Rare Acknowledgment: Israeli Court Orders Government to Stop Starving Palestinian Prisoners

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In a rare wartime judicial oversight, the Israeli Supreme Court acknowledged that Palestinian prisoners had been subjected to systematic food deprivation.

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The Israeli Supreme Court ruled on Sunday that the Israeli government had deprived Palestinian detainees of even the minimum sustenance necessary for survival.

Consequently, the three-judge panel unanimously ordered the authorities to increase the quantity of food provided to Palestinian prisoners and to improve its quality.

The ruling stated that the Israeli government has a legal obligation to provide three meals a day to Palestinian prisoners to ensure a “minimum standard of living.”

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An Exceptional Step
According to the Associated Press, while the Supreme Court has the duty to assess the legality of government policies, the Israeli judiciary has rarely opposed state actions in the ongoing war against Gaza, now in its 23rd month.

Since the outbreak of the conflict on October 7, 2023, Israel has largely dismissed increasing international criticism of its conduct, arguing that it was acting as necessary to defeat Hamas.

The Israeli military has arrested large numbers of Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, suspected of links to Palestinian factions, primarily Hamas.

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Prison Conditions
Thousands of detainees were released after months of confinement in camps and prisons without formal charges, describing brutal conditions, including overcrowding, lack of food, inadequate medical care, and widespread scabies.

As Israel’s highest accountability body, the Supreme Court reviews complaints from individuals and organizations against government actions, such as restricting access to food and medical supplies in Gaza, or, in this case, what two Israeli human rights organizations described in their complaints as the security establishment’s “systematic policy” of depriving Palestinian prisoners of food.

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Ben-Gvir’s Objection
Since the start of the war, Palestinian authorities have reported the deaths of at least 61 prisoners in Israeli jails.

In March, a 17-year-old Palestinian died in an Israeli prison, with doctors attributing the death to possible starvation.

Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir, who oversees the prison system, boasted last year that he had reduced security detainees’ conditions to the bare legal minimum.

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Yesterday, Ben-Gvir, leader of a small far-right nationalist party, criticized the court’s ruling. He asked the judges, “Are you from Israel?” arguing that while “Israeli hostages in Gaza find no one to help them, the Supreme Court is defending Hamas.”

He pledged to continue the policy of providing prisoners with the “minimum conditions required by law” without change.

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Call for Immediate Implementation
The Israeli organization Rights of the Citizen urged authorities to implement the ruling immediately.

In a post on social media platform X, the rights group stated that the Israeli prison service “has turned prisons into torture camps.”

It added: “The state has no right to starve people. People have no right to starve other people – no matter what they have done.”

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