Palestinian prisoners — Israeli lawyer branded traitor for exposing torture

Since the beginning of the genocide in Gaza, conditions for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails have deteriorated significantly. Testimonies from human rights organisations, lawyers, and former detainees describe a system where overcrowding, beatings, deprivation, and isolation have intensified to levels previously unseen.

Palestinian political prisoners have no visits

The United Nations Committee Against Torture claims the Israeli regime has a “de facto State policy of organised and widespread torture and ill-treatment” against Palestinian prisoners.

Palestinian prisoners’ rights groups describe the last 26 months as “one of the most brutal periods in the history of the Palestinian prisoner movement”. Ben Marmarelli is an anti-Zionist Israeli lawyer and sociologist. He tells the Canary:

Since 7 October 2023, the prisoners’ most basic needs and human rights are not being met. They are being humiliated from every interaction they have with the prison guards. The only visits are from their specific lawyer. That’s it.

They don’t get any information about the outside world, and don’t know what’s going on with their families. And lawyers are forbidden from telling them anything about this.

Marmarelli tells us all personal belongings are taken from detainees. They often do not even have a mattress to sleep on. They are in their cells 24 hours a day, and are not permitted to go outside. All Palestinian prisoners have lost weight, he says, as there is not enough food, but what is available is extremely poor quality. In some prisons, prisoners also get no medical treatment at all.

I have a client in Ganot, southern Israel, who has a medical condition, but has never been checked or treated. The only personal belongings prisoners are allowed is the Quran. But my client cannot even read this, as he can’t see anything without his glasses, which he is not allowed.

Since October 7, the Israeli Prison Service (IPS) has also tried to reduce and limit lawyer visits. This is because lawyers are the only connection to the outside world that Palestinian prisoners have.

Marmarelli says there have been various methods used to limit lawyers’ visits. These have changed over the past two years, because lawyers have fought in a variety of ways, such as through petitions.

 In the beginning, they got the lawyer to go to the prison, but did not allow him in. One time I stayed outside the prison for four hours. They then told me there was an emergency, and I wouldn’t get in today.

Preventing lawyers from visiting Palestinian prisoners

After that, another method used was to delay prisoner visits. Marmarelli wanted to visit his client so sent a request in May, but his visit date was set for October. He says he signed a petition about this. The District Court accepted his petition, and ordered the IPS to make visits as soon as possible. This ruling was in July, and since then, he has only had to wait about 10 days to get a visit. But Marmarelli says he is unable to do anything about the latest tactic used to stop his visits.

Every time I came to visit, they tortured my client. They beat him and raped him. I was his only connection to the outside world but, through his initiative, he asked me not to see him any more. Of course, they would torture him anyway, but now they torture him every time that I come to visit. I did file a petition, but the court said they would not discuss torture and rape. They told me if I want to discuss this, I would have to file a complaint with the police.

The police have not answered Marmarelli’s complaints. So there is nothing more he can do, other than to stop visiting his client altogether, which he has done.

The far-right settler and criminal, Ben- Gvir, is ‘Israel’s’ national security minister. He oversees the Israeli occupation’s Police, Prison Service, and related law-enforcement bodies. According to Marmarelli, “torture against Palestinians has always been a widespread phenomenon in ‘Israeli prisons”.

But the situation has become much worse under Ben-Gvir. He is proud of the worsening conditions he has created for Palestinian prisoners. And tells his political base he is delivering on his election promises. He has also pushed a controversial bill to allow the death penalty to be imposed on Palestinian prisoners.

Bound and tortured Palestinian hostages

Israel's National Security Minister Ben Gvir:

“Do you see them? This is how they are now, but one thing remains to be done and that is to execute them”

This is what the US, UK and Europe support:pic.twitter.com/u98vl9iyEV

— Double Down News (@DoubleDownNews) October 31, 2025

Marmarelli explains:

There’s a certain genocidal atmosphere in Israel right now. Of course, all the guards, police officers and soldiers, they’re all part of this genocidal society. They commit crimes, think it’s OK and are proud of it. Many prisoners have said they were filmed by the phones of the guards and soldiers, while they were being tortured and raped.

This is done purely for enjoyment and fun. No one’s hiding anything, and everyone’s collaborating in these crimes against humanity being committed by the Israeli state  against the Palestinian political prisoners. This includes the courts, and the justice department of the state.

A third of all deaths in custody has happened under Ben-Gvir’s watch

Under Ben-Gvir’s policies, a record 110 Palestinians prisoners have died in custody in the past two and a half years. 323 detainees — those who we know of — have died since the occupation of the West Bank, in 1967. This means a third of all Palestinian prisoners deaths in custody, have died under Ben-Gvir’s watch. These figures do not include those detainees from Gaza in military detention camps, who have died.

Marmarelli says the Zionists are now continuing the work of the British, that began in 1919. They continue the same practices — the laws and regulations the British put in place, and they continue their colonialism.

Palestinians are often imprisoned and charged with terrorism offences just for a sympathetic social media post with an organisation or charity working for Palestinian human rights. Al Haq, Addameer, Defense for Children International–Palestine and the Union of Agricultural Work Committees are just some of the organisations proscribed by the Israeli regime.

All these terrorist charges, the idea of terrorism and what we call terrorist organisations — it’s all a colonialist way of looking at things. Terrorism is a colonial construct, invented by the British in order to fight resistance against colonialism. It doesn’t matter if they are violent or not. We see this in Britain today, with the proscription of Palestine Action. It is non violent, opposes genocide in Gaza and colonialism in Palestine.

Proscribing an organisation makes it easier for the state to punish the members and supporters of these organisations more severely. So the terrorism label is implemented against any organisations they don’t like which are, of course, those opposing genocide, colonialism and apartheid in Palestine.

Marmarelli has risked everything to speak out about ‘Israel’s’ abuses he has witnessed. He says the Zionists in ‘Israel’ call him “kapo”. A kapo was a Jewish prisoner in the Nazi concentration camps who was assigned by the SS to supervise and control other prisoners. In return for their services, kapos usually received privilages, creating resentment among other prisoners. Many viewed kapos as collaborators helping the camp system function.

They say I am even worse than a kapo, because I’m not doing this to save myself, but for money. This is the mindset of the Zionists. Morality is always under the ideological propaganda of the Israeli state. If reality and the truth serve Israeli state propaganda then of course they will tell the truth.

But if truth harms the state propaganda, then your job as an Israeli, as a zionist, is to hide it and never tell the truth. So that’s why they see me as an enemy, because I’m telling the truth.

Marmarelli is now dealing with a complaint against him. He says the Israeli Bar Association wants to revoke his license, because he has spoken out and told the truth.

With courts complicit and lawyers punished for speaking the truth, the IPS operates as an extension of the criminal Zionist state. Abuse is routine, oversight absent, and Palestinian lives treated as expendable.

featured image provided by the author