Inside Israeli dungeons: Torture, murder, and the spirit of resistance

A closer look at Israel’s barbaric dungeons and its inhumane treatment of Palestinian prisoners amid ongoing genocide in Gaza.

Stripped of their cloak of invincibility once and for all following the successful Al-Aqsa Flood operation, carried out by the Palestinian resistance on October 7, 2023, the Israelis have been committing genocide in Gaza in broad daylight uninterrupted for over 18 months. They have laid complete siege to nearly two million residents of the tiny strip of land, bombarding them relentlessly with the most incendiary weapons produced in Western and Israeli factories specialising in tools of mass annihilation.

Alongside this ongoing campaign of extermination against the native Palestinian population, the Israelis have also launched a systematic effort to abduct the Palestinians en masse and subject them to some of the most brutal forms of torture known to mankind. Victims have been starved, beaten to the point of severe illness and permanent health consequences, left with untreated wounds, and raped to death — just a few of the ways the Palestinians are being dehumanised in Israeli torture camps.

The scale of abductions

According to data released by the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club (PPC) in late March, over 9,500 Palestinians were languishing in the occupation’s many dungeons. The PPC does not have accurate data on the number of Palestinians from Gaza being held in these camps. The Israelis have not disclosed the number of Palestinians abducted from the besieged enclave, but estimates suggest the figure is in the thousands, dispersed across various Israeli detention facilities. The Israelis have rounded up people of all stripes—teachers, doctors, engineers, construction workers, and even patients taken directly from their hospital beds in Gaza. The PPC estimates that 1,555 of the Palestinians abducted from Gaza were held without trial or charge, under the “illegal combatants” law.

Among the 9,500 detainees were 350 children and 21 women. A remarkable 3,405 Palestinians — representing 35.8 percent of the total prisoner population — were being held as administrative detainees. Administrative detention is a favourite tool of the Israelis. They use it to haul Palestinians of all ages and political leanings into their torture camps, in most cases without legal representation.

Child abductees and psychological torture

Abducted children go through a series of traumatic experiences in the Israeli dungeons. “Under Israeli military law, Palestinian child detainees have no right to a lawyer during interrogation,” according to a 2023 report by the Defense for Children International - Palestine (DCIP). “Israeli military court judges seldom exclude confessions obtained by coercion or torture, even those drafted in Hebrew, a language that most Palestinian children do not understand. In fact, military prosecutors rely, sometimes solely, on these confessions to obtain a conviction. During the reporting period nearly 52 percent of the Palestinian children interviewed were shown or signed papers written in Hebrew.”

Torture, rape, and death in detention

There have been some widely documented cases of inhumane abuse inside Israeli detention centres. One of Gaza’s most respected doctors, Dr. Adnan Al-Bursh, was raped and tortured to death in April 2024. The rape of Islam Al-Sarsawi using metal rods by a group of Israeli soldiers was captured on film. The assault on Al-Sarsawi was so extreme that he was hospitalised with a torn rectum, broken ribs, ruptured bowels, and damaged lungs. He ultimately succumbed to his grievous injuries.

The leading Israeli soldier responsible for the despicable crime went on to become a celebrity in Israel, making prime-time appearances on Israeli TV and giving interviews to Israeli news channels. One Israeli journalist lamented on air that raping Palestinians was not an officially sanctioned Israeli policy. Israeli politicians justified raping Palestinians, and ordinary Israelis took to the streets in what came to be known as “right to rape” protests — demanding the right of their soldiers and prison officials to rape the Palestinians at will.

The Palestinians released from Israeli captivity have recounted horrific abuse of all kinds, ranging from denial of access to bathrooms, to non-stop beatings, stress positions, sleep deprivation, starvation, sexual assaults, and rapes.

Here is Ibrahim Salem, who was released from an Israeli dungeon in August last year, recounting the horrors visited upon him and his compatriots by the Israelis:

Badr Dahlan, 29, spent a month in Israeli captivity but that was enough to leave him in a state of shock and disorientation, and unable to speak clearly due to the torture he was subjected to:

This Palestinian from Gaza was released from an Israeli torture camp in July last year in extremely poor psychological condition:

Here is a former bodybuilder, Moayaz Abayad, who entered the torture camps a healthy man in fighting shape, but emerged resembling a twisted twig with discernible damage to his body and mind:

During the series of prisoner exchanges between the Palestinian resistance and the Israelis, the hundreds of Palestinians who saw freedom from Israeli captivity were in extremely poor condition and had to be promptly taken to hospitals soon after release.

