(Photo by Ronit Shaked via Unsplash/Unsplash License)
Trigger Warning: This article contains graphic descriptions of violence, torture, sexual assault, and other forms of abuse experienced by Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons. Many of these details come directly from survivor testimonies and human rights reports. These accounts may be distressing or triggering, particularly for survivors of violence or readers sensitive to explicit content. Reader discretion is advised.
This article was written by a guest contributor who has chosen to remain anonymous.
After two years of the most documented and first-ever livestreamed genocide in history, a ceasefire was finally announced in Gaza, along with a hostage exchange deal that freed nearly 2,000 Palestinian hostages.
Their frail bodies, pale faces, sunken eyes, signs of torture, and amputated limbs speak louder than words. This is a living testament to years of torture, starvation, and psychological and physical abuse inside Israeli prisons.
For 77 years, indigenous Palestinians have lived under Israel’s illegal colonization of their own land, a regime that controls every aspect of their lives. One of the occupation’s most brutal tools of control is the mass abduction of Palestinians, where men, women, and children are taken hostage and imprisoned to shatter communities and crush their struggle for freedom.
Human rights organizations describe these prisons as a “grave for the living.” The first thing some of the recently released Palestinians said was a desperate plea:
“Save what remains of the hostages. If you die once a day, we die a thousand times.”
What the world witnessed in their release is only a glimpse of the horror still endured by over 11,000 Palestinian hostages who remain trapped, to this day, in Israel’s torture camps, hidden from the world’s sight and conscience.
Administrative Detention: A System of Control and Repression
Since 1948, Israeli occupation forces (IOF) have arrested more than 1 million Palestinians. Almost every Palestinian family has lived through the trauma of a loved one kidnapped, interrogated, and disappeared into prison.
This system of control and repression has been maintained through a policy called “administrative detention,” which allows Israel to arrest Palestinians without charge or trial, based on so-called “secret evidence” that neither the hostage nor their lawyer is ever allowed to see.
Detention orders begin at six months but can be renewed indefinitely, turning months into years and years into decades, leaving families trapped in an endless cycle of uncertainty and fear.
The United Nations (UN) has condemned this as arbitrary and a clear violation of international law. Yet, Israel continues to use it widely, facing no real consequences. It has become the backbone of this colonial state and a long-standing policy to intimidate, silence, and repress the native Palestinian population on their own land.
Students, activists, lawyers, journalists, doctors, and community leaders are arrested for resisting the occupation or simply for being Palestinian.
After October 7, 2023, Israel unleashed one of the largest mass arrest campaigns in its history. The UN reported that in just the first months, over 6,500 Palestinians were kidnapped from the West Bank, nearly 80% of them were pushed straight into administrative detention.
The Everyday Terror of Israel’s Abduction of Palestinians
Administrative detention is a form of collective punishment. Palestinian families live in constant torment, never knowing when or if their loved ones will be released. Children are raided in the middle of the night by Israeli soldiers, interrogated in a language they do not understand, and denied the presence of parents and lawyers.
The result is a system of psychological and physical torture that stretches across generations, embedding fear into the everyday lives of Palestinians.
In one of the most recent examples, in September 2025, Israeli forces mass arrested around 1,500 Palestinians, including children, in the city of Tulkarem in the West Bank. Homes, shops, and streets were raided. Palestinians were dragged out, blindfolded and handcuffed. This is collective punishment, and a calculated display of power and humiliation meant to break the spirit of an entire community.
Among the 11,000 Palestinians currently held in Israeli prisons, there are over 3,500 under administrative detention, including girls, women and children as young as 12.
Even amid the genocide in Gaza, thousands of Palestinians, including doctors, patients, and displaced families, have been kidnapped by the IOF and transferred into military-run detention camps where even the Red Cross has been denied access, according to the UN.
Following the recent hostage exchange deal and the release of 1,718 Gazan hostages, thousands more Palestinians still remain missing. Their families live in unbearable uncertainty, with no word on their condition, no knowledge of where they are, and no idea if they will ever return or if they are even alive.
Israel’s Organ Theft from Kidnapped Palestinians
Even in death, Palestinians are not spared from Israel’s cruelty. As part of the ceasefire, over 100 bodies of Palestinians were returned to Gaza after being abducted by Israeli forces, each showing horrific signs of torture and execution.
