The Palestinian Territories – The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor stated that Israeli prisons and detention centers, by their very design and structure, constitute a systematic framework inherently aimed at torturing and mistreating Palestinian prisoners and detainees, while depriving them of their most basic human rights.
Israel’s establishment of an underground prison in the city of Ramla, along with the display of images of prisoners and detainees there in appalling humanitarian conditions that gravely violate international standards for detention conditions, shows disdain for the global justice system but is a logical outcome of a long history of impunity made possible by the complete impunity that Israel enjoys from the United States of America and many European governments.
Video clips released by Israeli media showed Palestinian detainees and prisoners chained inside underground cells without mattresses or blankets, enclosed by iron gates, and not exposed to sunlight. The Israeli Broadcasting Authority reports that detainees are shackled and kept in a tiny cell for twenty-three hours every day, with only one chance to leave the cell during the day to enter a tiny, dark courtyard.
The Israeli claim that the prison is reserved for the most dangerous detainees—whom Israel says are members of the Hamas elite and the Hezbollah-affiliated Radwan Forces—does not excuse the violation of international law’s regulations regarding the treatment of detainees and prisoners. These regulations stipulate that all prisoners and detainees must be treated humanely, and they forbid attacks on their lives and physical integrity, including torture, mutilation, cruel treatment, and all forms of killing, regardless of the circumstances that may be used as an excuse.
Given Israel’s treatment of prisoners and detainees, it is reasonable to doubt its assertions that the individuals it holds there are elite members and are therefore not entitled to even the most basic legal protections under Israeli law. This claim is untrue and frequently used as a pretext for torture and retaliation, as evidenced by the fact that thousands of detainees from the Gaza Strip were released after being subjected to cruel torture and unlawful detention conditions under the pretext of elite membership.
The remarks made by the Israeli Minister of National Security during his tour of the new prison, which calls for his trial and accountability at all levels of the legal system, are in addition to earlier racist remarks that declare an official Israeli intention to commit and incite the commission of the crime of genocide against the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip, including prisoners and detainees.
This prison serves as an example of the systematic Israeli policy of designing prisons and detention facilities to serve as instruments of torture, punishment, and maltreatment through the layout and form of the cells or detention rooms and the amenities provided within.
Israel deprives Palestinian detainees and prisoners of their humanity, violates their rights, and diminishes their dignity by using prisons as part of a systematic process.
At least thirty prisons and detention facilities are known to exist, in addition to a different set of camps set up during the genocide in the Gaza Strip. The Sde Teiman military base’s detention centre is one of these facilities; like the Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo prisons, which are infamous for grave human rights abuses, it has come to represent the torture and murder of Palestinian detainees and prisoners
According to the testimonies of Palestinians who were released, the Israeli army and the Israeli Prison Service share responsibility for the administration of the prisons, and both parties alternately abuse and torture detainees and prisoners.
According to the dozens of testimonies that the Euro-Med received from detainees who have been released, they are being held in open spaces encircled by barbed wire in desert regions, or they are being held in cramped cells with no ventilation, subpar detention conditions, and virtually no facilities or services, including water cutting off for extended periods of time.
In addition to thousands of Gaza Strip residents whose numbers or detention locations are unknown and who have been forcibly disappeared, Israeli occupation forces are detaining over 10,400 Palestinian prisoners and detainees in their prisons.
All states and relevant international organisations must act swiftly and forcefully to prevent Israel’s systematic and pervasive crimes of murder, torture, and other grave violations against Palestinian detainees and prisoners; to guarantee that they are held in conditions that ensure their humane treatment and respect for their inherent human dignity; to immediately and unconditionally release those who are arbitrarily detained; to permit visits from competent local and international organizations, and ensure access to legal representation.
Israel needs to be pressured by the international community to immediately cease the crime of enforced disappearance against Palestinian prisoners and detainees from the Gaza Strip, uncover all secret detention camps, reveal the identities of all Palestinians it is holding from the Strip, their whereabouts and fates, and take full responsibility for their safety and well-being.
In addition to conducting an immediate, independent, and unbiased international investigation into the circumstances surrounding the deaths of all Palestinian prisoners and detainees who perished in Israeli prisons and detention facilities, Israel must return the remains of Palestinian prisoners and detainees who perished there and take the necessary actions to hold those responsible accountable and bring justice to the victims.
All states involved must assist the International Criminal Court (ICC) in its efforts to look into these crimes and provide the court with specialised referrals on the crimes against Palestinian detainees and prisoners in Israeli jails and detention facilities, particularly after October 7, 2023.
It urged all relevant parties to work collectively to activate the mechanism of universal jurisdiction to hold perpetrators of crimes against Palestinian prisoners and detainees accountable before the national courts of countries that apply universal jurisdiction. These crimes, for the most part, constitute violations of peremptory norms of international law and are classified as grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions and their First Additional Protocol. This legal basis enables the activation of universal jurisdiction, regardless of the location of the crime or the nationality of the perpetrator and/or the victim, in accordance with the laws in force in those countries.
International and UN inquiry and inquiry committees, such as the UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict and the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel should be permitted access to the area in order to look into sexual violence crimes against Palestinian detainees and prisoners.
The international community should carry out its legal responsibilities to prevent the crime of genocide and all other crimes committed by Israel against all Gaza Strip residents, including prisoners and detainees, since October 7. It should also use effective pressure tools to compel Israel to immediately cease these crimes, adhere to international law, and protect Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip.
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