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Original article: Día del Prisionero Palestino: La tortura y la horca bajo la ocupación israelí

By Vera Baboun, Ambassador of the State of Palestine in Chile

On April 17, we observe Palestinian Prisoner Day, a date that serves as a stark reflection of how the Israeli prison system has deeply influenced and shaped Palestinian political life.

As of early April 2026, Palestinian prisoner institutions reported over 9,600 Palestinians detained in Israeli prisons and detention centers.

Among these, 3,532 are held under administrative detention without charges or trial; the figures also reveal that 10 members of the Palestinian Legislative Council remain imprisoned, along with 119 sentenced to life imprisonment, 84 female inmates (25 of whom are also under administrative detention), and approximately 1,250 detainees from Gaza classified by Israel as “illegal combatants,” a designation that allows for their indefinite confinement outside ordinary criminal law.

Of particular concern are the alarming statistics regarding around 350 Palestinian children—students who should be in classrooms—systematically denied their fundamental right to education.

These numbers indicate that imprisonment among Palestinians is not an isolated occurrence, but rather a collective political reality that transcends age, gender, and regional boundaries.

The case of Marwan Barghouti, a Palestinian leader incarcerated for 24 years, highlights the brutality of the system. According to his lawyer, on April 8, he was brutally beaten in Ghanot prison and left bleeding from the head for over two hours without medical attention. Earlier, on March 24 and 25, he had suffered assaults during his transfer from Megiddo prison.

These incidents are part of an escalating pattern observed in the past two years: severe beatings, prolonged isolation, constant transfers, humiliation, and denial of medical treatment. Additionally, high-level political incitement and threats related to his detention have been reported, including public intimidation and celebration of worsening prison conditions. This includes calls for his execution in the context of a newly approved death penalty law for Palestinian prisoners.

His supporters warn that his life is in real danger; they assert that his immediate release is the only way to protect him.

The human cost extends far beyond individual cases. Since 1967, 326 Palestinians have died in Israeli prisons; 89 of these deaths occurred after October 2023. Palestinian institutions clarify that these figures only include known identities; dozens of detainees from Gaza remain in enforced disappearance.

International bodies have documented a systematic pattern of violations: the International Red Cross reported in November 2025 that its access to Palestinian detainees has been denied since October 7, 2023. Human Rights Watch accused Israeli authorities of subjecting prisoners—including children—to torture, sexual violence, and deprivation of food and medical care.

The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Israeli organization B’Tselem, in their January 2026 report, described the prison system as “a network of torture camps” for Palestinians. Testimonies from survivors speak of beatings, rapes, sexual assaults, prolonged isolation, medical neglect, and prohibitions on family visits: practices that, according to multiple human rights organizations, are no longer exceptions but institutional policies.

This year, Palestinian Prisoner Day coincides with a very serious legal escalation. On March 30, 2026, the Knesset passed a law expanding the death penalty for Palestinian political prisoners: hanging as the primary punishment for those convicted by military courts for certain deadly attacks, with execution to occur within 90 days.

Human Rights Watch described this law as discriminatory, stating its wording indicates that it will apply primarily—if not exclusively—to Palestinians. UN experts went further, defining it as a death penalty system specifically targeting them.

The judicial imbalance is structural. Palestinians tried in Israeli military courts face a 96% conviction rate, according to Reuters (March 2026). In contrast, violence by settlers against Palestinians is almost never punished: Yesh Din reported that only 3% of cases it monitors result in a conviction, and Reuters noted that just 2% even reach the formal charging stage.

Palestinian Prisoner Day condemns a political system that relies on collective punishment, systematic humiliation, and attempts to break the will of an entire people by attacking their bodies, their leaders, their children, and their dignity. It is not limited to remembering the living and the martyrs; it denounces a continuing crisis of torture, enforced disappearance, and now, the threat of legal execution under a norm that many observers consider designed specifically to target Palestinians.

Supporting Palestinian prisoners today means rejecting the normalization of torture, disappearance, and hanging as instruments of governance. It means asserting that freedom is not just a slogan, but an inalienable right for every Palestinian.

Vera Baboun, Ambassador of the State of Palestine in Chile

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