Medical sources and the Gaza Ministry of Health said that many of the corpses arrived with their hands still shackled, blindfolds digging into their flesh, and bullet wounds to the head. Some bodies had been crushed by tanks, and others were so badly disfigured that families could not recognize them, denied even the right to mourn.
In a further violation of international law and human decency, human rights organizations have raised urgent alarms that Israel is stealing organs from the bodies of Palestinians, calling for an international investigation.
Medical professionals in Gaza reported that the returned corpses showed clear evidence of organ theft, with eyes and other vital organs missing.
This horror is not new. Israel has faced so many allegations and documented cases of organ trafficking and unauthorized harvesting from Palestinians for years, including reports dating back to the 1990s.
Horrifying Torture and Dehumanization Inside Israeli Prisons
Inside these prisons, Palestinians face torture and inhumane conditions so degrading that they amount to crimes against humanity.
An Israeli human rights organization, B’Tselem, released a report titled Welcome to Hell, documenting testimonies from 55 released Palestinian hostages and survivors. The report takes its name from the words that Israeli soldiers reportedly shouted at Palestinians upon their arrival: “Welcome to hell.”
More than 12 Israeli prison facilities across occupied Palestine “have been transformed into a network of torture camps.” Currently, 11,000 Palestinian hostages face beatings, starvation, sexual assault, and medical neglect through an “organized plan” directed by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
Starvation and Medical Neglect
“There was no medical care. We tried to treat ourselves by using floor disinfectant on our wounds, but it only made them worse. The mattresses were filthy, the environment unhealthy, our immunity weak, and the food contaminated.”
–Mohammed al-Asaliya, 22, university student
“During that period, I lost 35 kilos because the food was so poor in quality and quantity.”
– Thaer Halahleh, 45, a father of four
“The doctor saw my yellowish face, exhaustion, and severe weight loss. He said my life was in danger, but the prison administration didn’t care. After the visit, they beat me again.”
– Musa ‘Aasi, 58, a father of five
“My leg was amputated in prison due to severe torture. There was no medical care. They amputated my right leg.”
– Jibril al-Safadi
“We felt our bodies were rotting with dirt. Some of us had rashes. There was no hygiene. There was no soap, shampoo, hair brushes or nail clippers.”
–Muhammad Srur, 34, father of two
Sexual Assault and Sadistic Torture
“We were stripped naked and even had to take off our underwear. They forced us to spread our legs and then sit half crouching. Then they started hitting us on our private parts with the detector.”
– Sami Khalili, 41
“We heard detainees crying and shouting while guards beat them. The guards yelled out demands that they bark like dogs. We heard some of the detainees actually bark after they were hit. The guards laughed, of course.”
– Sari Huriyyah, 53, lawyer and a father of four
“They put cigarettes out in my mouth and on my body. They put clamps on my testicles that were attached to something heavy. It went on like that for a whole day.”
– Fadi Baker, 25, lawyer and a father
“He swore at me and called me “whore.” He said there were 20 soldiers in the room and that they would rape me.”
– Lama al-Fakhuri, 47, a mother who is an author and political analyst
“If you were menstruating, you got one pad… There were about ten women there, including me. We were all standing there in our underwear… There were male soldiers and I was afraid they could see us naked.”
– Nadiah al-Hilu, 45, mother of three
“Guards struck me on the head with such force that I fell unconscious. When I regained consciousness, I discovered I had lost my sight.”
-Mahmoud Abu Foul
Beatings, Electrocution, and Dogs
“We faced everything you can expect, even the dogs raping and torturing detainees. Killing people is usual, like it’s an ordinary thing.”
– Jibril al-Safadi
“They set dogs on us, beat us badly and hurled insults at us. We were attacked and beaten hard with metal batons all over our bodies.”
– Muhammad Srur, 34, father of two
“The soldiers blindfolded me with my clothes and tied my hands to the truck, literally hung me off it, and then it drove for a few minutes with my head banging against it.”
– Fadi Baker, 25, a father
“They also used tasers to give us electric shocks all over our bodies… My jaw got injured, and some of my teeth fell out. My whole mouth filled with blood. I tried to tell the soldiers that my jaw was broken, but that only made them all hit me and kick me in the face.”
