RAMALLAH, (Palestine Foundation Information Center), Tensions are rapidly escalating inside Israeli prisons, with senior prison officials warning that conditions among Palestinian detainees are approaching a breaking point that could trigger a wide-scale confrontation.
Kobi Yaakobi, commissioner of the Israeli Prison Service, said the situation in the so-called security sections reflects a fundamental shift from previous years. “The reality in the security wings today is different from what it was before,” he said.
Yaacobi claimed that Palestinian prisoners are living in a state of despair after losing hope of release, adding, “We are at the beginning of an event inside the prisons. For us, the war is about to begin,” a statement widely seen as laying the groundwork for intensified repression and violence against detainees.
According to Israeli officials, preparations have been underway for nearly two years for what they describe as “the day the prison sections ignite,” indicating expectations of a large-scale confrontation inside detention facilities.
Avihai Ben Hamo, head of operations at the Israeli Prison Service, alleged a “direct link” between the Al-Aqsa Flood operation of October 7, 2023, and changes in prisoners’ behavior. He claimed detainees had learned to identify different types of locks and metal window bars, and that many believed they would soon be freed before realizing “the doors had been shut,” accusing them of attempting to challenge prison security policies.
Ben Hamo further alleged that prison authorities had discovered hand-drawn maps of cells and sections in some rooms, including markings identifying lock locations and the number of guards assigned to each wing. He said that while improvised weapons were displayed last year, the past year has seen the seizure of detailed maps indicating areas guarded by only one or two wardens, which he described as attempts to “break the security system.”
These developments come amid the deadliest period in the history of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement. Since 1967, at least 322 prisoners whose identities are known have died in Israeli custody. Dozens more detainees from Gaza remain forcibly disappeared, with their fate still unknown.
On December 14, administrative detainee Sakhr Zaoul from the town of Husan near Bethlehem died in Ofer prison, bringing the number of prisoners whose martyrdom have been announced since the start of Israel’s genocide in Gaza to 86. Just days earlier, on December 10, detainee Abdul Rahman Al-Sabatin, also from Husan, died after being transferred from an Israeli prison to Shaare Zedek hospital. He had been detained since June 24, 2025.
Earlier this month, the Commission of Detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoner Society announced the martyrdom of three detainees from Gaza, based on official responses from the Israeli occupation forces. The victims were identified as Taysir Saeed Al-Sababa, 60, Khamis Shukri Ashour, 44, and Khalil Ahmad Haneyya, 35, all arrested during the genocide on Gaza and later reported martyrs in detention.
The two organizations said the three martyrs are part of a much larger toll resulting from systematic torture, starvation, medical neglect, sexual abuse, and widespread violations of basic human rights inside Israeli prisons.
In the same context, a new report issued earlier this month by Israel’s Public Defender’s Office documented an unprecedented deterioration in detention conditions of Palestinian prisoners since October 7, 2023. The report included testimonies describing acute hunger, severe weight loss, and living conditions deemed “unfit for human habitation.”
