Lawyers said detainees described being beaten, trampled, attacked by dogs, and denied medical care and adequate food.
Israel is operating an underground prison where scores of Palestinians from Gaza are held in conditions that human rights lawyers say amount to torture, including total deprivation of daylight, prolonged isolation, starvation-level rations, and routine physical abuse, The Guardian revealed on Saturday.
The facility, known as Rakefet, is located beneath the Ramla prison complex south-east of Tel Aviv.
According to The Guardian, it was originally built in the early 1980s to hold high-level organized crime figures but was shuttered only a few years later after Israeli authorities themselves deemed the conditions “inhumane.”
The prison was reactivated in late 2023 on the orders of far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
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Lawyers from the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI), who have recently managed to access the prison, say the detainees include civilians seized during the war in Gaza, some of whom have been held for many months without charge or trial. PCATI described the current detention regime as “violent, legally contested, and in violation of international humanitarian law.”
“Though the war is officially over, (Palestinians from Gaza) are still imprisoned under legally contested and violent wartime conditions that violate international humanitarian law and amount to torture,” PCATI said in a statement to The Guardian.
Civilians Held in Total Darkness
Two of the detainees whose cases were examined by PCATI include a 34-year-old nurse detained while working in a hospital in December 2023, and an 18-year-old food vendor arrested at a checkpoint in October 2024. Both were transferred to the Rakefet complex in January.
One of the lawyers, Janan Abdu, said: “In the cases of the clients we visited, we are speaking about civilians. The man I spoke to was an 18-year-old who worked selling food. He was taken from a checkpoint on a road.”
The detainees reported being held in windowless underground cells with no natural light or ventilation. One detainee reportedly asked his lawyer: “Where am I and why am I here?” He had not been informed even of the name of the prison.
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According to the investigation, detainees are typically kept shackled, deprived of mattresses for most of the day, and exposed to frequent physical assaults.
Lawyers said detainees described being beaten, trampled, attacked by dogs, and denied medical care and adequate food. Israel’s High Court ruled earlier this month that Palestinian prisoners are being deprived of basic nutrition.
The underground confinement has severe psychological effects, said PCATI director Tal Steiner:
“Holding people below ground without daylight for months on end has extreme implications. It’s very hard to remain intact when you are held in such oppressive and difficult conditions.”
Steiner noted that even Israel’s former prison service chief in the 1980s, Rafael Suissa, wrote that the facility was “too cruel, too inhumane” for any prisoner, regardless of the accusations against them.
Numbers of Detainees Remain High
Under the October ceasefire agreement, Israel released 250 Palestinian prisoners convicted in Israeli courts and 1,700 detainees from Gaza who had been held without charge.
However, The Guardian reports, citing official data obtained by PCATI, that at least 1,000 Palestinians from Gaza continue to be detained under the same conditions — including the nurse held underground at Rakefet.
Classified Israeli information reviewed by The Guardian indicates that the majority of Palestinians taken prisoner from Gaza during the war were civilians.
Yet the Israeli authorities have offered no transparency about who is being detained in Rakefet or on what legal grounds, according to the British newspaper.
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Proceedings authorizing detention reportedly take place in short video hearings in which detainees have no access to lawyers and are not presented with evidence.
In one case described to PCATI, a detainee asked whether his pregnant wife had safely given birth. A guard immediately cut him off, threatening punishment for discussing family matters.
Ben-Gvir has publicly framed the reopened prison as a place to “bury terrorists underground.” During a televised visit, he said: “This is terrorists’ natural place, under the ground.”
Continued Lack of Responsibility
In response to The Guardian’s findings, the Israel Prison Service reportedly stated only that it “operates in accordance with the law” and is “not responsible for arrest policy,” while the Justice Ministry directed questions to the Israeli military, which in turn referred inquiries back to the prison service.
Meanwhile, PCATI says it has been asked to represent additional detainees believed to remain inside the underground facility.
One detainee, according to his lawyer, gave a single request before being taken back below ground: “Please come see me again.”
(The Palestine Chronicle)
Ben-Eatin’ Gvir…one of the biggest scumbags ever born. He’s the Israeli version of American Nazi, Randy Fine.
I hope he chokes on his next 14 course meal.
And he’s a settler, same with Smotrich. If Wasrael is allowed to annex West Bank, they would finally become legal, legitimate citizens of Wasrael, Palestine. Why should they be rewarded after all they’ve done?