On Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, ICSPR warns against turning Israeli prisons into mass graves through the legalization of execution, torture, and inhuman treatment
Date: 17 April 2026
Press Release
On Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, ICSPR warns against turning Israeli prisons into mass graves through the legalization of execution, torture, and inhuman treatment
The International Commission to Support Palestinian Rights (ICSPR) marks Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, observed annually on 17 April, in tribute to the sacrifices of thousands of Palestinian prisoners and detainees held in Israeli occupation prisons, who are subjected to a systematic regime of oppression based on torture, starvation, medical neglect, solitary confinement, and deprivation of the most basic human rights, in flagrant violation of international humanitarian law and international human rights law.
This national occasion, established by the Palestinian National Council in 1974, comes at an unprecedentedly grave and dangerous moment, as the prisoners’ movement is currently enduring what human rights estimates consistently describe as its most critical phase since 1967, especially in the aftermath of the aggression against the Gaza Strip since October 2023, and the accompanying unprecedented escalation of violations and crimes inside prisons.
Updated data issued by institutions concerned with prisoners’ affairs indicate that the number of Palestinian detainees in Israeli occupation prisons exceeded 9,600 as of early April 2026, including 86 female prisoners and approximately 350 children, amid a systematic targeting of all sectors of Palestinian society, including women and children.
The number of administrative detainees has also exceeded 3,532, including women and children, all held without charge or trial, in a blatant violation of international fair trial standards. The number of children held under administrative detention has reached approximately 180, in a dangerous indication of the growing use of this arbitrary measure as a tool of collective punishment.
In the same context, the occupation authorities continue to detain no fewer than 1,251 detainees under the classification of “unlawful combatants,” a category denied even the most basic legal guarantees, under harsh detention conditions, while the crime of enforced disappearance continues against many detainees from the Gaza Strip, with human rights and humanitarian organizations denied access to them.
ICSPR warns of the serious deterioration in prisoners’ conditions inside the prisons, where they are subjected to systematic policies including physical and psychological torture, starvation, deliberate medical neglect, and denial of treatment, which have led to the death of 89 prisoners since October 2023. The total number of prisoners who have died in custody since 1967 has reached 326, while the occupation authorities continue to withhold the bodies of 97 of them, in grave breach of international humanitarian law.
The Commission also expresses its deep concern over reports documenting brutal torture practices inside detention centers, including camps designated for Gaza detainees, which point to grave violations that may amount to extrajudicial executions, amid a complete absence of international oversight.
In this context, ICSPR strongly condemns the so-called “law on the execution of Palestinian prisoners,” which constitutes a dangerous escalation in the system of racist legislation, an attempt to legalize extrajudicial killing, a grave violation of the right to life, and a direct undermining of fair trial guarantees, amounting to a war crime and a crime against humanity under international law and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
ICSPR considers the totality of these policies to constitute an integrated system of organized crimes, including systematic torture and ill-treatment, deliberate medical neglect (slow killing), starvation and food reduction, prolonged solitary confinement, arbitrary administrative detention, enforced disappearance of Gaza detainees, deprivation of visits and communication, and the enactment of racist legislation to codify killing. Taken together, these crimes amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity and form part of a broader policy of slow extermination and collective punishment.
The Commission affirms that continued international silence and the absence of effective oversight encourage the occupation authorities to persist in these crimes, entrench the policy of impunity, and undermine the international justice system. It further stresses that the issue of prisoners must remain at the heart of national, human rights, and diplomatic struggle, as their freedom is a legal, moral, and humanitarian entitlement, requiring action to prevent Israeli prisons from being turned into silent mass graves in the absence of international accountability.
In light of the above, the International Commission to Support Palestinian Rights (ICSPR) calls for:
- Opening an immediate and serious investigation by the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court into the crimes committed against prisoners.
- Urgent action by the United Nations and the High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Conventions to provide international protection for prisoners.
- Enabling the International Committee of the Red Cross to gain immediate and unconditional access to all places of detention.
- Revealing the fate of Gaza detainees and ending the crime of enforced disappearance.
- Halting the implementation of the law on the execution of prisoners and all racist legislation.
- Releasing administrative detainees, sick prisoners, children, women, and all those arbitrarily detained.
- Returning the withheld bodies of deceased prisoners and ensuring their dignified burial.
- Escalating popular and international human rights mobilization and intensifying solidarity campaigns with prisoners and detainees in Israeli occupation prisons, while making the prisoners’ cause an international priority in all legal and political forums.
Freedom for Palestinian prisoners
No to the racist execution law
Yes to international accountability and ending impunity
The International Commission to Support Palestinian Rights (ICSPR)
