The Commission of Detainees' and Ex-Detainees' Affairs has warned of the continued and dangerous deterioration of the detention, living, and health conditions of Palestinian prisoners held at the Israeli occupation's Ganot prison, where sick and injured detainees are subjected to deliberate medical neglect amid escalating repression, starvation, and mistreatment.
In a report issued after a lawyer's visit, the commission documented the suffering of several named prisoners. Osama Fatahallah al-Shenni, detained since 2024, suffers from a herniated disc for which he had undergone surgery, and is now in severe pain while the prison administration deliberately denies him care. Ashraf Mohammad al-Zaghari, held since 2022, carries gunshot wounds to both knees with shrapnel still lodged in his body, and sustained an ear injury during a repression operation at Ofer prison about a year and a half ago that has left him with hearing loss, ringing in his head, and constant pain, all met with deliberate medical neglect. Fadi Ahmad Abu al-Rub, detained in 2026 and still without trial, described relentless provocations, insults, and raids, and said he had lost 15 kilograms as a result of the systematic starvation policy imposed across Israeli prisons.
The commission detailed the degrading conditions engineered to break the prisoners. It reported that cells built for 10 hold 12 detainees, forcing two to sleep on the floor, and that the administration confiscates the mattresses after the morning count and does not return them until the evening. Prisoners are permitted to use a washing machine only once every 12 to 14 days, are rarely allowed to change their underwear or clothing, and are deprived of basic necessities such as razors and nail clippers, which they are forced to share. Sections are raided and searched repeatedly, personal belongings and copies of the Quran are confiscated, and beatings and repression are routine.
Ganot is not an exception but a window into a system. Palestinian and Israeli human rights organizations alike have documented that since October 2023, the abuse of Palestinian prisoners has surged to unprecedented levels across Israel's prisons, with detainees subjected to systematic beatings, starvation, sexual assault, prolonged stress positions, solitary confinement, and the denial of medical care as a matter of institutional policy. The commission and rights groups have described medical neglect as a deliberate tool of revenge against Palestinian prisoners, one that has already proved lethal.
By multiple accounts, more than 75 Palestinian prisoners have died in Israeli custody since October 2023, amid the documented conditions of torture, medical neglect, and starvation, with the total number of Palestinians who have died in Israeli detention over the years now put at around 300. None of these deaths has resulted in accountability, and the circumstances surrounding many of them have been concealed by Israeli prison authorities. The number of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons stands at roughly 9,400 to 9,500, many of them detained without charge or trial under administrative detention.
The abuse is not only tolerated at the top but flaunted as a point of pride. Israel's far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who holds authority over the prison system, has built his political brand on the mistreatment of Palestinian prisoners, boasting of worsening their conditions, slashing their food, and filming himself confronting detainees. As Israel's election approaches, Ben-Gvir has continued to publicize the degradation of Palestinian prisoners as a campaign asset, posting footage that displays the very cruelty the Prisoners' Commission has documented, treating the suffering of bound and stacked Palestinian detainees as material for an electoral spectacle.
The commission held the Israeli authorities fully responsible for the lives and safety of the prisoners at Ganot, citing Articles 32 and 85 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and called on the International Committee of the Red Cross and international humanitarian bodies to intervene urgently to halt the violations and guarantee prisoners their basic rights to medical treatment, food, clothing, and a healthy environment.
