Why are Palestinians tortured in Israeli prisons?

[Leftisrightisleft]

We have heard time and time again from detained Palestinians once they are freed, about the extensive torture and abuse they faced at the hands of Israeli prisons guards.

Is this legal in Israel? Is that why nothing is done about it?

Source:

https://news.sky.com/story/freed-palestinian-prisoner-alleges-torture-and-deaths-in-israeli-detention-13450233

It's not just "many on the left". The majority of Israelis don't like the current government - their approval ratings are terrible. I don't think that a single opinion poll past about 2 months after the election (back in 2022) has showed them retaining power if new elections were to be held. The problem is that they still have power, as there haven't been elections yet... In the most recent Israel polls, Netanyahu's party is the largest, after it made some post-ceasefire gains - but it still holds well under 25% of the vote; Ben Gvir gets about 7%. Ben Gvir's power is mainly a function of the proportional representation system which accords enormous power as kingmakers to small parties and makes them far more powerful than their share of the electorate.

I hope you are correct @israelilefty but then they need to get out and protest,

FFS what do you think Israelis have been DOING for the last three years?!?!?!
Way before the war even started there were enormous anti-government protests blocking highways and city centres EVERY SINGLE WEEK in multiple locations all over the country (and often multiple times a week). During the war there have been huge weekly protests in favour of a ceasefire/hostage deal since the early months of the war. Public opinion supported a ceasefire deal to end the war consistently for a good year and a half before we got the current ceasefire deal.

Can I ask why Israeli society wanted to stop the war? Was it just to get the hostages back or was it concern for the Palestinians?

ehm your all caps are not required @israelilefty, any criticism I have made on here is regarding the actions of the Israeli government not the entirety of Israeli society, I know there are many Israeli organisations such as B”tselem who have been campaigning against and documenting the abuse of Palestinians for decades.

The majority of the protestors were not protesting because of concern that their government was carrying out a genocide and war crimes in Gaza.

That's honest of you. I do believe there are many Israelis who would love to see a peaceful and equitable relationship with Palestinians. I just don't know how many as a percentage of the population. From a lot of what I've read about polls in Israel, it's not many, but I really don't want to believe that!

Not fully followed all the thread - but weren’t the initial protests about the judicial reforms?

Given the Israeli polls have not shown concerns about welfare of Palestinians - the more recent ceasefire protests were mainly about getting hostages back and concerns about the risk to the lives of hostages of continued conflict.

https://www.vox.com/politics/457803/israel-gaza-starvation-polls-public-opinion

The majority of Jewish Israelis don’t want a 2SS (understandably or not).

@Stripes56 that Vox article is very interesting, thanks for posting it

I think this article is over-simplistic. Yes, the focus of the protests was the hostages, but that doesn't mean that there wasn't any concern for Gazan civilians - I've personally overheard many Israelis talking about this in news interviews, including politicians on the left and in the centre (for example Yair Lapid). As I wrote about in a much longer AMA thread, the war was also an overwhelming experience for most Israelis. While Israeli losses were much lower than those of Gazans, most of us lost people we knew personally, everyone experienced multiple serious missile attacks and there was continuous psychological warfare from Hamas. In this situation, it's simply hard to make mental space really to express the suffering of people on the other side. Most people found it difficult enough to deal with everything going on around us. That's not an excuse, it's just a psychological fact: the issue of the hostages was such a profound trauma. Many people (including me) did protest about the welfare of Palestinians, and it increasingly became a topic present in the main protests for the release of hostages. But the events of Oct 7 and the continuing severe abuse of the hostages made it difficult for mainstream Israeli society to feel deep empathy with Palestinians.

Your post is an explanation of why, for a majority of Israeli Jews, there has not been a focus on the suffering of Palestinians - not a refutation of its findings.

Other reasons are that the mainstream media in Israel has not portrayed or minimised what is Gaza. Another explanation is the dehumanising of Palestinians.

Haaretz has spoken written about the suffering of Palestinians - which suggests that there are resources available if people want to read them.

I don't intend to refute the findings, just to provide context. And yes, plenty of information is available here in Israel for anyone who wants to find it.

Israeli data shows at least 98 Palestinians have died in custody since October 2023, and the real toll is likely substantially higher because hundreds of people detained in Gaza are missing, an Israel-based human rights group has said.
Physicians for Human Rights – Israel (PHRI) tracked deaths from causes including physical violence, medical neglect and malnutrition for a new report, using freedom of information requests, forensic reports and interviews with lawyers, activists, relatives and witnesses.

Israeli authorities only provided comprehensive data for the first eight months of the war. Over this period official figures show an unprecedented casualty rate among Palestinian detainees, on average one death every four days.

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/nov/17/at-least-98-palestinians-have-died-in-custody-since-october-2023-israeli-data-shows

Physical violence, torture and other abuse of Palestinians has been normalised across Israel’s jail system over two years of war, with the far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, boasting about starvation rations and an underground jail holding Palestinians who never see daylight.

Current and former detainees and whistleblowers from the Israeli military have all alleged systemic violations of international law

The institutionalised cruelty came with a disturbing rise in deaths recorded across at least 12 civilian and military facilities in Israel. In the decade before the war, there were on average two or three deaths a year.

“This isn’t just an individual case here and there. It is systemic and it will continue,” Abbas said, in part because there is a culture of near total impunity for killing and mistreating Palestinians.

Just one case of assaulting detainees has come to trial, with the soldier sentenced to seven months.

@Everexpanding its horrific 😢 they don’t see Palestinians as human beings, but no one with any morals would treat an animal the way they treat Palestinian “prisoners”.

Yes and the daily breaches of International Law and just common decency are being allowed to continue unsanctioned, it’s absolutely awful

Quote from an article on the BBC website today:

PHRI said that, under Ben-Gvir's control, Israel's incarceration facilities holding Palestinians had "effectively been transformed into sites of torture and abuse".
It added daily physical violence was widespread, and that the deprivation of human rights and systematic torture had resulted in the deaths of dozens of Palestinians.

Ben Gvir seems to be a really foul human, the only good thing is that with his actions and pronouncements he seems to be building a cast iron case against at least himself should he ever end up in The Hague, as I sincerely hope he does

An Israeli lawyer in the West bank who represents Palestinian detainees talks about sexual assault.

www.instagram.com/reel/DRACevWDO9w/

Palestinian loses his eyes due to Israeli torture.

https://m.youtube.com/shorts/tFyuaA0YmGQ

I read that article, I’m not shocked but I’m absolutely sickened. Shame yet again on Israel!

https://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/391/bmj.r2347.full.pdf

Torture and health worker complicity in Israeli detention sites
report published 20th of November

“Multiple credible reports have emerged since 2023
detailing the torture and inhumane treatment of
Palestinians held in Israeli detention sites.1 -8 At least
75 Palestinians—including children—have died or
been killed while held in Israeli detention since
October 2023.9 These reports outline in graphic detail
the extent of state-sanctioned Israeli violence against
the Palestinian people and clearly expose repeated
violations of international law. Recently released
Palestinian hostages—held without charge—have
reported repeated beatings and horrific conditions
in Israeli prisons and detention sites.10 Several reports
also raise urgent concerns about the role of Israeli
health workers in acts of torture, and the failure to
prevent such acts.”