18\02\2026 – Union for Justice
The reality of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons is marked by ongoing violations of their human and legal rights, amid systematic policies that affect their lives and dignity within detention centers. These violations range from deliberate medical neglect, solitary confinement, deprivation of food, and restriction of access to basic services, in addition to harsh detention conditions that contravene international standards and the Geneva Conventions, which guarantee the protection of prisoners and their rights. This report aims to document the most prominent practices and existing violations against prisoners, and to present a clear picture based on reliable information regarding their situation, within the framework of enhancing awareness of the humanitarian and legal circumstances they face, and calling for respect for their rights and ensuring their treatment in accordance with international standards.
The Policy of Solitary Confinement
At the end of March/2025, a group of leaders of the prisoners’ movement were transferred from the isolation of (Ramon) Prison to the cells of (Megiddo) Prison, accompanied by assaults and systematic abuse targeting all those who were transferred. Several institutions followed, with extreme caution, the limited information they were able to obtain at the time, fearing an escalation of attacks against them. This came amid tightened restrictions on visits to life-sentenced prisoners and leaders of the prisoners’ movement since the commencement of their isolation and the implementation of systematic retaliatory operations over the past period. Every day that passes for an isolated prisoner since the beginning of the genocide has become a doubled span of time, incomparable to any phase preceding the genocide. Today, the meaning of isolation has assumed a more dangerous level regarding the fate of every prisoner who faces it, in light of the assaults and the state of continuous brutality carried out against them around the clock. Dozens of testimonies have been recorded regarding these assaults, in addition to acts of torture and terror accompanied by explicit threats to several of them of attempts to eliminate them and not allow them to leave captivity alive.
Some legal teams affiliated with human rights institutions were recently able, through visits conducted to a number of them, to confirm that these assaults exceeded the limits of description and imagination. Suppression forces deliberately continue beating them until blood flows from their bodies, and use all types of weapons to assault and abuse them, including batons, boots, as well as police dogs fitted with iron muzzles. Today, the majority of them suffer from injuries and bruises.
On the ninth of September/ 2024, Marwan Barghouti, one of the leaders and symbols of the prisoners’ movement, was subjected to a brutal assault in the isolation cells of Megiddo, which caused him multiple injuries to his body, specifically in the upper part. According to information the lawyer was able to convey, the beating focused on the head, ears, ribs, and limbs, resulting in bleeding from the right ear, a wound to his right arm, and severe pain throughout his body, especially in the ribs, chest, and back. The wound later worsened with the discharge of pus and acute ear infections, and he experienced difficulty moving, as a result of the prison administration’s deliberate denial of medical treatment. Suppression operations against isolated prisoners continue to this day, with human rights institutions prevented from visiting them and obtaining accurate information about their health conditions.
The Policy of Execution Against Palestinian Prisoners
Following the ceasefire agreement, the prison administration escalated its crimes and violations against prisoners in the prisons. Testimonies and statements from released prisoners constituted conclusive evidence of torture crimes and field executions inside the prisons, which was confirmed by the bodies of the martyrs that were handed over within the framework of the agreement.
The unprecedented acceleration in the deaths of prisoners and detainees in this manner confirms that the Israeli prison system seeks to implement a policy of slow killing. Hardly a month passes without a new martyr rising from among the prisoners. With the continuation of daily crimes inside the prisons, the number of martyrs is likely to increase, amid the detention of thousands of prisoners in conditions lacking the most basic necessities of life.
With the death of the Palestinian detainee Mohammed Ghawadra on 2/11/2025, the number of martyrs of the prisoners’ movement since the beginning of the war of genocide has risen to (81) martyrs whose identities have been confirmed, amid the ongoing crime of enforced disappearance affecting dozens of detainees. This phase in the history of the prisoners’ movement is the bloodiest since 1967, as the number of martyrs whose identities have been known from 1967 until today has reached (318) martyrs, according to documented data held by prisoners’ institutions. The number of prisoners whose bodies are being withheld by the occupation before and after the war has also risen to (89) bodies, including (78) after the war. The occupation system has not been satisfied with killing dozens of prisoners since the beginning of the war of genocide, but is now seeking to entrench the crime of execution through the enactment of a special law under the name “The Execution of Prisoners Law.”
