GAZA, (PIC)
“In the beginning of my detention, we lived in hell, not knowing our fate or legal status. All forms of crime, abuse, and deprivation were practiced against us. Today, we face hunger; the amounts of food are very limited and unfit for human consumption.” With these words, a prisoner from the Gaza Strip recounted his testimony to the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoner Society, which managed to document 23 testimonies from detainees in the region who are held in the Negev desert prison and the Naftali detention camps. These testimonies reveal shocking details about the systematic torture faced by prisoners in Israeli detention camps for the past year and a half.
The accounts clarify that the systematic torture endured by the detainees occurred during the initial period of their arrest and during interrogation. Today, after 464 days of genocide, and 15 months since the majority of those visited were detained, the crimes of torture, abuse, starvation, medical crimes, severe beatings, and repression loom over the narratives and testimonies of the detainees, alongside harsh detention conditions and the continued spread of scabies among them.
The new report, which adds to a series of previous reports, highlights the systematic crimes perpetrated by the occupation system against Gaza detainees. It reaffirms that the Sde Teiman camp, which became notorious for torture operations, is no longer the only camp where such abuses and atrocities, including sexual assaults, took place. Testimonies from detainees in most central prisons and camps reflected the same level of systematic brutality, as seen in the Negev and Ofer prisons.
Recently, the extremist far-right minister Itamar Ben Gvir appeared in a video from the Rakevet prison, which is located beneath the cells of Nitzan Ramla prison. This facility was reopened after the genocide to detain detainees from Gaza, and it is one of several camps established by the occupation authorities following the war to detain Gaza prisoners.
Among the notable detention centers for Gaza detainees are: Ofer Camp, Naftali Camp, Anatot Camp, and Sde Teiman Camp—locations known only to specialized institutions. It is worth noting that Gaza detainees have been distributed across all central prisons and held in many camps established by the army in the Gaza envelope.
They burned me with hot water
The detainee (K.N), aged 45, who has been detained since December 2023, says, “Since my arrest, I have been subjected to severe beatings, resulting in fractures in my body, in an attempt to extract confessions. I remained in a camp in the Gaza envelope for 58 days, which was like the torment of the hereafter—bound and beaten all the time, humiliation, and insults. When I was transferred to (Negev) prison, they burned me with hot water by pouring it on me with an electric kettle, and the burn marks are still visible on my body. Today I live in tents, which are torn, we suffer from the bitter cold, and today we are dying from the cold and hunger.”
I sleep hungry and wake up hungry
Detainee (A.H), aged 21, says, “I was arrested in February 2024 during a displacement operation and was transferred to one of the camps in the Gaza envelope, where I stayed for 12 days before being moved to a camp in Jerusalem, then to Ofer, and then to Negev.”
He adds that each transfer from one prison to another was a journey of torture and death. “Today, boils, wounds, and holes cover my body after contracting scabies. I currently sleep hungry and wake up hungry, and in addition to all that suffering, I have a problem with eye pressure and need follow-up care. Since childhood, I have lost vision in my right eye, and now my left eye is in grave danger.”
The soldiers urinated on us
Detainee (M.H), aged 21, who has been detained since December 2024, describes the early days of his detention as “horrific,” during which he was tortured and abused. He was taken to the prison’s yard and subjected to severe beatings for a whole day.
He and the detainees with him were then moved to another location and were doused with sewage water. “The soldiers urinated on us, then we were transferred to a camp for 27 days, where we remained kneeling, blindfolded, and handcuffed. Later, we were transferred to Negev prison.” He adds, “Today, we live in agony and slow death around the clock.” The lawyer noted that detainee (M.H) left wearing a torn summer shirt, shivering from the cold, with scabies covering his body.
We live in hell
Detainee (K.J) said, “In the beginning of my detention, we lived in hell, not knowing our fate or legal status. All forms of crime, abuse, and deprivation were practiced against us. Today we face hunger; the amounts of food are very limited and unfit for human consumption, and most prisoners gather scraps of food just to have one meal at night. Since our arrest, we have been deprived of sugar and salt, and today we suffer from difficult detention conditions, deprived of all basic necessities of life.”
We tremble from the cold
Detainee (M.A), aged 25, recounts that the occupation army arrested him from a school, where he was subjected to beatings, humiliation, and field interrogation, and was later transferred to one of the camps in the Gaza envelope, then to a camp in Jerusalem. He explains that he was bound and blindfolded the entire time, and then transferred to Ofer prison and then to Negev prison. “Today, most prisoners suffer from fatigue and weakness, which worsens over time, and many of them experience fainting spells. The conditions are very difficult; they are hungry and sick, and throughout the night, they tremble from the cold.”
My plastic eye fell out
Detainee (M.D) points out that he was arrested from one of the shelters while with his family. After his arrest, he was transferred to settlements in the Gaza envelope and detained there for 60 days before being moved to Negev prison, noting that he lost his plastic eye due to the severe beatings he suffered. “Today, as a result of that, I suffer from an eye socket issue, and the soldiers did not stop there; they also took my glasses.”
No medical care or treatment
In Naftali detention camp, detainees’ testimonies reflected the same level of brutality practiced by the prison system in other prisons with very few differences. The detainees primarily focused on the initial phase of arrest and interrogation, which took up most of the discussion regarding torture and abuse.
Despite some differences in detention conditions compared to other camps, the detainees fundamentally suffer from medical crimes and deprivation of treatment. Among the detainees visited, one suffers from cancer. One detainee who lost his family in the war said that he had undergone several surgeries before his arrest and is currently in poor health and needs medical care.
Facts about Gaza detainees
The human rights report emphasizes that detainees in the Naftali camp face medical crimes alongside harsh and difficult detention conditions, as a large number of them have lost loved ones and relatives in the ongoing genocide. Among them was a prisoner whose family members were martyred, and later his father died, an event that had a severe impact during the visit.
The report points out that Sde Teiman camp became a prominent symbol of torture crimes and horrific medical crimes against Gaza detainees, in addition to the accounts and testimonies from other detainees, who were released, about incidents of rapes and sexual assaults there. It clarifies that this camp is not the only place where Gaza detainees are held; the occupation has distributed them across several central prisons and camps, where systematic torture acts have been carried out, equivalent to the torture acts in Sde Teiman.
Testimonies and accounts from Gaza detainees have marked a significant shift in the level of brutality exhibited by the occupation, reflecting an unprecedented level of torture crimes, abuse, starvation, systematic medical crimes, sexual assaults, and their use as human shields.
Numerous human rights reports have documented the martyrdom of dozens of detainees, in addition to field executions carried out against others. Specialized institutions have only announced (35) martyrs among Gaza detainees, who are part of (54) detainees and prisoners who have been martyred since the beginning of the genocide, while the occupation continues to conceal the names of other detainees who have died in the camps and prisons.
To date, since the onset of the genocide, there is no clear estimate of the number of detainees from Gaza in the occupation’s prisons and camps. The only available information is what the occupation’s prison administration announced at the beginning of January: 1,882 classified as “illegal combatants,” among them four female detainees held in Damon prison, and dozens of children specifically in Megiddo prison and Ofer camp.
Organizations have been unable to track the number of arrests from Gaza due to the enforced disappearance imposed by the occupation on Gaza detainees since the outbreak of war, with their number estimated to be in the thousands.