Saturday 08/November/2025 – 01:59 PM
The Guardian newspaper published an investigation, today, Saturday, revealing that the Israeli authorities are detaining dozens of Palestinians coming from the Gaza Strip in a secret underground prison known as “Rackivet”where detainees are completely isolated from the outside world, deprived of daylight, adequate food, and any contact with their families, according to what Israeli lawyers and human rights organizations reported.
Lawyers for the Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) revealed that among those detained were a nurse who was arrested in medical scrubs and a young food vendor, both of whom are being held without any formal charge or trial.
The Israeli occupation and Gaza
The two men have been detained in the Rakeft complex since last January, and have described, through their lawyers, regular beatings and ill-treatment, consistent with previous reports of documented torture practices in other Israeli detention centers.
Rakevet Prison was established in the early 1980s to detain major organized crime criminals in Israel, but was later closed as it was deemed inhumane. However, the far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir ordered it to be restarted after the attacks of October 7, 2023.
The entire prison is located underground, including the cells, the exercise yard and the lawyers’ interview room, making the prisoners live without any exposure to natural light. Official data obtained by the PCATI Commission indicate that the prison, which was designed to hold only about 15 people, currently holds approximately 100 detainees.
Under the truce agreement concluded in mid-October, Israel released about 1,700 detainees from Gaza who were being held without charges, in addition to 250 prisoners convicted in Israeli courts. However, the Human Rights Committee confirms that at least a thousand others remain in detention in similar conditions.
