Palestinians are observing Prisoners’ Day against a backdrop of rising alarm over the situation of detainees held in Israeli-run facilities, where numbers are reported to have reached over 9,600. Among them are hundreds of children and women, alongside a significant group of individuals from Gaza classified under a legal framework referred to as “unlawful combatants”, a designation that places them outside standard judicial procedures and excludes others held in military detention sites.

Conditions inside detention centres are increasingly described as deteriorating, with accounts pointing to widespread allegations of ill-treatment including severe deprivation of food, inadequate medical care, prolonged solitary confinement, and physical and psychological abuse. These concerns are reported to have intensified in the context of the ongoing genocidal war on Gaza, with vulnerable detainees, particularly those suffering from pre-existing illnesses or injuries, facing a rapid worsening of their health due to restricted access to treatment.

A large proportion of detainees from Gaza are reported to be held without charge or trial and without contact with the outside world, raising concerns over enforced disappearance and prolonged incommunicado detention. Among those highlighted is the director of a hospital in northern Gaza, detained during a military raid on a medical facility in late 2024, alongside numerous healthcare workers taken at the same time.

Reports also indicate that deaths in custody have accumulated over decades, with dozens recorded since the start of the genocidal war on Gaza, and that the bodies of some deceased detainees continue to be withheld. At the same time, proposed legislative measures, including discussions around capital punishment for prisoners, are viewed as further intensifying an already severe situation within the detention system.

Calls have been made for urgent international intervention to secure access to detainees, clarify the fate of those unaccounted for, ensure the release of the sick and injured, and address what is described as a systematic pattern of abuse within the detention framework.