Moreover, the Israelis released them in sweatshirts labelled with threatening messages, such as “We will not forget, we will not forgive, and we will not kneel,” and bracelets inscribed with Biblical threats: “The eternal people do not forget. I will pursue my enemies and catch up with them.”

Palestinian captives in an Israeli dungeon in sweatshirts with the message: “We will not forget, we will not forgive, and we will not kneel.”

Many of the freed prisoners were stricken with grievous injuries as a result of torture, starvation, and medical neglect.

Freed prisoner Wael Jumaa of Gaza suffered from infections all over his body after being tortured by the Israelis with chemicals:

The case of prisoner Mohammed Abu Tawila, an abductee from Gaza who was released in February this year, is one glaring example of the extreme torture the Palestinians have endured in Israeli captivity.

Abu Tawila was subjected to various forms of cruelty, including electric shocks, severe beatings, and exposure to corrosive chemicals, which ultimately left his skin badly disfigured and blinded him in one eye.

The Israelis have faced no censure from any international organisation for their reprehensible treatment of the Palestinians in inhumane detention camps. This impunity for Israel’s extensively documented crimes against the Palestinian hostages has meant that the self-proclaimed Jewish state has killed 65 Palestinians in its torture dungeons since October 7.

The latest known victim of Israeli barbarism in its torture camps is Walid Khaled Ahmed, a 17-year-old minor. “Ahmed from the village of Silwad east of Ramallah in the central occupied West Bank, was martyred in Israel’s Megiddo prison,” a statement from the Commission of Detainees’ Affairs and Palestinian Prisoner’s Society revealed on March 24. “The circumstances of his killing remain obscure due to the information blackout imposed by occupation authorities. The child had been held behind bars since his arrest on September 30, 2024.”

Walid Khaled Ahmed, 17, was tortured to death in Israeli dungeons in March.

It is worth noting that 65 is only the number of known Palestinian deaths inside Israeli torture centres. The actual number could be significantly higher, as the Israelis have never released the number of Palestinians from Gaza they have abducted over the last 18 months. A vast majority of the hostages from Gaza are under administrative detention, with no charges against them.

Al-Aqsa Flood of October 7 was an operation to take Israeli prisoners of war and exchange them for all the Palestinian hostages languishing in Israeli prisons. Instead of going through with the Palestinian offer on the table from the very first day of an all-for-all exchange deal, the Israelis proceeded with a genocidal campaign in Gaza and the West Bank that is still going at full pelt 18 months on.

The January ceasefire saw a series of prisoner exchanges, but the Israelis ultimately collapsed the fragile ceasefire deal in early March, reneged on its terms, and proceeded to bomb Gaza relentlessly. It was expected that in the later exchanges during which Israeli soldiers would be released, the Palestinian side would insist on the release of some of its highest-profile hostages in Israeli captivity, such as Abdullah Barghouti (Hamas), Ahmad Sa’adat (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine), and Marwan Barghouti (Fatah), among others.

But that stage of the deal has yet to transpire.

The Israelis have subjected these high-profile Palestinian detainees to extreme torture, with what appears to be attempts to kill them off in captivity.

Abdullah Barghouti of Al-Qassam Brigades in the West Bank.

Take, for example, the treatment of Abdullah Barghouti, who is serving 67 life sentences plus an additional 5,200 years in the Israeli dungeons. A visit by his lawyer revealed such extreme torture inflicted on the legendary figure of the Palestinian resistance that he was unable to sleep lying down due to fractures across his body and excruciating pain.

“Following a visit by the lawyer of the prisoner Abdullah Al-Barghouti, it was revealed that he is subjected to deliberate and systematic torture where he endures severe and prolonged daily beatings with rifle butts and iron batons while handcuffed,” RNN reported on April 25.

“The beatings have left horrifying marks on his body, with all his bones suffering from fractures and intense pain, leaving him unable to stand or move.