– Khalil Skeik, 24, a medical student
“Sometimes they hung me by one hand and left me like that for three or four hours until I fainted. I couldn’t move the other hand because my shoulder must have been broken from the beatings when the platinum came out.”
– Abd al-Qader Tafesh, 32, father of two
Psychological Torture and Humiliation
“The soldiers ordered me to take off my hijab. One of them told me: ‘I killed your husband and I want to bury you alive. Let the dogs eat you.’”
– Hadil a-Dahduh Zaza, 24, mother of two
“We didn’t know the day, the hour, or even the date. In the middle of the night, they would splash water on us in our cells. They told us, ‘We killed your children. There is no Gaza.’”
– Shadi Abu Sido, journalist from Gaza, detained for two years
“There was a huge Israeli flag on the wall. Then he ordered me to kiss the flag while I was being filmed… I told the officer I wouldn’t do it. Suddenly, the 20 soldiers in the room started beating me. One of them kicked me in the head, and I passed out. Then they made me stand and took pictures of me with the flag behind me. I was taken out of the room and beaten again until I passed out again.”
– Fouad Hassan, 45, father of 5
“As soon as we arrived at the Negev Prison, they forced us to kneel, like during prayer, with our foreheads on the ground and our hands on our heads. We weren’t allowed to raise our heads from the ground.”
– Z.A., East Jerusalem
“One soldier peed on all of us.”
–‘Abd al-Qader Tafesh (32), father of two
Palestinians Killed in Israeli Captivity
“One day, I heard shouts from the inmates in the next cell. Later, I found out that one of them asked a guard if there was a ceasefire or any sort of solution because we weren’t getting any news from the outside, and in response to that question, they beat him to death.”
– Muhammad Nazzal, 18
“They kept on hitting him on the head and the rest of his body until he fell down on the floor. After that, they left and closed the cell door. We called Thaer’s name over and over, but he didn’t respond. There was blood trickling from his head and his skin went dark. I think he had internal bleeding.”
-From the testimony of M.A., describing the killing of Thaer Abu ‘Asab
At least 75 Palestinians, including a 17-year-old child, have been killed in Israeli prisons since October 7, 2023, according to the UN Human Rights Office in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OHCHR).
The UN reports that these deaths were the result of systematic torture, starvation, and denial of medical care deliberately imposed by Israeli authorities.
Palestinians are Hostages, Not Prisoners
Israel calls Palestinians animals, terrorists, security threats, and prisoners, anything but what they really are: hostages. In Western mainstream media, the very same headline can call Israelis “hostages” and Palestinians “prisoners.” This is deliberate, systemic dehumanization, and a linguistic weapon that shapes how the world sees Palestinians.
Calling kidnapped Palestinians “prisoners” implies due process, guilt, and legality as if they had fair trials or convictions. In reality, most were taken without charge, without trial, and without even knowing the reason for their arrest.
This is hostage-taking, and it’s a war crime under Article 49 of the Geneva Convention, yet it has been normalized by decades of silence and complicity from the international community.
The word prisoner allows Israel and Western media to hide abduction, torture, and sadism behind the illusion of law and order. Israelis, being the colonizers, are called hostages in Western media to evoke sympathy, while Palestinians, the indigenous population, starved and tortured in filthy cages, are denied even that word.
Demand Accountability. Free All Palestinian Hostages.
Despite repeated condemnations from the UN and human rights organizations, there have been no sanctions, no investigations, no consequences, only silence. The answer lies in political convenience and a lack of moral courage.
Israel acts above the law, protected by the same Western powers that arm, fund, and justify its crimes under the language of “self-defence.” These governments speak of human rights while selling Israel the weapons they use to imprison, bomb, and starve Palestinians.
For decades, accountability has been avoided on purpose. Enforcing it would expose the hypocrisy of a global system that punishes the oppressed and rewards the oppressor. International law becomes meaningless when it is applied selectively. This is a failure of humanity.
Ending this horror requires real action: divestment, sanctions, investigations, and an end to military aid and diplomatic cover. Every government that funds or defends this regime is complicit in its crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution against Palestinians. Silence in the face of such barbarity is complicity.
The world should stop calling Palestinians prisoners.
The world should call them what they are: hostages.
And it’s long past time to dismantle this occupation and its abduction system, and to stand with Palestinians until each and every single one of them is free.
Edited by Light Naing
