The Israeli human rights organization Betselem accuses Israel of systematically torturing Palestinian prisoners in its prisons.
A report released Tuesday, titled “Welcome to Hell,” features testimonies from 55 former Palestinian prisoners the group interviewed, some of whom described severe abuse and violence.
According to the report, more than 9,600 Palestinians were recently held in Israeli prisons, about half of them without official charges.
The Israeli military says it is currently investigating allegations of serious sexual abuse against a Palestinian militant by soldiers at the Sde Teiman military camp in southern Israel.
The UN Human Rights Office recently announced that at least 53 people have died in Israeli custody.
“The testimonies in this report show how Israeli prisons have been transformed into a network of torture camps,” the report said.
The report states that ‘such spaces, in which every prisoner is deliberately sentenced to severe, unremitting pain and suffering, effectively function as torture camps.
“The abuse consistently described in the testimonies of dozens of individuals held in various prisons was so systematic that there is no room to doubt the organized, explicit policy of the Israeli prison authorities,” Betselem wrote.
The policy was carried out on the orders of far-right Police Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and with the full support of the Israeli government and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the authors said.
The unprecedented terrorist attack by the Palestinian militant group Hamas and others on Israel on October 7 has deeply traumatized Israeli society and “awakened deep-seated fears and an instinct for revenge in many,” Betselem wrote.
The right-wing religious government has used this to “implement their racist ideology even more forcefully, using the oppressive means at their disposal.”
Betselem is an Israeli human rights organization funded by donations that campaigns against the occupation of the Palestinian territories and for equal rights for Jews and Palestinians.
An Israeli army spokesman said the allegations were being investigated. An Israeli Prison Authority spokesman said all prisoners were being held in accordance with the law and their basic rights were being upheld.
Betselem’s allegations have not been officially reported to authorities and “to our knowledge they are unsubstantiated in any way.”
However, she said that since the war in Gaza began 10 months ago, the conditions in which the so-called security prisoners are held have been tightened on Ben-Gvir’s orders.
