Despite ruling by Israel’s top court, Palestinian security prisoners say they are still underfed

Red Cross representatives at Ketziot Prison in January 2025

Chen Maanit reports in Haaretz on 26 November 2025:

Three months after the Supreme Court ruled that Palestinian prisoners must be given enough food to maintain their health, nothing has changed, according to the prisoners.

Two organizations therefore went back to court this week to accuse the Prison Service of not complying with the ruling, based on the findings of their prison visits. Affidavits attached to the petition said that, according to the prisoners, the amount of food hasn’t increased at all. Several prisoners even said the amount has declined.

The petitioners – the Association for Civil Rights in Israel and Gisha – therefore asked the court to either fine or jail Prison Service Commissioner Kobi Yaakobi for contempt of court.

The Prison Service denied the accusations.

The affidavits were drafted on the basis of lawyers’ visits to six prisons – Ofer, Ganot, Megiddo, Gilboa, Ketziot and Shatta. The prisoners told the lawyers that they hadn’t even known about the ruling, and that no one had examined their health since it was issued.

One lawyer who recently visited 53 detainees at different prisons wrote that all of them said their food is inadequate in both quantity and quality and complained that they constantly felt hungry. “One detainee told me they are dying of hunger and dream of food,” he wrote.

The prisoners said that since Hamas’ attack on October 7, 2023, “they have received food that is past its sell-by date, dirty vegetables and a little tahini that they diluted with more water so it would be enough for them,” he added.

According to him, all of his clients “have lost weight since they were jailed because of the inadequate amounts of food. The weight of some has fallen by half or even more since they were jailed.”  He said he recently met with an administrative detainee at Ketziot Prison who weighed 130 kilograms (287 pounds) when he was jailed and now weighs around 60 kilograms (132 pounds). “I met prisoners whose weight has fallen below 49 kilograms (108 pounds),” he added.

In September, the court ruled in a split decision that the Prison Service appears to be violating its obligation to provide the Palestinian prisoners with the basic conditions for existence, including food of sufficient quantity and variety to maintain their health. Justices Daphne Barak-Erez and Ofer Grosskopf were in the majority, while Justice David Mintz dissented. Mintz said the Prison Service wasn’t violating its obligation and that the prisoners were getting enough food.

That ruling was handed down in response to a petition filed by ACRI and Gisha in April. The April petition was prompted by changes in the Palestinian detainees’ prison conditions ordered by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir after October 7.

Ben-Gvir’s new orders applied to all Palestinians held in Israel who were suspected or convicted of terrorism, not just those captured during the fighting in the Gaza Strip. Consequently, they also affected prisoners from the West Bank and even Israeli Arabs suspected or convicted of terrorism.

Prior to October 7, these so-called “security prisoners” were allowed to buy their own food from prison canteens and prepare it for themselves. But after the war broke out, the prisons began operating on an emergency footing and completely barred these prisoners’ access to canteens and cooking equipment. Instead, the Prison Service began providing them with food.

In response to the original petition in April, the state agreed that it had an obligation to provide the prisoners with adequate food, but said the menu had been devised according to professional criteria and met the accepted standards.  In response to the new petition, the Prison Service said in a statement that “As the court said in its ruling, no one disputes the Prison Service’s obligation to provide all prisoners with food whose quantity and variety is sufficient to maintain their health. Following the [original] petition, the commissioner appointed a team of serving and retired officers and professionals who were tasked with implementing the ruling in full, while also making sure to preserve the lives and security of prison guards given the severe risks posed by the security prisoners.”

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