Israel committing ' systematic genocide' against Palestinian prisoners: Advocacy groups

A report by leading Palestinian prisoner rights groups says Israel is committing a “systematic genocide” against Palestinians held in Israeli detention, with dozens of deaths recorded in 2025 alone.

The annual report, published jointly by the Palestinian Commission of Detainees’ Affairs, the Palestinian Prisoners' Society (PPS), and Addameer, details how Palestinian prisoners have died under “severely inhumane systematic policies.”

In 2025, 32 Palestinian detainees, including a child, died in Israeli custody, bringing the total number of deaths to 100 since October 2023, when Israel's genocidal campaign began in Gaza.

The report also noted that 94 bodies remain withheld by Israeli authorities and revealed that dozens of Gaza detainees remain forcibly disappeared.

Rights groups said that the past two years have witnessed an “unprecedented level of brutality and systematic execution of prisoners,” with the death toll in this period matching the number of Palestinians killed in Israeli custody over the past 24 years.

"These facts prove that what is happening to Palestinian prisoners is systematic genocide," the report stressed. 

Testimonies from recently released prisoners describe systematic psychological abuse, including torture, starvation, denial of medical care, and prolonged solitary confinement

"These facilities have turned into sites of torture, designed to break prisoners physically and mentally through prolonged, deliberate suffering, and slow-execution policies," the report said. 

“The intensity of the crimes and brutality documented over two years has exceeded all legal limits, violating international laws, norms, and conventions,” the report said.

According to the findings, detainees face torture, starvation, medical neglect, sexual violence, mass isolation, and deprivation of all basic human needs.

The report also highlighted ongoing mass arrests across the occupied West Bank and the besieged Gaza Strip.

Since October 2023, over 21,000 Palestinians have been detained in the West Bank and al-Quds, including 1,655 children and 650 women.

In 2025 alone, 7,000 arrests, including 600 children and 200 women, were reported. The figures do not include arrests from Gaza.

Traumatized Palestinians account broad range of ill-treatment in Israeli custody: UN report

A report by the United Nations has accused Israel of abusing detained Gazans.

According to the report, Palestinian journalists and medical personnel are among the heavily targeted groups. 

The prisoner rights groups added that the ongoing large-scale arrests and interrogations are accompanied by systematic field executions, severe beatings, widespread intentional destruction, ransacking of homes, confiscation of vehicles, money, and gold, the use of human shields, as well as organized terror and demolitions of homes belonging to relatives of Palestinian detainees. 

As of December 2025, more than 9,300 Palestinians are documented to be held in Israeli prisons, though the real figure is likely higher, with Israel continuing to withhold information on hundreds of people seized from Gaza.

The report noted that since October 2023, families of detainees captured from the besieged strip have been denied any official information about the whereabouts of their relatives.

"Systematic impunity is central to the occupation’s apparatus, reflecting judicial complicity in covering up crimes against Palestinian prisoners and reinforcing policies of apartheid and persecution," the report added.

The Palestine Detainees Studies Center earlier stated that approximately 60 percent of Palestinian abductees held illegally in Israeli prisons endure chronic illnesses.

A significant number have lost their lives either during imprisonment or shortly after their release, due to the severity of their medical conditions.

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.ir