Israel takes perverse pleasure in torturing, raping, and murdering Palestinian hostages

Palestinians abducted, imprisoned, starved, electrocuted, tortured, raped, and even subjected to simulated burial. This is the reality of Palestinian hostages tortured by Israel

Eva Karene Bartlett, Jun 23, 2026

In late 2023, Israeli soldiers abducted and imprisoned a Palestinian man (among many abducted at the same time) from a school in Jabaliya, Gaza, which he and other displaced Palestinians had been sheltering in. He was held hostage in Israeli prisons for nearly two years, during which time he was severely tortured by repeated and prolonged electrocution (including multiple times a day). His Israeli torturers at some point locked him in coffin-like box for two weeks in their attempt to psychologically break him.

According to Imad Nabhan, he refused to act as an informant for Israel. The Israeli soldiers first attempted to bribe him into collaboration, then defaulted to Israel’s (now well-documented) norm of brutal physical and psychological torture of Palestinian captives.

Nabhan’s release in October 2025 saw Imad so physically debilitated by the electric shock torture that he fell unconscious into violent seizures numerous times daily.

At the end of May, he spoke about the torture he endured in Israeli prisons, including his “coffin torture”. He reported that he had been held in “an iron container with a wooden box inside it,” where his hands and feet were tied, fed through a tube in a small hole, just enough to keep him alive.

“It seemed they wanted to make me feel like I was dead so they could get whatever information they wanted. I stayed inside that coffin for 15 days. I felt like I was alive in a dead body.”

In October 2025, while a journalist in Gaza was attempting to interview Nabhan after his release, Imad fell into one of his seizures, his whole body writhing and convulsing, his head repeatedly banging against the ground.

This lasted for 30 seconds, and started again a minute later as his father tried to shield his son’s head from hitting the ground. He spoke of Imad’s torture, showing the marks left on his legs from the repeated electric shocks.

His father had said until his release, he’d thought his son was dead. “We thought he’d been martyred, because there was information they shot people and were running over their bodies with tanks. So after two years, we were surprised that was alive in prison and was released.”

The Israeli torture and abuse meted out to Imad Nabhan is not unique, it is the norm, and in recent years there have been increasingly numerous accounts from former prisoners of the torture, rape, abuse, starvation, and denied medical care they endured in Israeli captivity, in violation of all international norms…………………………………………..

Living Hell: Israeli torture prisons

Among the more horrific instances (known to the public) of Israeli soldiers’ raping of Palestinian prisoners was the July 2024 gang rape of a Palestinian man from Gaza in the notorious Sde Teiman prison (dubbed the Israeli Guantanamo).

Hiding their faces with their shields, Israeli soldiers took turns raping the prisoner so severely he was hospitalized unable to walk, with “a torn rectum, damaged lungs, and broken ribs.” [Note: Many Palestinians who have testified about their severe torture in Israeli prisons were not given medical care afterward.]

Astonishingly (to normal people), after a video of the rape was leaked and aired on Israeli television, not only was the Israeli public reaction not disgust or horror, but Israelis, members of the Knesset, and Israeli ministers protested the detention of soldiers accused of the gang-rape. None of the soldiers were charged.

Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir called their brief detention “shameful”, saying the rapists were “our best heroes”.

In August 2024, Israeli human rights advocacy group, B’Tselem, published a report highlighting the systematic torture, abuse, and rape of Palestinian prisoners. The spokesperson for B’Tselem said,

“We heard similar accounts of sexual abuse, starvation and assault from separate prisoners held in 16 different locations across Israel. As we gathered the testimonies, we realised that every witness account was almost identical, no matter what their age, gender or location was. There’s no doubt. This kind of abuse is systematic.”

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. When the issue of Palestinian hostages tortured in Israeli prisons is reported these days, the focus is often only on Palestinians from Gaza. But on a near daily basis throughout the West Bank, Palestinian men, women and children are abducted, arrested and held imprisoned, without charges, many of them repeatedly so. It is clearly not about crimes committed but about trying to break Palestinians psychologically, by the same means of torture, starvation, sexual abuse, and physical abuse.

Israel added to UN sexual violence blacklist

The United Nations put Israel on its annual blacklist of entities “credibly suspected of committing widespread sexual violence in conflict zones.” Victims include 31 Palestinians from the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank, including 14 men, seven women, nine boys, and one girl.

Violations included, “rape, including with objects, gang rape, attempted rape, physical violence to the genitals, instances of targeted shooting of the genitals.” Nine in the report were raped, including gang rape, some repeatedly.

………………………………………………………………………………………………….. That Israel faces no consequences nor any pressure to stop such torture, what is described as a systematic top-down policy, highlights yet again the death of international law and the meaningless of UN designations. As I’ve argued many times over the years, what’s the point of listing Israel as a serial murdered and rapist if no international body will actually stop Israel from continuing to abduct, torture and rape Palestinians?…………………………………………………………………… https://evakarenebartlett.substack.com/p/israel-takes-perverse-pleasure-in?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=3046064&post_id=202287735&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

June 25, 2026 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Atrocities, Israel