A report by the Hebrew newspaper Haaretz stated that Palestinian detainees in occupation prisons are suffering from “hunger” and are receiving only meagre amounts of food, contrary to what was ordered by an Israeli court.
Haaretz said that “around three months after the Supreme Court ruled that the state must provide security prisoners with sufficient quantities of food to maintain their health, no change has occurred, according to testimonies from inside the prisons”.
The newspaper added that, based on visits conducted to the prisons, the Association for Civil Rights and the organisation Gisha submitted a petition to the Supreme Court at the beginning of this week, arguing that the Prison Service is not implementing the ruling.
The testimonies submitted with the petition indicate that detainees “reported no change in food distribution, and some even said the quantity had decreased”.
The two rights organisations are demanding “the imposition of a fine or imprisonment of the Prison Service Commissioner, Kobi Yaakov”, according to the same report.
According to testimonies provided by lawyers who visited Ofer, Ganot, Megiddo, Gilboa, Ketziot, and Shatta prisons, Palestinian prisoners said they were not aware of the court decision at all, and that they had not undergone any examination since it was issued.
In one written testimony, a lawyer who recently visited 53 prisoners in various prisons wrote that they all informed him “that the amount of food they receive is small and of poor quality, and some complained of constant hunger”.
The lawyer, who requested anonymity, said: “One of the detainees told me they are starving to death and dreaming of food”.
According to him, prisoners testified that since 7 October 2023 “they have been given expired food, dirty vegetables, and a little tahini that they diluted with more water to make it last”.
He explained that all his clients “have lost weight since their imprisonment due to the lack of food. Some have lost half their body weight or more”.
He added that he recently met an administrative detainee in Ketziot prison who previously weighed 130 kilograms and now weighs around 60 kilograms. He continued, “I met prisoners whose weight dropped to below 49 kilograms”.
In contrast, the Israeli Prison Service claimed, in response to the Haaretz report, that “as the Supreme Court ruled, there is no dispute over the Prison Service’s obligation to provide food to all prisoners in quantities and compositions that maintain their health”.
It alleged that “following the ruling, the commissioner appointed a team of active and retired officers and professionals tasked with fully implementing the decision, while ensuring the lives and safety of prison fighters against the serious risks posed by security prisoners”.
More than ten thousand Palestinian prisoners are held in Israeli prisons, including children and women, suffering torture, starvation, and medical neglect, with many killed, according to Palestinian and Israeli human rights and media reports.
