Against the background of the war in Gaza, Israeli prisons count a record number of Palestinians, who are subjected to “systematic abuse” and sometimes torture, as Israeli NGOs complain, calling on the international community to act.

Members of these organizations traveled to Geneva this week to shed light before the United Nations on a major “crisis” in the country’s prisons, where they say nine people have died since October 7.

“We are extremely concerned,” she said Tal Steiner, executive director of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) in an interview with AFP.

“We are facing a crisis,” she said, emphasizing that “nearly 10,000 Palestinians are detained in Israel…a 200% increase».

According to Steiner, the situation has gotten much worse since the war between Israel and the Islamist movement Hamas broke out.

Israel has been pounding the Gaza Strip and conducting ground operations there since the unprecedented attack on its soil by Hamas on October 7. That attack killed more than 1,160 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

In the Gaza Strip, more than 31,000 people have been killed in Israeli retaliatory operations, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-controlled enclave.

“Generalized and systematic”

Since the military offensive against Gaza began, “the crisis in Israeli detention centers and prisons has been really ignored,” warned Miriam Azem of the legal group Adalah, which defends the rights of Palestinian citizens of Israel.

She says her organization has recorded “19 clear cases” of torture in the Israeli prison system since October 7, including sexual violence.

“We are seeing widespread and systematic use of numerous methods of torture and ill-treatment against Palestinians,” she said.

This crisis “requires the immediate intervention of the international community”, he said. “People are (suffering) in detention right now … it is absolutely necessary that immediate action be taken.”

The Israeli prison administration assured for its part that “all prisoners are detained according to the law” and that it is not aware of the accusations leveled against it.

Any complaint submitted by prisoners “will be thoroughly examined,” he told AFP.

MCOs are also concerned about detention conditions in Israeli military facilities.

At least 27 Palestinians have died in these detention facilities since October, according to Steiner, who speaks of something “unprecedented.”

Neither MCO nor foreign journalists had access to these camps and the information about the conditions there comes from the testimonies of former prisoners.

According to these reports, detainees are often locked in “open-air cages” and “handcuffed and blindfolded 24 hours a day,” Steiner said.

Detainees are forced to sleep on the ground in the cold, beaten and denied medical aid, Steiner added. According to her, these prisoners – among them children – are subject to Israeli law on rogue fighters and are deprived of many rights.

“The law is unconstitutional,” said the head of the Public Committee against Torture.

Naughty

There are no official figures, but it is estimated that around 1,000 people are being held in these camps and that around 600 others, who were arrested on Israeli soil on October 7, are being held by the Israeli prison system.

The two women – both Israeli – members of the NGOs who spoke to AFP believe that defending Palestinian rights in Israel has become increasingly difficult since October 7. They themselves have faced threats and insults.

The trauma caused by the Hamas attack and the concern over the fate of the hostages still being held by Hamas in Gaza are understandable for Steiner, but “that is no excuse for torture.”

“If Israel can show that it is holding even its worst enemies in humane conditions, that will be a triumph.”