Contrasting Reality: Treatment of Israeli and Palestinian Prisoners
Image by Khashayar Kouchpeydeh.
The release of three Israeli women held captive in Gaza on Sunday attracted significant global media attention. However, there was comparatively limited coverage of the freed Palestinian women, who had been kidnapped and detained by Israel without charge. This disparity reflects the normalization of the dehumanization of Palestinians, perpetuating a narrative that enables Israel to murder more than 46,000 Palestinians with impunity.
Initial medical assessments by the Red Cross and Israeli doctors indicated that the women were in good health, suggesting they had been treated well during their captivity. Their accounts speak of humane conditions with access to food, water, and shelter. Israel captives were afforded medical care and sustenance when Israel starved Palestinian children, murdered doctors and burned down hospitals.
The Israeli women were treated with dignity during their captivity. In contrast, a United Nations report highlights the mistreatment of Palestinian women in Israeli jails, and how they are “subjected to sexual assault, stripped naked, and searched by male Israeli army officers,” and threatened with sexual violence. The same report also noted that Israeli soldiers took photos of female Palestinian detainees “in degrading circumstances” and threatened to post the images online to further humiliate and exert control over them.
The wellbeing of the released Israeli captives—despite the devastation in Gaza at the hand of Israel⎯bespeaks of the humane values of their captors. Without a doubt, their visible appearance reveals that they had enjoyed what the majority of Gazans did not have access to, under the malevolent Israeli siege, such as food, fuel to keep warm, or safe shelter to protect them
from Israeli bombs and the elements.
Meanwhile, a video of the released Khalida Jarrar, a Palestinian woman prisoner leader, shows her struggling to walk—a contrast to the image of her before she was kidnapped by Israeli occupation forces in December 2023.
The care shown to Israeli prisoners is the polar opposite of the treatment Palestinian prisoners received in Israeli custody. Among them, detained Palestinian doctors tortured to death not for carrying a gun, but rather for holding a scalpel in the operating room to treat the injured, possibly including Israeli captives.
Palestinians who survived Israeli torture, like bodybuilder Moazaz Obaiyat, tell a different story. Obaiyat was detained following a pre-dawn raid on his West Bank home in October 2023. Unlike the healthy Israeli women who sprinted into the Red Cross vehicles upon their release, the once strong and muscular Obaiyat was unable to walk unaided after being held without charge for eleven months.
For Palestinians held in Israeli jails, the reality could not be more different since 1948. The maltreatment of Palestinian prisoners, torture, abuse, and even death in custody have been well-documented by human rights organizations. According to U.N. sources, 56 Palestinians have lost their lives in Israeli prisons due to torture since October 7 2023.
Male Palestinian detainees have also been victims of sexual assault as a means of humiliation and coercion. These crimes are not isolated incidents but part of a racist Israeli policy designed to break their will. Not only have the Israeli perpetrators gone unpunished, but their actions have often been justified or defended by Israeli leaders. For Palestinian prisoners—many held without charge or trial—captivity is an experience of unimaginable torment.
Torture and the humiliation of Palestinians in Israeli jails is backed by Israeli officials, such as Israeli lawmaker Hanoch Milwidsky. When asked if it was acceptable “to insert a stick into a person’s rectum,” Milwidsky responded, “Yes, if he is a Nukhba (Hamas militant) everything is legitimate to do! Everything!”
According to Israeli accounts, this qualification of being a Hamas militant effectively applies to every Palestinian in Gaza, as per Israeli government, “there are no innocent civilians.” This sentiment was echoed earlier by the self-proclaimed moderate Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who declared, “An entire nation out there is responsible.”
In defending the abusive actions by reservist jailers, the racist Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir wrote in a post on social media: “Take your hands off the reservists,” referring to Israeli soldiers charged with sodomizing Palestinian prisoners.
Torture, detention without charge, and other punitive measures remains a persistent feature of Israeli policy discourse. This institutional backing not only perpetuates abuse but also normalizes this behavior in the Israeli culture, against the Palestinian “goyim.”
When abuses are exposed, Israeli officials often deny or downplay them as isolated incidents. They refuse to allow independent investigations or hold anyone accountable. Israeli prison officials and political leaders consistently defend their actions, framing any criticism as an attack on Israel’s security apparatus. Some Israeli lawmakers and public figures argue that the humanization of Palestinian prisoners undermines the morale of security forces.
