The allegations are serious: Palestinian ex-prisoners describe violence and humiliation in Israeli prisons. A spokeswoman denies this, but confirms that the conditions are more severe.
A human rights organization accuses Israel of systematically torturing Palestinian prisoners in its prisons. The Israeli organization Betselem has collected testimonies from 55 Palestinian ex-prisoners in a report entitled “Welcome to Hell.” Some of these describe severe abuse and violence. According to information from Betselem, more than 9,600 Palestinians were recently held in Israeli prisons, about half of them without official charges.
The Israeli military is currently investigating allegations of severe sexual abuse of a Palestinian terrorist by soldiers in the Sde Teiman military camp in southern Israel. The UN Human Rights Office recently reported that at least 53 people had died in Israeli custody.
“The testimonies reveal the results of the hasty transformation of more than a dozen prison facilities – military and civilian – into a network of camps dedicated to the targeted abuse of inmates,” Betselem wrote in the report. “Facilities in which each inmate is deliberately subjected to severe, unremitting pain and suffering function de facto as torture camps.”
“The abuse, consistently described in testimonies from dozens of individuals detained in various facilities, was so systematic that it is undoubtedly an organized, declared policy of the Israeli Prison Authority,” Betselem wrote. This policy was implemented under the orders of the far-right Police Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and with the full support of the Israeli government and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The unprecedented terrorist attack by the Islamist Hamas and other Palestinian groups on Israel on October 7 deeply traumatized Israeli society and “awakened deep-seated fears and an instinct for revenge in many,” Betselem wrote. The right-wing religious government used this to “further implement its racist ideology by using the repressive mechanisms at its disposal.”
Betselem is a donation-funded Israeli human rights group that campaigns against the occupation of the Palestinian territories and for equal rights for Jews and Palestinians.
An Israeli army spokesman said the allegations were being investigated. A spokeswoman for the Israeli prison authority said all prisoners were being held in accordance with the law and their basic rights were being upheld. Betselem’s allegations had not been officially communicated to the authority, “and to our knowledge they have no basis whatsoever.” She also pointed out that since the start of the Gaza war ten months ago, the conditions of so-called security prisoners had been made more stringent on Ben-Gvir’s orders.
Source: Stern
I have been working in the news industry for over 6 years, first as a reporter and now as an editor. I have covered politics extensively, and my work has appeared in major newspapers and online news outlets around the world. In addition to my writing, I also contribute regularly to 24 Hours World.
