Palestinian security prisoners have been held in increasingly dire conditions since October 2023, with many suffering from severe hunger, according to an audit published this week by the Public Defender’s Office.

Inmates who met with agency representatives reported “drastic weight loss and signs of malnutrition,” the audit said. It added that inspectors witnessed that many of the prisoners were very thin, “in some cases to an extreme degree.”

The report, which addresses the treatment of detainees suspected of criminal and security offenses, attests to worsening detention conditions for both sets of inmates as Israel’s prison population has soared since the outbreak of the two-year war with Hamas, sparked by the terror group’s October 7, 2023, attack.

Security prisoners have been subject to particularly harsh treatment, according to the audit, which said these detainees are given meager food rations, beaten regularly by guards and held in unsanitary conditions that have allowed diseases to spread quickly in crowded, tiny cells.

Inspectors in the Public Defender’s Office who authored the report examined 43 total detention facilities in 2023 and 2024, including 27 under the supervision of the Israel Prison Service, 12 police station holding cells and four courthouse holding cells.

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Human rights groups in both Israel and abroad have been sounding alarm bells about worsening prison conditions for the past several years; however, the audit from the Public Defender’s Office marked a rare instance in which an Israeli government body reported on the worsening situation.

Israeli security forces on guard at Ofer Prison, outside of Jerusalem, February 8, 2025. (Jamal Awad/Flash90)

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who oversees the Israel Prison Service in his role, has publicly boasted about harsh measures implemented against security detainees on his watch, telling a Knesset committee in October that he is proud that jails “have turned into a nightmare for terrorists.”

Scabies, scant food and routine beatings

Soon after the outbreak of the war, IPS issued an order to limit — if not cancel entirely — so-called “routine activities” that take place during peacetime in facilities holding security prisoners.

Unlike standard criminal prisoners, security prisoners are in custody for committing “security offenses,” which can range from deadly terror attacks to publishing what Israel deems incendiary content online.

In practice, the October 16, 2023, order barred Palestinian security inmates from making phone calls, meeting with family or Red Cross representatives, leaving their cells except for one hour each day, and holding onto personal items, such as books or family photos.

The restrictions apply to all security prisoners, including minors, “regardless of the severity of their actions or their personal circumstances,” the audit noted.

The prison service also put together a special, reduced food menu in military prisons that provides significantly smaller portions than those of criminal detainees. In practice, inspectors found that the actual meals served to security prisoners were even more scant than those in the reduced menu, and at times contained food unfit for consumption, such as uncooked rice and rotten vegetables.

The Israel Prison Service dresses Palestinian prisoners set for release in shirts featuring its logo, a Star of David and the sentence in Arabic: ‘We will not forget or forgive,’ February 15, 2025. (Israel Prison Service)

Inspectors — who visited the Ramon, Megiddo, Ayalon, Shatta, Eshel and Ketziot military prisons — were repeatedly informed of a “severe feeling of hunger” among the detainees, and found that in some facilities there was even limited access to drinking water.

In September, the High Court ordered the government to provide security prisoners with enough food to “ensure a basic existence.” However, it appears that not much has changed, as rights groups continue to push the Prison Service to provide inmates with proper nutrition.

Detainees also reported “routine” violence by guards towards prisoners. Such beatings typically occur during cell searches or while transporting prisoners between wings, to court hearings, or to receive external medical care, according to the report. In some cases, fear of beatings dissuaded prisoners from seeking medical attention, only exacerbating the dire medical conditions.

Inspectors also found that scabies, a contagious skin infection caused by small mites that burrow into the skin, was widespread among security inmates and, during certain periods, “developed into an epidemic within these facilities.”

Security prisoners suffering from scabies after being released from Ketziot Prison, March 2025. (Courtesy of Physicians for Human Rights – Israel)

The infestation was able to spread all the more quickly due to overcrowded cells, as Israel’s prison population soars far above the prison system’s official capacity.

‘Unprecedented’ overcrowding crisis

Soon after the war’s outset, the Knesset approved emergency provisions that have allowed the Prison Service to hold inmates of all kinds in overcrowded cells, sometimes without a bed to sleep on.

Israel saw a massive leap in its detained population over the past two years, which has turned prison overcrowding into an “unprecedented crisis,” the Public Defender’s Office wrote.

Many prisoners, both criminal and security detainees, are held in cramped, crowded cells and made to sleep on the floor for lack of beds. Sometimes, prisoners were driven to sleep on the floor despite empty beds, due to a pervasive bedbug problem, inspectors found during several visits to criminal wings.

Jail cells at a prison in central Israel, where high-risk Hamas and Hezbollah prisoners captured in the recent war are being held, January 8, 2025. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

Before the outbreak of the war, Israel had already exceeded the prison system’s capacity of 14,500 detainees, and on October 6, 2023, was holding 16,353 prisoners. Within two months, the prisoner population jumped by 3,000 people, and by the end of 2024, the Prison Service had 23,000 prisoners in custody.

More recent data from September 2025, published by the Knesset Research and Information Center, put the total figure at 24,715 — among them 11,115 security prisoners.

While 35% of criminal detainees are held in a living space less than 3 square meters (32 square feet), over 90% of security detainees are held in such conditions, despite a 2018 High Court ruling stipulating that no less than 4.5 square meters (48 square feet) should be allocated to an individual prisoner.

As prisons overflow, some suspects have been made to stay in police station holding cells for days or weeks on end, even though the facilities are unequipped to handle detainees for prolonged periods.

During a visit to the Bat Yam police station, inspectors encountered detainees who had been held for 10 days, without so much as a change of clothes. They slept on the ground, without any mattresses, towels or toothbrushes.

Similar stories arose in the Jaffa, Mesubim and Glilot stations, in which detainees were held in their cells for days on end in the same clothes, with no means to maintain basic hygiene.