9,500 Prisoners Spend Third Ramadan Under Harsh Conditions
The Palestine Center for Prisoner Studies confirmed that approximately 9,500 prisoners are spending their third Ramadan under brutal conditions, stripped of all basic and humanitarian rights. Detention conditions have intensified and crimes against prisoners have escalated since October 7, 2023, under direct orders from extremist minister Itamar Ben Gvir.
The center reported that prison administrations in many detention facilities do not provide prisoners with a pre-dawn meal. The food served during the day is poor in quality and insufficient in quantity, forcing prisoners to set it aside until the evening fast-breaking hour. By then, portions have often spoiled or turned stale after sitting for hours.
Riad al-Ashqar, the center’s director and a researcher, said Ramadan in previous years was one of the months prisoners looked forward to most. They would prepare special programs, decorate their rooms with whatever fabric and colored paper they could find, and devote the month to reading the Quran, night prayers, and worship. Since October 7, however, the occupation has turned prisons into what al-Ashqar described as slaughterhouses, where prisoners face every form of torture, abuse, and humiliation. Ramadan itself has become a tool for starvation, punishment, and restriction.
Al-Ashqar added that prison administrations in many facilities deliberately withhold the times for breaking and beginning the fast, disrupting prisoners’ observance and forcing them to delay their meals until they can confirm the correct time on their own. The occupation also manipulates the timing, quantity, and quality of food. For the past two and a half years, political prisoners have been barred from working in prison kitchens or preparing their own meals. That task was handed to criminal detainees, who now control what food is served and how much.
Prisoners were already enduring a deliberate starvation policy before Ramadan, al-Ashqar confirmed. That policy has intensified since the holy month began. What is served at the fast-breaking meal is not enough for half the prisoners in a given facility. In some prisons, no pre-dawn meal is provided at all, leaving prisoners to ration part of their evening food for the early morning hours.
Al-Ashqar revealed that as part of its Ramadan harassment measures, the occupation has banned prisoners from performing congregational prayers and Taraweeh prayers. Copies of the Quran are also withheld; all copies were confiscated after the state of emergency was declared in prisons following the war on the Gaza Strip.
The occupation deliberately increases raids on cells and sections during Ramadan to exhaust, humiliate, and distract prisoners from worship, al-Ashqar said. Prisoners are beaten and dragged, left bound on the ground for hours. In some cases, the repression extends past the time for breaking the fast.The center called on human rights and humanitarian organizations to intervene urgently to stop the occupation’s assaults on prisoners, to respect the sanctity of the holy month, to ensure adequate and appropriate food, to guarantee freedom of worship and congregational prayer in all prisons, and to uphold the rights of prisoners enshrined in international conventions and treaties.
