Marwan Barghouti, known as the “Palestinian Nelson Mandela”, has been beaten again in Israeli prison – on three occasions in less than a month, his lawyer said. He was left to bleed with no medical attention, said his son Arab, before Palestinian Prisoners' Day is marked on Friday.
Israeli prison officials continue to deprive Mr Barghouti of visits from his family. They have also banned members of the International Committee for the Red Cross from visiting him and more than 9,500 other Palestinian prisoners since October 2023.
Mr Barghouti's story is not uncommon. A trove of evidence published by local and international rights groups, including testimonies from detainees across Israel's prison system, show systematic abuse.
The UN's Committee Against Torture documented “severe beatings, electric shocks, stress positions for prolonged periods, starvation and widespread sexual insults and threats of rape” that resulted in a “sharp rise” in deaths in custody.
Prisoners languish between four walls, among other men like them, in overcrowded cells, sometimes sleeping on the floor, receiving very little food, with the sights and sounds of torture surrounding them. The experiences haunt Palestinians long after their incarceration ends.
“It was the worst two years of my life. What I saw is still in me. I still have nightmares, and wake up thinking I'm back there again,” Hussain Yousef Al Zuwaidi, who was jailed in December 2023 and released in 2025, told The National from Gaza.
He, like many others who spoke to the media or rights groups, recalled instances of psychological and physical abuse, including sexual violence and food deprivation.
Israeli officials such as the National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who heads the prison system, have made no secret of the fact that their aim is to make life as unbearable as possible for jailed Palestinians. The Israel Prison Service has repeatedly denied allegations of systematic mistreatment.
When faced with a backlash over prison conditions, Mr Ben-Gvir said he aimed to ensure that “terrorists get the bare minimum”, and suggested the death penalty as a “solution” for overcrowding.
Mr Ben-Gvir's dream has since come true. Last month, the Israeli parliament passed a law that would make it possible to sentence Palestinian detainees to death under certain conditions, bringing back capital punishment in what is commonly referred to as “the Middle East's only democracy”, much to the dismay of the international community.
Even rare opposing voices from within the Knesset, such as Ofer Cassif, referred to it as the “genocide law” for its specific targeting of Palestinians and exemption of Jewish Israelis who have been convicted of murdering Palestinians.
Palestinian Prisoners' Day
The detention of Palestinians increases on a near-daily basis through inspections, raids and clashes. Women, children, men and political figures are taken, many of them without charge. They are placed in what is known as “administrative detention”, which can be renewed every six months and can go on for years.
There are at least 9,500 Palestinians currently in administrative detention in Israeli jails. Through the courts, they can be faced with “secret evidence” that is kept from their lawyers under the guise of national security.
“Arrest and detention are tools of control. And those being detained are often political leaders and individuals who have political significance to Palestinians and are consistently arrested at times and even placed under administrative detention, which is detention without charge or trial,” Miriam Azem, international advocacy co-ordinator for the Legal Centre for Arab Minority Rights in Israel (Adalah), told The National.
“So the detention of Palestinians as an issue has always been such a large part of the struggle for freedom, for liberation.”
This is one of the many reasons why Palestinian Prisoners' Day holds such significance in the Palestinian psyche. The plight of prisoners is seen as a problem that does not receive as much attention as victims would like.
“Every day prisoners inside jails die not once, but 10 times – and the new law has left not even 1 per cent of hope for them. They deprive us even of our prayers as Muslims and reading of the Holy Quran,” said Mr Al Zuwaidi. “We call vehemently that this all stops and the world finally looks at us.”
