on Facebook.

Others will say nothing.

– I have only been in prison for two months. I don’t want to go back, says another.