Palestinian Prisoners and State Repression
For several decades now, human rights
organizations have been documenting and gathering testimonies from
Palestinian prisoners that attest to the devastating conditions in
Israeli prisons. The situation of Palestinians must be understood as
a history of systematic repression, disenfranchisement, and state
violence, perpetuated by decades of Non-governmental organizations
such as Amnesty International have classified Israel’s actions in
the Gaza Strip as genocide, and the independent UN Commission of
Inquiry concluded in September 2025 that Israel committed acts in the
Gaza Strip that constitute genocide. However, even aside from these
organizations and commissions, thousands of reports from Palestinians
in the Gaza Strip, as well as from journalists and media
professionals, document displacement, starvation, and genocide.
A particularly significant component
of this repression is the Israeli prison and detention system.
According to B’Tselem (the Israeli Information Center for Human
Rights in the Occupied Territories), a total of 9,187 Palestinians
were in detention as of the end of June 2026. Among them, 3,233
people were in administrative detention, and 1,237 people were being
held under the so-called Unlawful Combatants Law. Under
administrative detention, a person can be held without a specific
criminal offense being proven against them in a regular trial.
Detention orders can be extended in such cases, while those affected
and their attorneys are unable to access essential information. In
addition, there are hundreds of people from Gaza who have been
detained in military facilities without due process or, in some
cases, even without being registered, which is why the actual number
of cases is likely to be in the tens of thousands.
These figures reflect a system in
which deprivation of liberty has become a tool of political and
social control.
Torture as a Daily Reality of
Detention
Even more serious are the numerous
reports regarding the treatment of prisoners: Amnesty International
documents, among other things, beatings, sleep deprivation,
starvation, denial of medical care, shackling, blinding, the use of
dogs, rape, and other forms of sexual violence. According to
Physicians for Human Rights–Israel, at least 98 Palestinians died
in Israeli custody between October 2023 and November 2025. In late
2025, the UN Committee Against Torture described a de facto state
policy of organized and widespread torture and ill-treatment.
A UN report from 2024 had already
documented statements from former prisoners. People reported that
they were kept blindfolded and shackled for extended periods, naked
or clad only in diapers, in cage-like facilities. Others reported
electric shocks, cigarette burns, waterboarding, beatings, sleep and
food deprivation, as well as being held for extended periods in
painful stress positions. Numerous reports have also come to light in
which detainees describe sexualized torture.
The nature of this repression was
also evident, among other things, in the treatment of international
activists who attempted to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza. The Global
Sumud Flotilla was intercepted by Israeli forces in 2025 and again in
2026. In April 2026, approximately 175 activists were arrested.
Amnesty documented, among other
things, sleep deprivation as well as the denial of drinking water and
medical care for flotilla participants who had already been arrested
in October 2025. Investigations were launched in Italy into the
treatment of 36 Italian female activists on suspicion of torture and
other forms of abuse.
In
the case of the Madleen, which set sail for Gaza in June 2025 with
twelve activists—including Greta Thunberg and Rima Hassan—all
crew members were arrested following the interception. Amnesty
described the detention of the unarmed activists as arbitrary
detention.
The Death Penalty and Legal
Inequality
The expansion of the death penalty in
2026 is particularly drastic. It is important to be precise here:
Israel did not introduce the death penalty for the first time in
2026. Rather, what is new is a law that significantly expands its
application. The Knesset passed this law on March 30, 2026. Amnesty
International is calling for its repeal and criticizes it as
discriminatory.
Its application in the West Bank is
particularly relevant. There, under the Israeli military justice
system, the death penalty can be imposed on Palestinian women
convicted of certain homicide offenses related to acts classified as
terrorism. The problem lies not only in the death penalty itself, but
also in who is subject to this legal system. Palestinian women in the
West Bank are prosecuted in military courts, while Israeli settlers
there are generally subject to Israeli civil law. Amnesty and other
human rights organizations criticize this legal inequality.
This creates a situation in which the
same territory is governed by different legal systems -depending on
whether a person is Palestinian or not. The new death penalty
regulations further exacerbate this inequality.
Torture, sexual violence, arbitrary
detention, and the death penalty are not legitimized simply because a
state justifies them on the grounds of “security.” We therefore
demand an end to the genocide and the abolition of the death penalty.
Freedom for all Palestinian
prisoners!
Freedom for all political
prisoners!
