Ramallah (UNA/WAFA) – The Palestinian Prisoners’ Affairs Commission and the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club confirmed that the Israeli prison system continues to practice more crimes and brutality against detainees in the Gaza Strip. This is based on recent visits to a group of detainees who revealed the continuation of sexual assaults against them, in addition to severe beatings, and the tightening of the level of surveillance over them through cameras, and their humiliation and oppression by all means and methods.
In a joint statement issued Wednesday by the Commission and the Club, they said that, according to the detainees' testimonies, the occupation's prison system has left no stone unturned in stripping them of their humanity and attempting to break them psychologically. Nineteen months after the genocide, the conditions and circumstances of detention remain unchanged and at the same level, and are even worsening. Time is a decisive factor in determining the fate of detainees, while this brutality continues at the same level.
Among the testimonies, the continuation of rape and sexual assaults, as the Ofer prison administration deliberately immobilizes the detainee’s limbs, as the guard repeatedly inserts a stick into the detainee’s anus to the point of suffocation, according to one detainee’s description. The more the detainee’s pain and screaming increase, the more the guard moves the stick. They deliberately rape the detainee in front of other detainees, with the aim of breaking him in front of his comrades and spreading more terror against them. They also deliberately use cameras installed in the sections and rooms to turn the camera, which is the most prominent tool of surveillance and control inside the camps, into a tool for abuse. Any detainee who appears on camera to have pretended to smile or behave in any other way that the guard considers a challenge, then the repression units either assault him with severe beatings until he faints, or impose collective punishments on the detainees through brutal searches and extreme humiliation. This is in addition to the severe beatings that take place in the courtyards, and during the so-called security check (count), where they are forced to sleep on their stomachs and are assaulted. By beating.
In the Negev prison, specifically in the tent section, conditions are no less tragic and difficult. The prison administration deliberately blackmails and humiliates detainees by making them use the bathroom. They are forced to use a bucket to relieve themselves. Furthermore, the utensils provided to detainees remain with them for long periods and are not replaced, resulting in an extremely unpleasant smell, yet detainees still use them. Furthermore, scabies is widespread among detainees due to the lack of hygiene and weak immune systems. Furthermore, blankets and mattresses have become essential means of transmitting the disease, as some detainees do not have mattresses to sleep on and have been forced to cut parts of other detainees' mattresses to sleep on. Since November 2024, the prison administration has not allowed detainees to change their clothes. All of this has contributed to the continued spread of scabies. Meanwhile, the prison administration refuses to provide them with any kind of treatment.
The prison administration also continues to use beatings and torture. Many detainees have sustained injuries as a result of this. Even when they were taken out for visits, they confirmed that they were subjected to beatings and torture, including the use of handcuffs. According to testimony from lawyers who have visited the detainees, all of them suffer from severe and obvious weight loss as a result of the ongoing starvation.
In this context, the Prisoners' Authority and the Prisoners' Club affirmed that the occupation continues its genocide and crimes in full view of the world, without any real change that contributes to stopping the genocide and comprehensive aggression against the Palestinian people, one of the forms of which are the ongoing crimes against detainees. Indeed, the passage of more time in the continuation of the genocide means that the state of impotence suffered by human rights organizations has gone beyond this expression, and it has become our duty to question the feasibility of the existence of a human rights system, with the expansion of the concept of the state of exception that the Israeli occupation enjoys at the international level.
It is worth noting that the number of Gaza detainees recognized by the occupation prison system as of the beginning of April 2025 amounted to 1747 detainees. This number does not include detainees held in camps affiliated with the occupation army.
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