The Policy of Deprivation of Food
Prisoners in the occupation’s prisons face a policy of starvation that intensified with the reduction of food rations after the seventh of October, and the deprivation of prisoners of the (canteen) through its closure, which has led to an overall deterioration in their health conditions. Prisoners in various prisons suffer from malnutrition, which has significantly affected sick prisoners, especially those who require a special diet appropriate to their health conditions. This is in addition to the provision of water unfit for drinking, as it contains high levels of lime and rust, causing health problems for many of them.
In most prisons, food portions provided for ten or 12 prisoners are in reality insufficient even for two prisoners. A group of prisoners who were recently visited by prisoners’ institutions confirmed that, in an attempt to protest the starvation policy, they carried out protest steps in one section and returned the food meals. The prison administration responded by punishing them by bringing in a special unit with dogs to beat and punish them. The prisoners were assaulted, and the accompanying police dogs were set upon them. After the assault operation was completed, they were transferred and distributed among the remaining sections.
Most prisoners suffer from significant weight loss and accompanying health problems due to malnutrition, as the occupation seeks to break the will and steadfastness of the prisoners through the policy of starvation, providing only the bare minimum necessary to keep them alive.
“Sde Teiman” Camp Where the Most Heinous Crimes Are Committed Against Palestinian Prisoners
With the beginning of the aggression on Gaza, the Israeli Minister of Defense issued a decision designating the Sde Teiman base and camp as a place for detention and administrative arrest. Five facilities were established in the camp containing iron cages to detain those arrested from Gaza. This coincided with the issuance by the Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant on 10/10/2023 of a fascist decision in which he considered detainees from the Gaza Strip to be unlawful combatants; that is, he thereby denied them prisoner-of-war status. The decision stipulated that detainees from the Gaza Strip be held in Sde Teiman camp. This decision is in total violation of international humanitarian law, public international law, and the Geneva Conventions; the texts are clear in this regard and affirm that detained combatants are prisoners of war and must be treated accordingly. The aforementioned Sde Teiman camp has perhaps turned into a new “Guantanamo,” where detainees are held in extremely harsh conditions, in places resembling chicken cages in the open air and without food or drink for long periods of time.
According to statements from some released detainees, a detainee arriving from the Gaza Strip to Sde Teiman is received in the reception barracks and subjected during the first week to harsh torture conditions, including continuous sitting in a specific position and sleep deprivation. One detainee reported that he was brought in with his hands and feet shackled and blindfolded into a pool of water where he felt the water touching his feet from below and remained there for five minutes, experiencing intense electric shocks throughout his body until he lost consciousness and no longer felt anything around him. After regaining consciousness, he found himself lying on the floor of the barracks with his entire body numb. He also reported that one detainee who had a heart condition died in front of him after being attacked by dogs inside the section and consequently stopped moving entirely. The faces of detainees are also heavily sprayed with pepper gas, causing them unbearable pain.
The brutality of the occupation was manifested in a video documenting an incident in which Israeli occupation soldiers sexually assaulted a detainee from Gaza in “Sde Teiman” camp. Israeli channels broadcast footage from internal cameras in the “Sde Teiman” detention facility, which falls under the responsibility of the occupation army, documenting the assault on the detainee. The video shows a number of occupation soldiers selecting one detainee from among more than 30 detainees who were lying on the ground in the courtyard of the detention facility with their eyes covered. The soldiers then restrained him and placed him in a corner of the yard while using shields to conceal what they were doing. Hours later, the prisoner was transferred to the hospital while bleeding, and his injury was described as complex. An unequivocal medical decision was issued stating: “The injury occurred due to the insertion of an object.” Nevertheless, the soldiers involved in the rape were released without any oversight or accountability.
The Union for Justice affirms that despite the issuance of a decision to cease fire in the Gaza Strip, prisoners in Israeli prisons are still subjected to the most heinous crimes against humanity to this day, without any deterrent or accountability, which necessitates the action of all human rights institutions and bodies in order to seek to rescue the prisoners and ensure their usurped rights.
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