“He cannot sleep lying down due to the severity of the fractures and pain; instead, he sleeps while sitting. His weight has dropped by over 50 kilograms, demonstrating the medicinal negligence and starvation policies in the prisons.”

Moreover, the medical neglect in Israeli dungeons is so extreme that Abdullah’s fellow captives had to attempt to disinfect his wounds with dishwashing liquids. “He is suffering from painful boils and open wounds without receiving any medical treatment. Fellow prisoners in his section help him by disinfecting his wounds with dishwashing liquid, amid a complete absence of healthcare and treatment,” the RNN report further added.

Palestinian women behind bars

It’s not only the men of the resistance facing such inhuman treatment. The hostages of administrative detention are also subjected to extreme levels of torture. Even women aren’t spared. Khalida Jarrar of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) is an example of the suffering Palestinian women are being put through in the Israeli dungeons.

Jarrar, who was abducted from her home in the West Bank in December 2023, endured over five months in solitary confinement. During a visit by her lawyer in August 2024, Jarrar confirmed that she was facing an unbearable and terrible situation. She told the lawyer:

I die every day. The cell is like a small closed box where no air enters. There is only a toilet in the cell, with a small window above it, which was later sealed just one day after my transfer. They left me no space to breathe, and even what is called the 'ashnav' (peephole) on the cell door was sealed. There is only a small opening where I sit most of the time to breathe. I am suffocating in my cell, waiting for the hours to pass, hoping to find some oxygen particles to breathe and stay alive.

What worsened the misery of my isolation is the high temperatures. I am, in short, inside an oven at its highest setting. I cannot sleep due to the extreme heat, and not only have they isolated me in these conditions, but they have deliberately cut off the water in the cell. Even when I request to fill a water bottle to drink, they bring it after at least four hours. As for going out to the prison yard, I was allowed only once after eight days of isolation, and they deliberately delay the delivery of the poor-quality meal for hours.

The resistance ultimately won her freedom as part of the Flood of the Free deal in January 2025. Her appearance underwent a drastic change during her year-long captivity, and she looked visibly frail and ill at the time of her release:

Women captives have endured all kinds of indignities in Israeli detention. Palestinian prisoner advocacy platform Qadeyah has reported on the violations and abuses of female captives by the Israeli authorities. In a report published in November last year, Qadeyah revealed harrowing details of the abuse endured by the female captives:

Consistent violations of their freedoms and sanctities, as the occupation forcibly removes the prisoners’ hijabs. Any attempt to invoke their right to refuse the removal of their hijab is met with barbarity and further forced naked searches. Occupation forces have not only confiscated Palestinian prisoners’ hijabs, but they have also confiscated any needles or threads to prevent prisoners from repairing the torn shoes and clothing that the occupation had replaced their modest attire with. Prisoners have no choice but to borrow each other’s shoes when they need them to go outside for breaks or to meet with their lawyers.

Systematic medical neglect; the necessary medical care is not provided to any of the women inside the occupation’s prisons facing diseases, injuries, and mental ailments exacerbated inside the prison.

The hardest times, reported by many imprisoned women, are during pregnancy, where they are denied all necessary medical attention and even deprived of sunlight.

Prison cells are unfit for human habitation: humid, with moldy walls and blankets — if provided — that reek. This is how prisoners describe the rooms in which they are held.

Torture is meticulously designed into every detail possible, where, in addition to the widespread insects and pests that spread diseases and infections, the lights are turned on and off at the whim of the occupation soldiers and guards, after cutting access to control them from inside the cells.

Nearly two dozen female prisoners remain in captivity, despite several rounds of prisoner exchanges that freed many of the women earlier this year.

Breaking down under torture

Not all captives have successfully endured their brutal conditions. The genocidal occupation has succeeded in breaking at least one of them to the point of self-harm and suicide.

