Palestinian security prisoners have been held in increasingly dire conditions since October 2023, with many suffering from severe hunger, according to an audit published this week by the Public Defender’s Office.

Inmates who met with agency representatives reported “drastic weight loss and signs of malnutrition,” the audit said. It added that inspectors witnessed that many of the prisoners were very thin, “in some cases to an extreme degree.”

The report, which addresses the treatment of detainees suspected of criminal and security offenses, attests to worsening detention conditions for both sets of inmates as Israel’s prison population has soared since the outbreak of the two-year war with Hamas, sparked by the terror group’s October 7, 2023, attack.

Security prisoners have been subject to particularly harsh treatment, according to the audit, which said these detainees are given meager food rations, beaten regularly by guards and held in unsanitary conditions that have allowed diseases to spread quickly in crowded, tiny cells.

Inspectors in the Public Defender’s Office who authored the report examined 43 total detention facilities in 2023 and 2024, including 27 under the supervision of the Israel Prison Service, 12 police station holding cells and four courthouse holding cells.

Human rights groups in both Israel and abroad have been sounding alarm bells about worsening prison conditions for the past several years; however, the audit from the Public Defender’s Office marked a rare instance in which an Israeli government body reported on the worsening situation.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who oversees the Israel Prison Service in his role, has publicly boasted about harsh measures implemented against security detainees on his watch, telling a Knesset committee in October that he is proud that jails “have turned into a nightmare for terrorists.”

Soon after the outbreak of the war, IPS issued an order to limit — if not cancel........

© The Times of Israel