Inmates' ordeals Starved, humiliated and beaten in jail 'hell'

Ashraf al-Muhtaseb is a musician who described leaving Israel's jails with no hearing in his left ear, four fractured ribs and a broken hand, so ill and weak from hunger he could no longer walk.

- Emma Graham-Harrison

Dropped at an Israeli checkpoint on his own, he said he began crawling towards his home in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron, until a passerby picked him up.

Muhtaseb's wife fainted when she saw him, and his son asked: "Who are you, and where is my dad?" Detained on 8 October 2023, he was not charged before his release on 7 April In those six months, the 53-year-old said, he passed through three Israeli prisons, enduring a marathon of torture, abuse and humiliation detailed in an interview, backed up by medical records and photos that show the impact of multiple beatings and of losing 30kg (66lbs) of weight.

He said his hearing was destroyed during an attack in his cell in Ketziot prison in November.

"I was beaten and kicked in my back, my chest and my head. I had one side of my head against the wall and was getting blows on the other," he said. "The next day I couldn't hear." The abuse, starvation and humiliation he said he endured was part of a pattern described in eight other interviews by the Guardian, and dozens more conducted by the human rights group B'Tselem.

They described abuse so widespread and systemic that it must be considered state policy, said the group's executive director, Yuli Novak. Israeli jails had become "torture camps" in which at least 60 Palestinian prisoners had died in detention since 7 October 2023, she added.

Prisoners said they were subjected to regular severe, arbitrary violence, including sexual assault. Other abuse and humiliation was constant, from starvation rations to denial of access to basic hygiene supplies including sanitary pads for women, soap, towels, clothes and clean water for drinking and showers.