On Palestinian Prisoner’s Day, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) warns that thousands of Palestinian prisoners are being subjected to harsh and life-threatening conditions in Israeli detention, including acts that may amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide, as Israel’s settler-colonial regime continues to systematically torture Palestinians and escalate its arbitrary detention across the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
Over recent years, and particularly since Israel launched its genocidal military campaign in the Gaza Strip, PCHR has collected harrowing testimonies from hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in detention and from those who have been released. All victims interviewed by PCHR’s field researchers and lawyers, including women, children, doctors, journalists, and other civilians, have been subjected to severe forms of torture and ill-treatment. They have been exposed to brutal beatings, prolonged sleep deprivation, starvation, deliberate medical neglect, and sexual violence, including rape, while being held in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions. They are detained incommunicado, denied access to lawyers, family members, and the International Committee of the Red Cross, while Israeli authorities continue to conceal the fate and whereabouts of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, amounting to enforced disappearance.
These findings combined with the extensive evidence collected led PCHR, in its report issued last year, to conclude that the torture of Palestinian prisoners constitutes an integral component of Israel’s ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people. This conclusion has been further reinforced by the recent report of the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Francesca Albanese.
For decades, Israel’s settler-colonial regime has weaponized detention as a central tool to suppress Palestinians and deny them their right to self-determination. However, since 7 October 2023, this policy has escalated to unprecedented levels, with Israeli forces carrying out a widespread campaign of mass arrests targeting Palestinians across the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including children, women, and professionals such as journalists, doctors, teachers, and humanitarian workers many of whom remain imprisoned to this day. Among them is Dr. Husam Abu Safiya, Director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza.
Many of those arrested during Israel’s genocidal military campaign in Gaza are not only tortured but remain forcibly disappeared, as Israeli authorities refuse to disclose their fate and whereabouts and continue to deny them fundamental legal protections, including their right to legal counsel and the right to a fair trial. Months into the so-called ceasefire, which came into effect in October 2025, hundreds of Palestinian families remain in anguish, unable to determine whether their loved ones are alive, detained, or dead.
As of early 2026, Israeli authorities have returned more than 300 unidentified bodies. Many of these bodies were severely decomposed, mutilated, or burned, making identification extremely difficult, particularly in light of Israel’s continued obstruction of the entry of necessary forensic equipment into the Gaza Strip despite repeated calls by the relevant bodies, including the Ministry of Health in Gaza and prisoners’ organisations.
According to the latest statistics issued by the Palestinian Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs Commission, the number of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons and detention camps as of April 2026 has reached approximately 9,600, among them 84 women and 350 children. At least 1,251 Palestinians from Gaza are currently held without charge or trial under the so-called “Unlawful Combatants Law,” a figure that does not include detainees held in military camps such as Sde Teiman military camp.
The number of Palestinians who have died in Israeli detention has reached at least 89, including 52 from the Gaza Strip. According to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society (PPS), this figure includes only those whose identities have been confirmed. However, the actual number is likely to be significantly higher.
Israeli authorities have also further escalated their policies against Palestinian prisoners through the adoption of a discriminatory law by the Knesset authorizing the imposition of the death penalty on Palestinian detainees convicted of so-called “terrorist offenses” before Israeli military courts, which maintain a near-100% conviction rate. This law entrenches Israel’s long standing practice of extrajudicial execution under the guise of legality and reflects the deepening alignment of the legislative and executive branches in advancing policies that demonstrate genocidal intent against Palestinian prisoners.
In light of the above, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) reiterates its urgent call on the international community to take immediate and decisive action, including the imposition of an arms embargo and sanctions on the Israeli government to bring an end to Israel’s ongoing genocidal acts against the Palestinian people, and to halt all forms of torture, ill-treatment, enforced disappearance, and arbitrary detention perpetrated against Palestinian prisoners. PCHR also calls on the international community to compel Israel to end the widespread and systematic practice of indefinite incommunicado detention of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip under the so-called Unlawful Combatants Law, without charge or trial, and ensuring the immediate release of all those arbitrarily detained. The Israeli occupation authorities must allow immediate and unhindered access to prisons, military detention camps, and medical facilities for relevant investigative and monitoring bodies as well as the International Committee of the Red Cross, lawyers, and family members of the detainees.
PCHR further calls on the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to ensure that the genocidal acts and the crimes against humanity, including torture, rape, and enforced disappearance committed against Palestinian prisoners are investigations and arrest warrants are issued for Israeli officials most responsible for the commission of these crimes.
