Marking the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, the Palestinian Center for the Defense of Prisoners reported a sharp escalation in Israel’s use of physical and psychological torture against Palestinian detainees, warning that Israeli prisons have become sites of systematic abuse and life‑threatening conditions.
The organization said detainees are routinely subjected to severe beatings, prolonged stress positions, humiliation, starvation, solitary confinement, sexual assaults, and the denial of medical treatment.
These practices, it noted, form part of an institutional policy aimed at breaking prisoners and stripping them of their dignity, in direct violation of the UN Convention Against Torture, the Geneva Conventions, and other international legal standards.
According to the center, approximately 150 Palestinian detainees have died in Israeli custody as a result of torture, related abuses, and medical neglect. Nearly 90 of those deaths have occurred since the beginning of the genocide in Gaza on October 7, 2023 — a surge the group described as unprecedented in scale and severity.
The center added that testimonies from recently released detainees describe conditions amounting to “sadistic” treatment, including sexual violence and assaults carried out under political and legal protection.
It warned that Israeli prisons have become among the most dangerous detention environments in the world for Palestinians.
The organization called on the United Nations, states party to the Convention Against Torture, and international human rights bodies to intervene immediately, allow independent investigations inside Israeli prisons, and hold Israeli officials accountable for ordering or enabling torture.
It stressed that continued global silence effectively makes the international community complicit in the ongoing abuse of Palestinian detainees.
Palestinian prisoner organizations report that the total number of Palestinian and Arab detainees held in Israeli prisons has exceeded 9,600 people as of early April 2026. T
his aggregate figure comes from a joint statement issued by the Commission of Detainees’ and Ex‑Detainees’ Affairs, the Palestinian Prisoner Society, and Ad-Dameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association and reflects the organizations’ consolidated count across facilities and classifications.
The joint statement specifies that 86 women are currently imprisoned, and that 25 of those women are being held under administrative detention (detention without charge or trial). The organizations note that two of the women had been jailed prior to the current war, while the remainder were detained more recently.
Regarding children, the groups report about 350 child detainees under the age of 18, with most held in Ofer and Megiddo prisons and two girls detained in Damon.
The statement also highlights that by the end of 2025 roughly 180 children had been held under administrative detention, underscoring the use of detention without charge among minors as well as adults.
The organizations further report long‑term and acute harms: since 1967 about 326 detainees have died in detention, including 89 deaths since the start of the current war, and they warn that dozens of detainees from Gaza remain subjected to enforced disappearance.
The statement also notes that some detainees are classified as “unlawful combatants” or are held in military camps and therefore may not be fully reflected in public prison‑service tables.
The joint release does not provide a precise, separate tally for elected Palestinian lawmakers or local officials; prisoner groups state that dozens of elected officials and local leaders are among those detained, but they do not give a single stable number in the public summary.