Mohammed Al-Arda — one of the six escapees from the notorious Gilboa Prison during the successful Freedom Tunnel operation on September 6, 2021, and released by the resistance this year — recently recounted the story of a captive who committed suicide due to the difficult conditions in solitary confinement:

Inside the system: A prisoner’s perspective

Wael Jaghoub was incarcerated for over 23 years in the Israeli torture chambers, serving a life sentence, before the resistance freed him earlier this year. In an article he penned for Al-Akhbar on the occasion of Palestinian Prisoners’ Day — marked on April 17 every year — Jaghoub described four ways the occupation made life miserable for captives in the aftermath of October 7:

• The policy of deterrence
  Explaining this Israeli policy, Jaghoub wrote: “It is one of the components of the Israeli security doctrine, practiced against prisoners even before October 7, but its intensity drastically increased afterward. It became part of the framework of comprehensive war against the prisoners, manifested through the use of severe explosive violence against them — daily physical assaults inside the prisons, without distinction between a male or female prisoner, or between child or elder.” He added: “Additionally, the prison administration doubled or tripled the number of prisoners per room, as a form of abuse, harassment, and intimidation.”

• The policy of starvation
  Jaghoub: “Starving prisoners by reducing food quantities by approximately 80% from normal levels was the first immediate step of this policy, followed by the confiscation of all foodstuffs from prisoners’ rooms and sections, forcing prisoners to rely solely on the scant daily meals provided. This resulted in severe weight loss among all prisoners, evident in the emaciation and physical weakness observed among those released.”
  And: “The aim of the starvation policy was to destroy the prisoner’s morale and body alike, limiting any capacity for resilience or resistance and trying to reduce prisoners’ thinking to mere survival instincts—what could be termed “hunger consciousness.” In this way, hunger governs the prisoner’s behavior and narrows his consciousness to a survival instinct. This is part of the prison administration’s vengeful assault on the prisoners.”

• The policy of isolation
  Jaghoub: “This policy was implemented through several measures, including the suspension of Red Cross visits to prisons, halting family visits, severely restricting lawyers’ visits, and confiscating televisions, radios, and any means of communication, isolating prisoners entirely from the outside world. The goal was to dismantle prisoners’ morale and push them to abandon options for resistance, making prison officers the sole source of information — most of which consisted of misinformation aimed at misleading and sowing confusion and tension among prisoners. This was one of the most dangerous policies employed.”

• The policy of medical killing

  Jaghoub: “The previous policy of deliberate medical neglect was replaced by a policy of deliberate medical killing, through halting the majority of medicines provided to prisoners and stopping serious medical follow-ups that existed before October 7. This led to the spread of skin diseases — most notably scabies — as well as respiratory illnesses, causing the martyrdom of a number of prisoners.”
  He further added: “This policy is the most dangerous, as it aims to inflict chronic diseases on prisoners, leading to death. The implementation of these practices constitutes an ongoing war crime inside the prisons, supported and endorsed by the political, judicial, and security levels in Israel, and continues to this day without interruption.”

In June 2024, Itamar Ben-Gvir, the genocidal Israeli Minister of National Security, openly advocated for the killing of the Palestinians in Israeli captivity. “Prisoners should be shot in the head instead of being given more food,” Ben-Gvir said. “They should be killed with a shot to the head, and the bill to execute Palestinian prisoners must be passed in the third reading in the Knesset,” he added. Bill or no bill, the rapidly rising death toll in the Israeli dungeons is evidence that the occupation’s depraved policy of extrajudicially murdering the Palestinians has been succeeding.

Yet, the perseverance of the resistance meant that thousands of Palestinians languishing in Israeli dungeons were freed in a series of prisoner exchanges earlier this year, with Jaghoub being one of them. At the time of his release, Jaghoub was unequivocal in his pronouncement that his freedom at the hands of the resistance was never in doubt: “I did not lose hope for 24 hours that the resistance would liberate me… and I continue to have hope that the resistance will liberate those left behind.”

Thaer Khalaf, one of the captives released in Gaza during the exchanges, recalled a story from an Israeli dungeon: “One time, the officer said to us, ‘So? Sinwar fooled you, didn’t he?’ and we replied, ‘Sinwar doesn’t fool anyone.’”

Indeed, Yahya Sinwar, the martyred architect of the Flood, once vowed to release all Palestinian captives from the Israeli dungeons. He has kept part of his promise even in death, and as the resistance continues to foil Israeli plans in Gaza and insists on a comprehensive exchange deal — rather than the piecemeal one from January that the Israelis never honoured — it may just be a matter of time before the Zionist torture camps are emptied of all Palestinians, just as Sinwar had envisioned.

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