Lawyers expose ‘cruel, inhumane’ conditions in reopened Israeli underground prison for Palestinians

Two lawyers representing Palestinian detainees have exposed distressing details about the conditions inside a recently reopened underground Israeli prison, describing it as “cruel and inhumane.” 

The Guardian reported on Saturday that Hanan Abdu and Saja Misherqi Baransi, representing the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI), shared accounts of abuse, isolation, and deprivation in the Rakefet prison complex, raising concerns among legal and rights groups. 

During their first visit to the facility this summer, they provided legal representation for two civilians who had been held for months without charge - a nurse detained in his work attire and a young food seller. 

These two individuals have been confined in the subterranean Rakefet complex since January and have reported experiencing regular beatings and violence consistent with documented instances of torture in other Israeli detention centers, according to the attorneys. 

“In the cases of the clients we visited, we are speaking about civilians,” said Abdu. “The man I spoke to was an 18-year-old who worked selling food. He was taken from a checkpoint on a road.”

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Escorted by masked, heavily armed guards, the lawyers descended into a dirty, poorly lit area infested with dead insects. The unsanitary conditions included an unusable toilet and constant surveillance through cameras, infringing on attorney-client confidentiality. Guards cautioned against discussing detainees’ families or the war in Gaza, threatening to terminate the meeting. 

“When we finally met them, they were bent over, with their heads forced to the ground, and their hands and feet shackled,” Abdu said.

Baransi, the other PCATI lawyer, also said the two detainees had been held in Rakefet for nine months without even knowing the name of the prison.

The detainees described being held in windowless, poorly ventilated cells housing three or four people. They recounted frequent feelings of suffocation, regular beatings, dog attacks, and receiving meager food rations.

Outdoor time was limited to a few minutes every other day, and their mattresses were removed from 4 a.m. until late at night, leaving them to lie on bare iron frames.

Their descriptions matched images from a televised visit to the prison made by far-right minister Ben-Gvir to publicize his decision to reopen the underground jail. “This is terrorists’ natural place, under the ground,” he said.

PCATI legal adviser Steiner also stated that the legal team only became aware of the existence of the jail after its reopening was announced by Ben-Gvir. 

This led them to conduct research through old media archives and the memoir of Rafael Suissa, the former head of the Israeli Prison Service, to gather more information about the jail. 

Steiner quoted Suissa's memoir, highlighting his understanding that being held underground 24/7 is excessively cruel and inhumane, regardless of the actions of the inmates. 

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The Rakefet prison complex, located in Ramla, southeast of Tel Aviv, was reinstated earlier this year by Ben-Gvir, despite being shut down decades ago due to its extremely harsh conditions. 

Originally designed for a small number of high-security inmates, the facility now holds about 100 detainees, far exceeding its initial capacity of 15 men when it closed in 1985, as revealed by official data obtained by PCATI. 

Following the ceasefire agreement in mid-October, Israel released 1,700 Palestinian detainees from Gaza who had been held indefinitely without charge or trial, along with 250 Palestinian prisoners convicted in Israeli courts. 

Despite this significant release, the large scale of detentions still leaves at least 1,000 others held by Israel under similar conditions. 

PCATI emphasized that despite the end of the war, Palestinians from Gaza remain “imprisoned under legally contested and violent wartime conditions that violate international humanitarian law and amount to torture,” including the two detainees from Rakefet represented by PCATI lawyers.

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