The Israeli High Court and living conditions inspectors have found that administrative detention facilities are starving Palestinians and “not fit to hold human beings”

I spent my summer holiday sprawled on Takapuna beach reading the memoirs of Eli Sharabi, an Israeli who was held hostage by Hamas following October 7 2023. It was a highly thought provoking book for all sorts of reasons, which I cannot cover here in full. However, one thing which stood out to me was that Sharabi narrates that Hamas dramatically reduced the hostages’ food at one point, claiming that the Israelis had just done the same to Palestinian security prisoners.

To my surprise, when I looked this up I found it was true. Far-right Israeli politician Itamar Ben Gvir did sharply decrease living conditions for Palestinian security prisoners, including among other things a reduction in food: https://www.timesofisrael.com/high-court-rules-state-failed-its-duty-to-feed-palestinian-prisoners-in-slap-to-ben-gvir/ The Israeli High Court has found that Palestinian security prisoners were not being given enough food for basic sustenance, “essentially […] starving” them.

This is especially horrifying to me because Israel’s understanding of “security prisoners” includes all Palestinians held without trial in administrative detention, which means that if an Israeli soldier arrests an innocent Palestinian out of hatred for Palestinians or simply on a power trip, then a person who hasn’t done anything wrong can face starvation in prison without having legal representation to prove their innocence.

While the High Court’s findings were enough to persuade me, I was a little sceptical due to reliance on affidavit evidence from Palestinian prisoners themselves. However, the Times of Israel published a further article on the subject today, saying that inspectors from the Public Defender’s Office visited four Israeli prisons and documented “skeletal” prisoners and evidence of beatings and medical neglect: https://www.timesofisrael.com/palestinians-in-israeli-jails-face-conditions-unfit-for-human-beings-state-agency-says/

I quote: “The Public Defender’s Office of the Justice Ministry show that Palestinian security detainees held in Israeli prisons have suffered from severe and systematic violence from prison guards, deprivation of food, and medical neglect, while also having been subjected to insanitary conditions that caused and exacerbated outbreaks of disease in the prisons.” The inspectors described one prison they visited as “not fit to hold human beings”, and said of another that their findings showed “unnecessary and unjustified violence against prisoners” carried out “on a regular basis and on numerous occasions.”

I note by the way that The Times of Israel is not a leftwing newspaper and cannot be accused of anti-Israel bias.

Of course, Israel has an independent judiciary and accountability mechanisms for when people like Ben Gvir overreach like this, whereas an independent Hamas judiciary defying Sinwar and ordering that the Israeli hostages be given more food would never happen. (The very idea is laughable.) But I think it’s important for Westerners to be aware of the treatment of Palestinian prisoners by Israel in order to understand that the situation is not black and white.

The post The Israeli High Court and living conditions inspectors have found that administrative detention facilities are starving Palestinians and “not fit to hold human beings” first appeared on Kiwiblog.