Israel is holding dozens of Palestinians from Gaza in an underground prison where they are deprived of sunlight, adequate food, and contact with their families or the outside world.
According to lawyers from the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI), the detainees include at least two civilians held for months without charge or trial: a nurse taken from his workplace in scrubs and a young food vendor. Both were moved to the underground Rakefet prison in January and reported regular beatings and violence consistent with documented torture in other Israeli detention centers.
Rakefet prison was built in the early 1980s to house a small number of Israel’s most dangerous organized crime figures but was closed a few years later for being inhumane. After the October 7, 2023 attacks, far-right Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir ordered it reopened. The facility’s cells, a small exercise area, and a lawyers’ meeting room are all underground, leaving inmates without natural light.
Originally designed for a few high-security prisoners in individual cells, Rakefet held 15 men when it closed in 1985. Recent data obtained by PCATI shows it now holds about 100 detainees.
Under a mid-October ceasefire agreement, Israel released 250 convicted Palestinian prisoners and 1,700 detainees from Gaza who had been held indefinitely without charge or trial, including the young trader from Rakefet. However, even after these releases, at least 1,000 others remain in the same conditions, including the nurse represented by PCATI.
PCATI stated, “Though the war is officially over, Palestinians from Gaza are still imprisoned under legally contested and violent wartime conditions that violate international humanitarian law and amount to torture.”
The two men who met with PCATI lawyers in September were a 34-year-old nurse detained at a hospital in December 2023 and an 18-year-old food seller taken at an Israeli checkpoint in October 2024. Janan Abdu, a PCATI lawyer, emphasized, “In the cases of the clients we visited, we are speaking about civilians.”
Ben-Gvir told Israeli media and a parliament member that Rakefet was being used to hold elite Hamas fighters involved in the October 7 attacks and Hezbollah special forces captured in Lebanon. Israeli officials confirmed that no Palestinians involved in the 2023 attacks were released under the ceasefire.
The Israeli Prison Service did not respond to inquiries about the status and identity of other prisoners at Rakefet, which means “cyclamen flower” in Hebrew.
Classified Israeli data shows that most Palestinians detained in Gaza during the war were civilians. In 2019, Israel’s Supreme Court ruled it legal to hold the bodies of Palestinians as bargaining chips, and rights groups accuse Israel of doing the same with living detainees from Gaza.
Tal Steiner, executive director of PCATI, said conditions for Palestinians in all prisons are “horrific by intention.” Current and former detainees, along with Israeli military whistleblowers, have described systematic violations of international law. Rakefet, however, imposes a unique form of abuse by holding people underground without daylight.Being held for months on end has “extreme implications” for psychological health, Steiner stated. “It’s very difficult to remain mentally sound under such oppressive and harsh conditions.” This confinement also impacts physical health, disrupting basic biological functions from sleep-regulating circadian rhythms to vitamin D production.
Despite her work as a human rights lawyer and visits to prisons at the Ramla complex, where Rakefet is located southeast of Tel Aviv, Steiner had not known about the underground jail until Ben-Gvir ordered its reopening. It had been closed before the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) was established, so the legal team researched old media archives and the memoir of Rafael Suissa, the head of the Israel Prison Service in the mid-1980s, to learn more. Steiner quoted Suissa, who wrote that he believed being held underground around the clock was too cruel and inhumane for anyone to endure, no matter their actions.
This summer, PCATI lawyers were asked to represent two men detained in the underground prison, allowing Abdu and a colleague to visit for the first time. They were escorted underground by masked, heavily armed guards down a dirty staircase into a room with dead insects scattered on the floor. The toilet was so filthy it was effectively unusable. Surveillance cameras on the walls violated the right to confidential legal discussions, and guards warned that the meeting would be cut short if they discussed detainees’ families or the war in Gaza.
Abdu reflected, “I wondered, if the conditions in the lawyers’ room are so humiliating—not just for us personally but for our profession—then what must it be like for the prisoners? The answer came soon when we met them.” She described how the clients were brought in bent over, with guards forcing their heads down, and remained shackled at their hands and feet.
Saja Misherqi Baransi, the other PCATI lawyer on the visit, noted that the two detainees had been in Rakefet for nine months. One began the meeting by asking, “Where am I and why am I here?” as the guards had not told him the prison’s name. Israeli judges, who authorized their detention in brief video hearings without legal representation or access to evidence, stated only that they would remain there “until the war ends.”
