Israel's national security minister 'pleased' with harsh conditions of Palestinian prisoners - Anadolu Ajansı

Israel's National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said Sunday that he is "pleased" with the harsh treatment of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, adding that he is directly responsible for the prison conditions.

His remarks came in a video released on the US social media company X during which he was talking to Palestinian female prisoners.

“The conditions here are very bad, and we women are not afforded any special rights, such as access to personal necessities,” a Palestinian prisoner said in the video.

“This is our third day without showers. We are not receiving medical treatment, and our clothes are not clean," she added.

“The good conditions that used to exist in the prisons are over,” Ben-Gvir responded through an interpreter.

"The 'whining' of the terrorists about the conditions in the prisons doesn't work on me," he also wrote in a post accompanying the video.

When the female prisoner asked for the prison conditions to be improved, Ben-Gvir rejected her request.

This is not the first time Ben-Gvir has stormed the cells of Palestinian detainees to mock them.

Earlier in August, he mocked a female prisoner who complained about the poor conditions of her detention and the lack of basic necessities, telling her that “prison is not a hotel.”

In a statement, the Palestinian Prisoner Society said Ben-Gvir’s insistence on mocking Palestinian prisoners reflects an attempt “to normalize scenes of humiliation and torture and turn them into a political achievement.”

“Turning prisons into an arena for political spectacle is aimed at gaining support within Israeli society by boasting about the persecution of Palestinian prisoners, both men and women,” it added.

The group said Ben Gvir’s raid on the women prisoners’ section came amid harsh conditions imposed by the Israeli prison authorities and an escalation in policies of isolation, restrictions and deprivation of basic rights.

It cited hundreds of testimonies about torture and abuse since the start of Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip, including accounts of beatings, humiliation, starvation, denial of medical care and isolation.

The group described Israel’s prison system as “one of the most prominent arenas of the crime of genocide,” saying that more than 100 Palestinian prisoners and detainees had died since the war began in October 2023.

Since taking office in late 2022, Ben-Gvir has moved to tighten the conditions of detention for Palestinian prisoners, including through policies of starvation and medical neglect, as well as torture and solitary confinement.

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Around 9,500 Palestinian prisoners are held in Israeli jails, including 94 women and more than 350 children, who suffer from starvation, torture and medical neglect, according to Palestinian and Israeli human rights reports.