Palestinian Prisoners in Israeli Prisons Are Subjected to Killings, Torture, Medical Neglect, Abuse, and Denial of Rights

Date: April 17, 2025

Press Release
On the Occasion of Palestinian Prisoners’ Day
“Palestinian Prisoners in Israeli Prisons Are Subjected to Killings, Torture, Medical Neglect, Abuse, and Denial of Rights”

The International Commission to Support Palestinian Rights (ICSPR): On April 17 of each year, the Palestinian people in the homeland and in the diaspora commemorate Palestinian Prisoners’ Day in honor of the sacrifices made by thousands of Palestinians detained in Israeli occupation prisons. This comes at a time when the Israeli occupation authorities continue to commit heinous crimes against them in flagrant violation of the provisions of international humanitarian law, especially the Third and Fourth Geneva Conventions, and human rights standards.

This occasion coincides with the ongoing Israeli aggression and genocide in the Gaza Strip, which has continued for 18 consecutive months, along with field executions, invasions of refugee camps, settler-colonial expansion, and Judaization in the West Bank and Jerusalem. These actions have resulted in over 65,000 martyrs and missing persons, and nearly 120,000 wounded since October 7, 2023. Furthermore, approximately 23,000 Palestinians have been detained, with 9,500 prisoners still held in Israeli prisons, including 350 children, 26 women, and 3,498 administrative detainees. The number of prisoners from the Gaza Strip is estimated at about 2,500, most of whom are subjected to enforced disappearance, and many are treated as unlawful combatants, thereby being denied their legal rights and protections.

ICSPR: With the martyrdom of prisoner Musab Hassan Adeili, 20, from Nablus, who was declared dead at Soroka Hospital last night, the number of martyrs among prisoners since October 7, 2023, has risen to 68, including 47 from Gaza. Since 1967, 301 prisoners have died in Israeli prisons due to torture, abuse, medical neglect, and a series of serious violations committed against them. Additionally, the bodies of 73 deceased prisoners remain withheld in Israeli morgues and “cemeteries of numbers.”

ICSPR: Warns of the continued international failure, double standards, and silence in the face of crimes of arbitrary detention, torture, abuse, inhuman detention conditions, rape and sexual harassment, detention in non-designated locations, deprivation of visitation rights, expanded use of administrative detention without trial, solitary confinement, deliberate medical negligence, and violent crackdowns on prisoners. Israel continues to legitimize its violations through the enactment of racist laws such as the “Prisoner Execution Law,” the law prohibiting the provision of health services, and the “Unlawful Combatant Law” which deprives prisoners of all their rights. The Israeli government and prison administration have turned prisons into slaughterhouses of death, torture, abuse, and sexual violence.

The International Commission to Support Palestinian Rights (ICSPR) salutes the Palestinian prisoners and their families on this solemn day, renews its support for them and their legitimate demands, and strongly condemns the systematic Israeli crimes against them. These violations represent a clear breach of the Third and Fourth Geneva Conventions, international human rights law, particularly the Convention Against Torture and the Convention on the Prevention of Genocide. ICSPR also denounces the continued international failure to stop Israeli crimes of genocide, ethnic cleansing, and war crimes against Palestinians, including prisoners.

Furthermore, ICSPR stresses the importance of protecting the rights of prisoners and released detainees, especially in light of the Palestinian Authority’s suspension of laws safeguarding their rights in response to U.S. and Israeli pressure, and condemns the deprivation of their entitlements and financial rights. ICSPR highlights the danger of the ongoing absence of a national strategy to protect prisoners and internationalize their cause, and the delay of the Palestinian leadership in referring the crimes committed against them to the International Criminal Court, alongside weak official efforts to activate legal mechanisms to protect them and support their cause for freedom and justice.

Accordingly, ICSPR:

• Calls on the international community, the High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Conventions, and the International Committee of the Red Cross to urgently act to ensure international protection for Palestinians, including detainees, and to stop the ongoing crimes and violations, and pressure for their immediate release.

• Demands the opening of an independent international investigation through UN mechanisms, particularly the International Commission of Inquiry, to look into violations against prisoners, including killings, torture, medical neglect, rape, denial of rights, and collective punishment.

• Urges the International Committee of the Red Cross to play a more effective role to ensure immediate and unconditional access to detention centers.

• Calls on the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to open a serious investigation into Israeli crimes against detainees in occupation prisons, as these constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity, and to hold the perpetrators accountable.

• Calls on the Palestinian leadership to adopt a comprehensive national strategy that internationalizes the struggle and the cause of Palestinian prisoners, using all international and regional mechanisms to enhance the boycott and accountability campaign against Israeli leaders and institutions. It also urges increased global solidarity, and pressure on the occupation authorities to stop crimes against prisoners and secure their release, including intensified efforts to convene a special meeting of the High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Conventions to work towards protecting prisoners in Israeli prisons.

End.