The men described windowless, unventilated cells holding three or four detainees, where they often felt breathless and choked. They reported regular physical abuse, including beatings, attacks by dogs with iron muzzles, and guards stepping on them, along with inadequate medical care and starvation-level rations. Israel’s high court recently ruled that the state was depriving Palestinian prisoners of sufficient food.
Prisoners have very limited time outside their cells in a small underground enclosure, sometimes just five minutes every other day. Mattresses are removed early in the morning, around 4 a.m., and only returned late at night, leaving detainees on iron frames in otherwise empty cells.
Their accounts align with footage from Ben-Gvir’s televised visit to the prison, where he promoted his decision to reopen the underground jail, saying, “This is terrorists’ natural place, under the ground.” He has repeatedly boasted about mistreating Palestinian detainees, rhetoric that former hostages from the October 7 attacks say led to increased abuse by Hamas during their captivity. This included holding hostages in underground tunnels for months, depriving them of food, isolating them from news of their families and the outside world, and subjecting them to violence and psychological torture, such as being forced to dig a grave on camera.Intelligence services have warned that the treatment of Palestinian prisoners is endangering the country’s broader security interests.
Misherqi Baransi reported that the detained nurse last saw daylight on January 21 of this year when he was moved to Rakefet, following a year spent in other prisons, including the military’s infamous Sde Teiman center.
The nurse, a father of three, has received no updates about his family since his arrest. Lawyers are only permitted to share one piece of personal information with detainees from Gaza: the name of the relative who authorized them to handle the case.
“When I told him, ‘I spoke with your mother, and she approved me to represent you,’ I’m giving him that small comfort—at least letting him know his mother is alive,” Baransi explained.
In another instance, when a fellow detainee asked Abdu if his pregnant wife had delivered their baby safely, a guard quickly interrupted the conversation to threaten him. As the guards led the men away, Baransi heard an elevator sound, indicating their cells were located even further underground.
A teenage detainee told her, “You’re the first person I’ve seen since I was arrested,” and his final plea was, “Please come see me again.” His lawyers later learned he had been released to Gaza on October 13.
The Israel Prison Service (IPS) stated that it “operates within the law and under the oversight of official auditors,” adding that it “is not responsible for legal procedures, detainee classification, arrest policies, or arrests.”
The justice ministry directed inquiries about Rakefet and detainees to the Israeli military, which in turn referred them back to the IPS.
Frequently Asked Questions
Of course Here is a list of FAQs about the topic you described written in a clear natural tone with direct answers
Basic Questions Definitions
1 What is this underground prison in Israel
Its often referred to as Section 6 of the Gilboa Prison an underground maximumsecurity facility
2 Who is being held there
Primarily Palestinian detainees many of whom are being held under a practice called administrative detention
3 What is administrative detention
Its a procedure that allows Israeli authorities to hold individuals indefinitely without formally charging them or putting them on trial It is based on secret evidence not shared with the detainee or their lawyer
4 Is it true they are denied natural daylight
Yes reports from human rights organizations and former detainees confirm that prisoners in this specific facility are held in cells without windows completely cut off from natural light and a regular daynight cycle
Legal Human Rights Concerns
5 Is administrative detention legal
Israel argues it is legal under a 1979 law which it uses in the occupied West Bank citing urgent security needs However many international human rights groups and the United Nations consider its widespread and prolonged use a violation of international law
6 What are the main human rights concerns
The key concerns are the lack of a fair trial the use of secret evidence indefinite detention without charge and the poor conditions of confinementincluding sensory deprivation from the lack of daylight which can cause severe psychological harm
7 How long can someone be held like this
Administrative detention orders are typically issued for up to six months at a time However they can beand often arerenewed repeatedly leading to detainees being held for years without ever being charged
8 Can detainees appeal their detention
Yes they can appeal to a military court However because the evidence against them is secret for security reasons neither they nor their lawyers can effectively challenge it making the appeals process widely criticized as unfair
Deeper Advanced Questions
9 What is the stated purpose of this kind of detention
Israeli authorities state it is a necessary tool to prevent imminent security threats such as terrorist attacks when presenting evidence in an open court would compromise intelligence sources or methods
10 How does the lack of daylight affect detainees
Medical
