Torture in Israel’s Prisons
In early August the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem published a report called “Welcome to Hell.” It presents the testimonies of fifty-five Palestinians from the West Bank, Gaza, and Israel itself who were held by Israeli authorities after the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, in what the report calls “a network of torture camps.” Some of these detainees were already in prison when the attack took place; others were arrested thereafter. All were subsequently released, mostly without charges.
frequent acts of severe, arbitrary violence; sexual assault; humiliation and degradation; deliberate starvation; forced unhygienic conditions; sleep deprivation; prohibition on, and punitive measures for, religious worship; confiscation of all communal and personal belongings; and denial of adequate medical treatment.
After Hamas’s onslaught and the ensuing Israeli assault on Gaza, the thousands of Palestinians who were already incarcerated in Israeli prisons on October 7 likewise suffered, the report says, from a “massive increase in hostility from prison authorities.”
