Grief and Torture Inside Israeli Prisons
By Kasturi Chakraborty
Israeli Prisons: Torture, Abuse, and the Stories of Palestinian Survivors
37-year-old Muazzaz Abayat, a Palestinian butcher and father of six from Bethlehem, was barely recognizable when he came out of an Israeli prison on July 10, 2024. Arrested in a terrifying night raid on October 26, 2023, and held without charge under administrative detention, Abayat endured nine months of horrific abuse that reduced him from a muscular 220-pound man to a frail, disoriented shell of his former self weighing just 119 pounds.
I came back from the dead,
Abayat said from his hospital bed. His body was bruised, his right hand paralyzed, all showing the torture he went through in what he called “the Guantanamo of the Negev.” He added, “No one can imagine what my life has been like.”
Abayat recounted daily beatings with iron clubs and chains that left him with broken bones. He and other prisoners were reportedly subjected to intentional starvation, subsisting on meager rations of 10 to 12 beans and pieces of cabbage from morning to night.
Abayat’s ordeal began the moment Israeli forces stormed his home, beating him severely in front of his pregnant wife and young children. “They arrested me at home, not surrounded by fighters, but by my children,” he told the media.
The torture continued during interrogation and in prisons like Ofer, Ramla, and Negev, the worst of them all. There, Abayat said that he went through a stabbing, a murder attempt, and even had far-right Israeli minister Itamar Ben-Gvir “dance on his body”.
The Negev Prison is like Guantanamo Bay. Everything is beyond what the mind can imagine,
Abayat stated. Two thousand prisoners there face “severe illnesses and extremely harsh conditions.” Abayat’s case, while shocking, is not isolated. Every Palestinian arrested after October 7 has been subjected to the same torture, he said, challenging the international media to “track down one prisoner who was not tortured” like he was.
Over 9,500 Palestinians were reportedly held in Israeli jails, with nearly 500 under administrative detention without charge. Since the start of Israel’s assault on Gaza in October 2023, arrests have doubled, with at least 3,380 Palestinians, including women and children, held under administrative detention. The Palestinian Prisoner Society stated that Abayat’s condition upon release reflects the “severe violations and heinous crimes” committed against detainees, which have led to the deaths of at least 16 prisoners. Hundreds more are in similarly dire straits.
“Support our People”
“We do not want you to free us from occupation,” Abayat said. “We want you to, at the very least, support our people.” He expressed disbelief that “peaceful people with no power can be starved, tortured and killed” while the world remains silent.
Muazzaz Abayat’s painful experience is just one of many examples of torture and abuse faced by Palestinian detainees at the hands of Israeli forces that have been exposed recently. Reports from human rights groups and media investigations show a much darker reality of organized mistreatment in Israel’s prisons and detention centers, especially since the start of the latest Gaza conflict in October 2023.
In July 2024, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) released a report detailing the arbitrary detention and torture of thousands of Palestinians, including women and children, rounded up from Gaza. The report found that at least 53 Palestinian detainees have died in Israeli custody, with evidence of “torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, including sexual violence.”
Amnesty International has also documented horrific abuse, including of a 14-year-old boy who was held incommunicado, starved, burned with cigarettes, and repeatedly beaten. Amnesty stated,
Israeli authorities must end their indefinite incommunicado detention of Palestinians from the occupied Gaza Strip, without charge or trial under the Unlawful Combatants law, in flagrant violation of international law.
Widespread Abuse Across the Prison System
While much attention has focused on the makeshift Sde Teiman detention camp, described as “cages” rather than a proper prison, the abuse appears to be widespread throughout Israel’s incarceration system. An investigation by the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, based on interviews with 55 former detainees, concluded that Israel is operating a network of “torture camps” where abuse has become normalized.
Since October 7, 2023, the number of Palestinians in Israeli prisons has nearly doubled to over 9,600, with almost 1,500 classified as “unlawful combatants” and held indefinitely without charge under a controversial law. The Palestinian Prisoner Society says at least 16 inmates have died from torture and medical neglect, with hundreds more in life-threatening conditions.
Former detainees interviewed by the Guardian, NPR, and other media have recounted similar stories of brutal beatings, stress positions, sexual humiliation, deliberate starvation, and denial of medical care. Two prisoners, Ashraf Abu Sorour and Abdul Raouf al-Halabi, allegedly died from beatings by guards. Another, Mohammad Abul Qibash, succumbed to illness after being denied treatment.
As the author writes about the disturbing reports of torture and abuse of Palestinian detainees by Israeli forces today, she is reminded of an interview she conducted years ago with Palestinian poet Dareen Tatour. Imprisoned by Israel from 2015-2018, Tatour spoke out about the horrific treatment she witnessed and experienced firsthand.
I saw a 14-year-old girl beaten until she urinated on herself. I also saw a young man’s fingernails being ripped out. I experienced sleep deprivation and heard the screams of other prisoners being interrogated and tortured in the next room,
Tatour recounted, her voice trembling with emotion. She described how female prisoners were subjected to “harsh, humiliating, and brutal treatment” by Israeli guards and interrogators.
They would strip-search us, sometimes 10 times a day. The searches involved being completely naked in front of male and female officers.
Like Muazzaz Abayat, the recently released Palestinian detainee who was barely recognizable after nine months of torture, Tatour mentioned the intentional medical neglect in Israeli prisons. “Many prisoners develop illnesses due to the bad living conditions, lack of hygiene, and rotten food,” she had told the author. “But the prison doctor would barely do anything other than give them painkillers.”
Impunity and Polarization
Despite the mounting evidence of gross human rights violations, Israel has failed to hold perpetrators accountable. The recent arrest of nine soldiers accused of abusing prisoners at Sde Teiman sparked outrage from far-right politicians and protesters, who stormed military bases to demand the troops’ release.
The polarized reaction shows how abuse of Palestinian detainees has become normalized and even justified by some factions of Israeli society. As B’Tselem director Hagai El-Ad stated,
The reality we exposed is a disgrace to us as Israelis. But it’s not too late to reverse course.
For the thousands of Palestinians who have endured hell in Israel’s prisons, that reversal can’t come soon enough. As Tatour put it in our interview years ago:
The world cannot continue to turn a blind eye to what is happening to Palestinian prisoners. It’s time for action and accountability.
Sadly, those words ring even more true today, as the horrors she described have only multiplied in scale and severity. It is long past time for all to demand an end to Israel’s torture of Palestinian detainees and to hold those responsible to account. As Abayat said from his hospital bed, “Something very bad is happening in Israeli prisons. It’s time the world took notice.”
