A message from the External Relations Department of the D.F.L.P to political, legal and popular institutions worldwide
Inside the dungeons of Israel’s detention camps… a truth the world fears

Ladies and Gentlemen,
We address you with this message confident that you are following the extermination war and the crimes the Israeli occupation is committing against the Palestinian people in general, and against our people in the Gaza Strip in particular. Alongside those crimes, there is an issue that nearly disappears from the sphere of international, legal, political and humanitarian attention despite its deep human significance: the issue of Palestinian prisoners and detainees in Israeli jails, both declared and secret.
We place before you one aspect of this suffering, which represents an open wound in Palestinian consciousness and memory and a gap in the conscience of humanity that remains absent from action. We hope it becomes part of your work programmes and mobilisations so that the prisoners’ voice reaches decision-makers around the world. This neglected cause must be taken out of the archive of international silence and into the open light of truth, so the world may witness what Palestinian prisoners are subjected to — practices and violations unseen even in the worst fascist regimes in history.
When Israel launched its war against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip under the false banner “to free the hostages,” the rhetoric seemed to prepare Israeli and global public opinion for a humanitarian rescue effort. But as months passed, the truth was revealed: the Israeli occupation intended an extermination war unparalleled in human history. And yet, it freed not a single Israeli captive through that campaign except by indirect negotiations, while Israeli detention facilities filled with thousands of new Palestinian detainees — women and men from all age groups.
The Israeli slogan shifted from “freeing the hostages” to a war that produced more captives. While the issue of detained Israelis dominated Western media and politics, there was no significant Western voice condemning the mass arrests of Palestinians or demanding clarification about the fate of those who have gone missing inside Israel’s military detention camps.
From the first weeks of the extermination war, international human-rights organisations documented summary executions carried out by the Israeli army against Palestinian civilians who were detained during the Israeli ground invasion of Gaza. Palestinian human-rights institutions reported that dozens of Palestinian civilians were executed in the field and identified by name since 7 October, while hundreds of missing persons remain under the grip of enforced disappearance.
Medical reports coming from Gaza have revealed horrific scenes: bodies bound and blindfolded with gunshot wounds at very close range, others crushed under tank treads. The bodies returned by the occupation through the Red Cross or other international organisations carried numeric codes instead of names, making identification nearly impossible amid severe disfigurement and the shortage of medical facilities in the besieged Strip.
What liberated prisoners’ testimonies reveal opens a deep wound in humanity’s conscience and calls for a serious stance from anyone claiming to defend values and justice. Behind prison walls in Israel, methods of repression and torture beyond description are practised; human dignity is humiliated and the will is crushed through systematic torture and degradation. The report issued by the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights on 10 November (this month) was not merely a rights document but a resounding cry exposing part of the horrific crimes taking place behind the fences. These firsthand testimonies should be a turning point in the international handling of the prisoners’ file, and those violations should be classified as fully constituted war crimes that warrant prosecuting their perpetrators before international justice without delay. Live Testimonies Documenting the Occupation’s Crimes
According to Palestinian prisoners’ organisations, the number of Palestinian detainees in Israeli detention facilities reached more than 11,100 by October 2025 — the highest figure since the Al-Aqsa Intifada in 2000. This number includes hundreds of women, children and elderly people, among them individuals suffering from chronic illnesses who have been denied medical care.
Administrative detention — one of the most prominent instruments of slow killing — includes more than 3,500 Palestinians held without charge or trial, under orders renewed automatically every six months indefinitely. Thousands of Palestinians may live imprisoned without accusation and without end, in a blatant violation of international humanitarian law and the Geneva Conventions.
Sde Teyman camp in the Negev Desert, originally a base of the Israeli Southern Command, was transformed in 2023 into a large detention centre for Palestinians, marking a dangerous turning point in Israel’s security architecture. Many international reports now describe it as a symbol of terror, where the worst forms of physical and psychological torture are practised away from international oversight. Released prisoners’ testimonies indicate detainees are kept shackled by hands and feet for days and weeks, leading in some cases to limb amputations after circulation ceased, in addition to deaths in the cells due to torture or medical neglect.
Recently, a leaked video from inside Sde Teyman showing soldiers assaulting a Palestinian prisoner caused a storm inside the Israeli military establishment. But that storm was not about the content of the video; it was about its leak: Military Advocate General Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi was dismissed after being accused of failing to safeguard classified information. Strangely, her dismissal did not come as a protest against torture but because, according to Netanyahu, the incident “damaged Israel’s image.”
Thus the discussion shifted from the core crime to bureaucratic matters that justify it, from holding actors accountable to protecting the institution — a clear reflection of a security system that views a media scandal as a graver offense than torture itself.
Leaked images, medical reports and released prisoners’ testimonies all confirm that what is happening inside the dungeons of the occupier’s detention facilities are not isolated individual acts or sporadic transgressions, but rather an organised policy: torture, humiliation, deprivation of food and sleep, stripping detainees naked during interrogation — all tools used in a systematic strategy to break Palestinian will. This policy is not new, but it is now more violent and widespread amidst the comprehensive war on Gaza, where the occupation treats detainees as an extension of the battlefield rather than prisoners with rights under international law.
Despite the abundance of evidence and the recurrence of these crimes, Israel has not witnessed any real internal accountability to date. The Israeli judicial system has, according to international organisations, become part of a cover-up apparatus for these violations. Therefore, there is an urgent need for an independent international investigation under UN supervision and the International Criminal Court to hold Israeli officials accountable for crimes of torture, enforced disappearance and killings inside detention facilities.
Even the testimony of the military advocate herself, even if it surfaced incidentally as part of an internal dispute, represents decisive new evidence that the Israeli leadership is aware of what is happening inside its camps and deliberately remains silent about the violations. Indeed, all that occurs inside the prisons — the violations — are carried out by orders coming directly from the highest military, security and political levels.
The issue of Palestinian prisoners and detainees is no longer merely a humanitarian file; it is the essence of the Palestinian–Israeli conflict. The continued presence of thousands of Palestinians behind wire means the national wound will remain open and the struggle for freedom is not yet complete.
On behalf of the External Relations Department of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, we present this message so that the issue of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails remains a permanent item on your agendas. The freeing of our prisoners is the next chapter in the Palestinian struggle — not a political slogan but a moral and national duty tied to dignity, freedom and sovereignty. In prisons like Sde Teyman and other fascist Israeli detention centres, it is not only Palestinian patience that is tested — it is the conscience of the entire world