The disparity in the treatment of prisoners serves as a microcosm of the broader power and ethical divide between Israelis and Palestinians. While Israeli captives are humanized, Palestinians in Israeli jails endure systemic abuse that reflects the dehumanization of an entire people. This double standard is not only a moral failing but also a reflection of the deep-seated Zionist ideology that dismisses the humanity of Palestinians.
The international community’s silence on the plight of Palestinian prisoners stands in stark contrast to the overwhelming outpouring of concern for Israeli captives. This selective outrage only enables the Israeli policies of dehumanization, injustice and oppression. The contrasting reality between Israeli and Palestinian captives exposes not just the dehumanization inherent in the Israeli culture toward non-Jews, but also strips naked the selective morality of the West.
Some Palestinians held hostage by Israel are being released, but Israel has kept them in horrific conditions—and they have little to return to after Israel's destructive genocide
Ofer Prison in the Occupied West Bank (Photo: Wikimedia commons)
Tuesday 21 January 2025
Palestinians celebrated the release of their hostages held in Israeli jails, which began on the first day of the ceasefire. As part of the deal, Hamas will release 33 hostages in return for around 1,900 people taken by Israel.
It’s important to remember the barbaric conditions Israel hold Palestinians in—and the reasons why it arrested them.
The scale of Israel’s repression is shocking. It currently holds around 10,400 Palestinians under arrest. For many, Israel grabbed them under “indefinitely renewable administrative detention”—meaning they are detained without trial.
Israel has a systematic policy of abusing its prisoners. Naji Abbas, director of the prisoners department at Physicians for Human Rights Israel said, “Every Palestinian under custody is facing abuse and violations of their rights.
“In the first weeks after 7 October we thought it was about revenge, but we are still hearing about these actions. That’s why we think it is official policy.”
Israeli police arrested Shatha Jarabaa over a social media post criticising the “brutality” of Israel’s campaign in Gaza. “They treated me very bad in prison. It was horrible,” she said. Israel also targeted Ahmad Khsha, who was arrested in Jenin after Israeli state murdered his brother. “They arrested me because my brother died during a shootout in Jenin.”
To add further insult to its barbarities, Israel imposed strict security measures around the release of the prisoners. It denied any gatherings outside the prisons, and even raided the homes of several Palestinian prisoners in Jerusalem who were being released. The police warned their families against celebrating or raising Palestinian flags, with threats it could result in the release being cancelled.
Upon their release, the three hostages held by Hamas appeared to be relatively healthy. But they were in stark contrast to Palestinian prisoners ravaged by Israeli forces.
But Western media can’t help but celebrate the release of Israeli “hostages”—while looking the other way at the horrific conditions faced by Palestinian “prisoners”.
Melted corpses and starvation—where next?
Hundreds of aid trucks entered Gaza on Sunday, entering a territory in the midst of Israeli‑engineered starvation. More than 1.8 million people across the Gaza Strip are experiencing high levels of acute food insecurity. And many of them will be on the brink of death.
Palestinian economist Mahmoud Sabra said that Israel has an “unstated policy” aimed at deliberately “restricting and limiting other goods to harm food security”.
And because of Israel’s barbarism, those released from its prisons are in dire need of both food and medical attention. That help will be hard to find. Israel’s systematic destruction of Gaza’s healthcare has left hospitals in ruins. Just 17 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals remain open—and those that are open are only partially functional.
Palestine Red Crescent Society spokesperson Nebal Farsakh said that “the healthcare system in northern Gaza has collapsed”. “The majority of hospitals were taken out of service, and now there’s expectation that thousands of families will be going back to Gaza City and the north, and we need to be prepared to provide healthcare services for the displaced families there.”
First responders in Gaza are now scouring the wreckage for 10,000 missing bodies. Around 2,840 people “evaporated without a trace”, their bodies melted by the intense heat of incendiary bombing.
Despite the ceasefire, three people arrived at a hospital in Rafah after an Israeli drone attacked them on the second day of supposed “peace”.
On Monday, an explosive device killed one Israeli soldier and injured four people. The Palestinian Authority is also ramping up repression in the West Bank, policing the people it’s supposed to represent and becoming an instrument of Israel’s colonial regime.
The horrors the people of Gaza face did not begin on 7 October. The Zionist regime has terrorised Palestinians for decades, and it will look to continue its complete destruction of Palestine.
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