Winter: Cold Deployed as a Weapon Against Prisoners’ Bodies
Winter continues to be imposed upon prisoners inside occupation prisons, with its harsh cold besieging their bodies and exhausting their bones. Since the seventh of October, the state of emergency within the prisons has not ceased; rather, it has transformed into an open retaliatory policy in which cold is employed as a direct weapon that compounds suffering, amid ongoing repression, systematic starvation, and complete isolation from the outside world. Today, prisoners endure their harsh winter inside damp cells lacking the most basic conditions for life, where windows are closed when the sun is present and opened in its absence, leaving Palestinian bodies in perpetual confrontation with merciless cold.
Daily Inferno Without Basic Living Conditions
Reports from the Prisoners’ Media Office indicate that prisoners’ cells continue to lack the most fundamental humane conditions: severe humidity eroding bodies, harsh cold pervading day and night, and suffocating overcrowding that has rendered the cells unfit for human habitation. Repression continues unabated, and abuse has become a daily routine, while overcrowding is utilized as an additional tool to break prisoners and deplete their capacity to endure.
Collective Punishment Policies Under the Guise of Emergency
The continuation of the state of emergency inside prisons has imposed upon prisoners a series of punitive policies, most notably:
- Continuation of systematic starvation policies and poor quality and quantity of food.
- Confiscation of clothing, blankets, and all personal belongings.
- Repeated raids on cells and seizure of bedding and sleeping materials.
- Complete denial of family and lawyer visits.
- Isolation of a large number of prisoner movement leaders in cells lacking the most basic conditions for life.
As winter persists inside the prisons, health-related suffering intensifies, particularly among ill prisoners, the elderly, and those suffering from chronic diseases and bone and joint pain that cannot withstand this deadly cold.
Bitter Cold: A Systematic Torture Instrument
Since the commencement of the aggression in Gaza, prison administrations have converted cold weather into a deliberate torture method. Prisoners are prohibited from closing windows by any means, and the entry of winter clothing or blankets is not permitted. Moreover, they have been deprived for more than two years of hot water and heating facilities. Reports indicate that the clothing prisoners have worn throughout this period has deteriorated, with some garments redistributed to newly arrived prisoners who possess no alternatives.
As a result, prisoners suffer from severe muscle spasms, excruciating pain in their extremities, loss of sensation in their feet, sleep disturbances, and inability to move due to the intensity of pain, all in the absence of any genuine medical care.
Raids, Beatings, and Systematic Humiliation
Testimonies from prisoners confirm that raids are conducted in a provocative and violent manner, during which prisoners are restrained and subjected to brutal beatings with batons, helmets, and kicks across various parts of their bodies, with no consideration for their health condition or age. All possessions are confiscated, cells are transformed into closed isolation units, and prisoners are denied outdoor recreation time, while nighttime inspections continue, particularly during pre-dawn hours, as an additional means to disrupt psychological stability and exhaust the body.
Prisoners are also deprived of the most basic personal hygiene necessities: no razors, no nail clippers, no cleaning materials, all within a closed, overcrowded environment portending the spread of diseases and epidemics.
Psychological Torture and Deliberate Destruction
The targeting is not limited to the body but extends to the psyche. During roll calls, prisoners are forced to assume humiliating positions, such as kneeling with their hands on their heads and faces toward the wall, and they are required to walk along lines drawn within the sections. Beatings and verbal abuse have become daily conduct, while isolation from the outside world continues as a fixed policy, even within the cells themselves, in a systematic attempt to destroy prisoners’ inner resolve.
These practices have led to the martyrdom of dozens of prisoners inside detention facilities, marking one of the most dangerous phases in the history of the prisoner movement, amid the absence of any genuine accountability.
What Palestinian prisoners are enduring inside occupation prisons constitutes actual torture, not a deferred risk. Prison winter is imposed upon them now, with bodies without blankets, bones confronting raw cold, and spirits being depleted under daily repression. The Prisoners’ Media Office warns of the grave consequences of the continuation of this seasonal abuse, affirming that leaving prisoners alone to face this harsh winter constitutes a defined crime against humanity. International silence regarding what is transpiring is no less grave than the crime itself and shall remain a witness to one of the most egregious forms of systematic torture in the modern era.
