Gaza Herald – Palestinian human rights organizations have sounded the alarm over the rapid rise in the number of detainees killed inside Israeli prisons, warning that Israel is deliberately pursuing a policy of “slow death” against thousands of Palestinian prisoners.
According to a joint statement by the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club, not a single month has passed without prisoners being killed in custody. The statement said the number of deaths is expected to rise as detainees continue to be held under inhumane conditions that lack even the most basic standards of life.
The report described systematic acts of torture, starvation, sexual and physical assaults, and deliberate medical neglect, along with the spread of infectious diseases such as scabies and targeted humiliation policies designed to break prisoners psychologically.
Rights groups also documented field executions of detainees and pointed to graphic evidence from the bodies recently returned by Israel, which they said prove the existence of extrajudicial killings and torture during detention.
Since the beginning of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza on October 7, 2023, at least 80 Palestinian prisoners have been killed, the latest being Kamel al-Ajrami, an elderly detainee who died on Monday. Israeli authorities are still concealing the fate of dozens of others believed to have been tortured to death or left to die from medical neglect.
The statement also condemned Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s campaign to pass a death penalty law for Palestinian prisoners, calling it an incitement to commit war crimes and genocide inside detention facilities.
Human rights monitors revealed that Israel still withholds the bodies of 88 prisoners killed in custody, including 77 since the start of the Gaza genocide, while 1,300 detainees from Gaza remain forcibly disappeared in conditions described as “hellish.”
Advocacy groups warned that the silence and inaction of the international community are emboldening Israel to expand its atrocities against prisoners, urging the United Nations and global human rights bodies to launch an independent investigation into Israel’s prison system and hold its leaders accountable for crimes against humanity.
