FILE- Israeli soldiers stand by a truck used to transport Palestinian detainees, who have been stripped, bound and blindfolded. AP
The report, based on testimonies from lawyers affiliated with the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI), details severe mistreatment of prisoners held in the subterranean facility. The lawyers said they had visited Rakefet and spoken to two civilians detained there, a nurse arrested while on duty in December 2023 and an 18-year-old food vendor detained at a checkpoint in October 2024.
Both men were transferred to the prison in January and described routine beatings and other violent abuse consistent with documented cases of torture in Israeli detention centres.
Rakefet was originally opened in the early 1980s to hold members of organised crime groups, but was shut down within a few years for being “inhumane”.
Following the start of Israel's genocidal war on Gaza in October 2023, Israel’s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, ordered the facility reopened to hold detained Palestinians from Gaza.
According to The Guardian, the entire prison, including cells, a small exercise area, and a lawyers’ meeting room, lies underground, depriving detainees of natural light.
Lawyers who visited the site described “masked, armed guards leading prisoners down staircases into bug-infested rooms with filthy toilets unfit for use”. Cameras reportedly monitor even lawyer visits, violating detainees’ right to confidential legal counsel. Prisoners are shackled hand and foot and forced to keep their heads lowered.
The windowless cells, which hold three or four detainees each, lack proper ventilation. Prisoners reported breathlessness, beatings, dog attacks, and guards stepping on them while they lay on the ground. They are denied adequate food and medical care, the report said.
Earlier this month, Israel’s High Court ruled that the state had failed to provide Palestinian prisoners with sufficient nutrition.
Detainees told lawyers they are allowed minimal time outside their cells, sometimes as little as five minutes every other day, in a small underground enclosure. Mattresses are removed at around 4am and only returned late at night, leaving prisoners to lie on bare iron frames for most of the day.
Despite a ceasefire agreement in October 2025 that led to the release of 1,700 Gazan prisoners without charge, The Guardian said over a thousand Palestinians remain held indefinitely, without trial or formal accusations.
PCATI’s executive director, Tal Steiner, described conditions inside Rakefet as “horrific by intention,” saying the treatment constitutes a grave violation of international humanitarian law.
Ben-Gvir has publicly celebrated his decision to reopen the facility, calling it “the natural place for terrorists—underground,” and has repeatedly boasted of the Israeli abuse of Palestinian detainees.
The Guardian concluded that the existence and operation of Rakefet “represent a moral and security stain on Israel itself.”
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