Freed Palestinians describe worsening abuses in prisons

WEST BANK — Frequent beatings, overcrowding, withholding of basic rations. Released Palestinians have described to The Associated Press worsening abuses in Israeli prisons crammed with thousands detained since the conflict in Gaza began 10 months ago.

Israeli officials have acknowledged that they have made conditions harsher for Palestinians in prisons, with hard-line National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir boasting that prisons will no longer be "summer camps" under his watch.

Four released Palestinians told The Associated Press that treatment had dramatically worsened in prisons run by the ministry since the Oct 7 attacks that triggered the latest conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. Some emerged from months of captivity emaciated and emotionally scarred.

A fifth prisoner, Muazzaz Khalil Abayat, was too weak to detail his experience soon after his release in July following six months at southern Israel's Naqab prison. Frail-looking and unable to focus, he could only muster the strength to speak for several minutes, saying he was regularly beaten.

Now at home outside Bethlehem, the 37-year-old can hardly leave his armchair.

"At night, he hallucinates and stands in the middle of the house, in shock or remembering the torment and pain he went through," said his cousin, Aya Abayat. Like many of the detained, he was put under administrative detention, a procedure that allows Israel to detain people indefinitely without charge.

The AP cannot independently verify the accounts of the prisoners. But they described similar conditions, even though they were held separately. While Abayat was only able to speak briefly, the other four spoke to the AP at length, and one requested anonymity for fear of being rearrested. Their accounts match reports from human rights groups that have documented alleged abuse in Israeli detention facilities.

Alarm among rights groups over abuses of Palestinian prisoners has mainly focused on military facilities, particularly Sde Teiman, a desert base where Israeli military police have arrested 10 soldiers on suspicion of sodomizing a Palestinian detainee. The detention facility at the base has held most of the Palestinians seized in raids in the Gaza Strip since the conflict began.

The Israeli army says 36 Palestinian prisoners have died in military-run detention centers since October. It said some of them had "previous illnesses or injuries caused to them as a result of the ongoing hostilities", without elaborating further.

According to autopsy reports of five of the detainees, two bore signs of physical trauma such as broken ribs, while the death of a third "could have been avoided if there had been greater care for his medical needs".

Agencies via Xinhua