Israel’s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has made abuse of detained Palestinians a public display, often sharing footage of visits where he showcases or participates in abuse.
According to the report, violence including rape, extreme hunger, and humiliation have been normalized in Israeli jails, with rights groups saying detention centers have become “torture camps” for Palestinians.
Ben-Gvir boasts of presiding over a “prison revolution”, telling lawmakers in 2024: “I am proud that we have changed all of the conditions”.
He has repeatedly shared footage of visits where he showcases or participates in abuse, which has become normalized in Israel and was largely ignored internationally until recently.
Last week, Ben-Gvir posted a video of security forces abusing detainees, including footage of him waving an Israeli flag and taunting rows of activists who had been forced to kneel with their hands bound and foreheads to the ground.
The video, captioned “Welcome to Israel”, prompted an immediate and overwhelming flood of condemnation from around the world, including from the leaders of Italy and Canada.
More than 400 men and women from 44 countries were intercepted by the Israeli military in international waters as they tried to sail to Gaza with aid supplies.
The scale of global outrage pushed the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to issue a public rebuke, saying Ben-Gvir‘s behavior was “not in line with Israel’s values and norms”.
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Yara Hawari, a co-director of Al-Shabaka, the Palestinian Policy Network, said on social media: “Ben-Gvir‘s video publicising the abuse of captured flotilla activists in Israeli detention should surprise no one – not if you’ve listened to Palestinians for even a fraction of a minute.”
Israeli data shows at least 98 Palestinians have died in custody since the Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023 and the ensuing war.
Documented abuse of detainees includes an assault and rape filmed on security cameras and reported to police by Israeli medics.
Netanyahu described the alleged perpetrators as “heroic” and a failed attempt to prosecute them as “criminal”.
Tal Steiner, the executive director of the Jerusalem-based human rights group HaMoked, said the “harrowing and unjustifiable” forms of abuse captured in Ben-Gvir‘s video were routinely used against Palestinian prisoners in Israel.
Steiner added: “We welcome the international attention to the abuse of activists and to Ben-Gvir‘s punitive policies generally but must not forget that this is what happens to Palestinians, as well as much worse forms of torture and abuse.”
Netanyahu has never criticized extreme abuse of Palestinian detainees and denounced a recent investigation into rape of Palestinians, including in prisons, as a “blood libel” and threatened to sue the outlet.
His attempt to distance himself from Ben-Gvir‘s video appeared designed to deflect global outrage by framing the abuse as an extremist aberration, said Guy Shalev, the executive director of Physicians for Human Rights–Israel.
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Shalev added: “Crimes are framed as the actions of rogue settlers, abusive prison guards, or soldiers acting outside orders. Systematic violations are thus detached from policymakers and from the Israeli state itself.”
Many countries responded to the mistreatment of their citizens by summoning Israeli ambassadors for a formal dressing down.
There have also been international calls for sanctions against Ben-Gvir over the video, with several countries having already targeted him in this way last year, citing incitement to violence against Palestinians.
Ehud Olmert, the former Israeli prime minister, has called for the international criminal court to intervene “to save the Palestinians and us [Israelis]” from state-backed settler violence.
As Israel prepares for elections this autumn, many see Ben-Gvir‘s video as early campaign material, designed to appeal to the type of far-right voters who share grim jokes on social media about children jailed awaiting trial.
Suhad Bishara, the legal director of Adalah, the rights group which represented the flotilla activists, said: “It is deeply telling that strong international condemnations only came after Israeli officials publicly boasted about this abuse.”
Bishara added: “Statements are not enough: as long as Israel faces no concrete consequences for crossing one red line after another, abuses against Palestinians and international civilians alike will continue to escalate.”
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