Israeli occupation authorities are still holding more than 43 prisoners from the Gaza Strip whose sentences ended years ago, the Palestine Center for Prisoner Studies said. Each served the full term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All were detained before the genocidal war on Gaza began on October 7, 2023, and they make up 55 percent of the 80 Gaza prisoners held before the war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For some, the sentence ran out just days after the genocide began. The occupation refused to release them anyway, citing the state of emergency it has imposed since October 7, 2023. They have now spent three extra years behind bars. And the occupation has no intention of letting them go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Several have spent more than 10 years in captivity. The longest held is Mohammed Yousef al-Qudra of Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, whose 11-year sentence ended in June 2025. He has not been released.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mohammed Abdul Karim al-Qadi’s 10-year sentence ended more than a year and a half ago, while Mohammed Abu Teir and Ibrahim al-Shaer, from Rafah, finished 10-year sentences about a year and a half ago and are still in prison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mahmoud al-Atawneh, Majdi Salem, and Hisham Harara have each spent more than nine years in prison. Their sentences ended about two and a half years ago. All three remain in custody.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some pre-war prisoners did go free in the prisoner exchange deal with the resistance, alongside more than 2,000 prisoners arrested during the genocidal war. But the occupation has not freed a single Gaza prisoner detained before October 7, 2023, once his sentence ended, even though some are elderly. Chief among them is Naim al-Sharif, 67, from Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The center accused the occupation of deliberately holding dozens of Gaza prisoners past the end of their sentences as part of a policy of revenge and collective punishment it has pursued against Gaza’s people for three years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over those three years, the occupation has killed tens of thousands, wounded many times that number, detained more than 14,000 people, and destroyed every aspect of life in the Strip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Conditions for Gaza prisoners are extremely harsh, whether they were detained before the war or during it. The occupation denies them their most basic human rights and subjects them to the cruelest forms of physical and psychological torment, while international human rights organizations are entirely absent. The treatment is at its worst in the underground Rakefet prison, Ganot prison, and the Sde Teiman camp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Crackdowns come every day. Soldiers bind prisoners’ hands behind their backs with plastic cuffs that cause severe pain, throw them to the ground, and leave them there for hours. They make police dogs walk across the prisoners’ backs, and they stamp on the prisoners’ heads with their boots. The center said this is meant to break their will and crush what is left of their humanity. Soldiers also fire gas and rubber bullets directly at them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hunger is another weapon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The occupation imposes a deadly starvation policy on Gaza prisoners, one that has reached the point of “famine.” Prisoners receive tiny amounts of poor-quality food, often unfit to eat. Every one of them is emaciated, and their body weight has fallen by half.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fifty-three prisoners from Gaza have been martyred since October 7, 2023, as a result of torture and the continuing crime of medical neglect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The center called on international human rights organizations to take real action and pressure the occupation to free the Gaza prisoners whose sentences have ended. Nothing, it said, justifies holding them after they have served their time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Palestine Center for Prisoner Studies
September 18, 2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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