Systemic abuse of inmates

As noted in the State of the Occupation report for the 58th year of occupation, violence, abuse and humiliation have become a fixed, inseparable part of daily life for security inmates. Information collected and testimonies taken by human rights organizations published in reports and in investigative journalism, depict a horrifying reality in which inmates, including children, older adults, medical patients, and people with disabilities, are subjected to threats and violence from the moment of their arrest until their release, including detainees who were ultimately released without charge. Detainees from Gaza released in October 2025 described being subjected to violence and beatings even on the bus that took them back to Gaza. Testimonies recently collected by B’Tselem describe the use of electric shocks, tear gas and stun grenades, cigarettes being extinguished on inmates’ bodies and boiling liquids poured on them, dogs set on inmates, and more. Psychological violence, humiliation, and threats to the lives and safety of family members have also been used. The many testimonies given by released detainees, soldiers, officers and physicians over the past two years, reveal a consistent and deliberate pattern of physical violence, humiliation and threats.

Despite feelings of fear and shame among many released inmates, testimonies and information about sexual violence and threats of sexual violence have been collected in recent months. Sexual assaults, reported by Israeli human rights NGO B’Tselem, included physical violence directed at genitals using blows, shackling, electric shocks or dog attacks, unnecessary removal of clothes, sometimes in front of other inmates or prison staff, filming degrading videos of a sexual nature, and even acts of anal rape using various objects. In one such assault, which later received widespread media coverage and came to be known as ‘the Sde Teiman incident’, a detainee suffered internal bleeding after a stick was inserted into his rectum. The assault was caught on the facility’s cameras, and the injuries were medically documented. In some of the reported cases, the abuse resulted in major injuries and disability, as well as extreme psychological trauma for the victims themselves and for other inmates who witnessed it, as recounted by released inmates interviewed by B’Tselem.

Despite the many testimonies of abuse and violence against inmates since October 2023, only one reservist is known to have been tried and punished for beating shackled Palestinian detainees from Gaza he transported to a prison. The five indictments filed for aggravated assault in the Sde Teiman incident were dropped in March 2026 by the Military Advocate General (MAG), after the detainee was returned to Gaza in October 2025 and no testimony was collected from him. Other considerations, pertaining to the investigation but not the assault itself also played a role, as detailed by the MAG in the decision (Hebrew).

Withdrawing indictments as serious as these, when supporting evidence and medical documentation are available, and allowing the defendants to return to active reserve duty (Hebrew), illustrate that, in practice, Israel currently has no effective investigation, enforcement, or legal systems to protect Palestinian inmates from abuse in all of its forms, investigate suspected violations of their rights, and prosecute perpetrators.

Further reading:

B’Tselem: Living Hell, January 2026

The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, HaMoked – Center for the Defence of the Individual, Parents Against Child Detention and Physicians for Human Rights Israel, shadow report to the UN Committee Against Torture, November 2025: Torture as State Policy: Abuse of Palestinian Detainees in Israel and Absence of Accountability Since October 7, 2023

UN Committee against Torture: Concluding Observations on the Sixth Periodic Report of Israel, Advanced Unedited Version, November 25, 2025