Just days before the outbreak of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, I promised my client — a young Palestinian woman in her 20s imprisoned at Damon Prison near Haifa — that I would return to see her in March. The visit, on behalf of Israel’s Public Committee Against Torture, mattered to her for reasons that went beyond her legal case. Cut off from her family and the outside world, she described the meetings as a necessary source of human connection, something she awaited eagerly with hope.
But on Feb. 28, as soon as the war began, the Israel Prison Service (IPS) declared a state of emergency, suspending or severely restricting lawyer visits. After checking with prison officials, I was told that all visits had been suspended pending new instructions from the Home Front Command. I would not be able to see my client. My colleagues reported that their scheduled visits had also been canceled; effectively, the prisons had entered lockdown.
When access was partially restored, it was limited to detainees awaiting trial or sentencing and those with upcoming court hearings, excluding convicted prisoners like my client. Overnight, the line of contact she relied on — and that allowed me to monitor her conditions — was severed. Her case is an example of the mistreatment of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons that has become systematic and official and shows why lawyer visits are not a luxury but a necessity.
When Israeli authorities first declared a state of war on October 7, prisons simultaneously began operating in a state of emergency. Family visits and Red Cross visits to Palestinian detainees were halted. Since then, lawyer visits have become even more vital, offering one of the only forms of external oversight — a rare glimpse into a system where abuse, degrading treatment, and, in many cases, acts amounting to torture occur out of sight. We lawyers often learn about such mistreatment by chance during client meetings. Without those encounters, much of what happens inside would remain undocumented.
The latest emergency measures have deepened the lack of transparency. The IPS introduced a hierarchy for lawyer visits: detainees with imminent court hearings, followed by remand detainees, and finally convicted prisoners — many of whom, like my client, are now effectively cut off.
On March 11, the IPS legal advisor extended additional restrictions through mid-April, curtailing prisoners’ routine activities including daily yard time. This recess is the single hour prisoners are permitted outside their cells. It provides sunlight, ventilation, and a necessary opportunity for social interaction for prisoners otherwise confined up to 23 hours a day.
At Damon Prison, where my client is held, detainees were not even informed of the war. As a result of reduced yard time, showers, also located in the yard, were limited as well.
Surveillance instead of care
Just two days before the war with Iran started, I had visited my client for the third time in a month. That meeting followed weeks of legal efforts to challenge her placement — along with another prisoner — in a small, isolated cell under constant camera surveillance. Prison officials justified the move to her, which occurred in early January, by citing weight loss. A prison doctor had determined that both women had fallen below the normal BMI (body mass index) threshold. But the response was punitive rather than medical and was particularly harmful given the approaching start of Ramadan.
When I reviewed her medical file, with her consent, I was surprised to discover that she had lost 13 kilograms over the course of a year, dropping from 55 kg to just 42 kg. Despite this, she had not met with a nutritionist, nor was she provided with a dietary plan. Instead of addressing the cause, the prison violated her privacy and placed her under 24-hour surveillance.
The measure had no clear legal basis either. Under Israeli law, such intrusive monitoring is permitted only in cases involving immediate security threats or when a prisoner poses a risk to themselves. Such monitoring could be justified to prevent a suicide attempt, for example. Even then, it must be authorized by a qualified mental health professional. No such evaluation took place in her case.
After filing a complaint, and following parallel advocacy by fellow attorney Nadia Daqqa representing my client’s cellmate, the prison partially reversed course.
When I last visited my client on Feb. 26, she informed me that on the first day of Ramadan, the prison warden ordered guards to cover the three surveillance cameras mounted in the corners of the cell. Two additional prisoners, one of them a child, were transferred into the cell, effectively ending its isolation status. My client described a deep sense of relief.
But the underlying conditions of imprisonment remain unchanged. Both women reported that the food they were served was nutritionally inadequate, lacking protein, vitamins, and variety. Meals often consisted of eggs without seasoning and cold, flavorless soup. They were given no fruit whatsoever. It is no wonder they lost weight as a direct result of these conditions.
Such deprivation aligns with broader patterns in the treatment of Palestinian prisoners. In June 2024, Israel’s High Court of Justice discussed a petition submitted by two Israeli human rights organizations in response to testimonies from Palestinian detainees stating that they had lost dozens of kilograms after a dramatic reduction in food quantities since October 7, amounting to starvation.
The court ruled that the IPS was “obligated to provide security prisoners with food that enables basic living conditions in accordance with the law.” The ruling, however, did not specify the type or quantities of food, to say nothing of enforcement mechanisms.
The intention was to ensure that prisoners actually receive their food portions and that this would be supervised. Nowhere in the ruling did it state or was it implied that this supervision should be carried out through the installation of surveillance cameras, as was done in the case of my client.
Cold, damp, and overcrowded
The physical conditions inside the cell have compounded the problem. My client said that her new cell was notably smaller than the others, failing to meet both international and Israeli standards for minimum living space per prisoner. There are no closets; belongings are stored on one of the three beds or the floor. The cell is damp and ventilation is poor, with even the small hatch in the door — through which food is passed and which facilitates air circulation — kept closed.
Each prisoner received three blankets and one change of clothes for the duration of their detention. In winter, she and her cellmate often slept on the floor, huddled together, layering their six blankets and wearing their prison jackets to keep warm. Even then, they sometimes woke to find their hands had turned blue from the cold.
The presence of surveillance cameras also affected prisoners’ ability to practice basic hygiene. One camera faced the bathroom area, which is separated only by a curtain. As a result, the prisoners avoided using the shower altogether.
Beyond these conditions, my client reported repeated incidents of mistreatment. During one raid last month, guards entered her section and sprayed a kind of gas that she could not identify into one of the cells following an argument between two prisoners in which they had raised their voices — an action with clear health risks in confined spaces.
In another incident, this time in January, guards searched my client’s cell, scattering belongings and leaving prisoners outside in the cold. The search was carried out based on the guards’ claim that the inmates had been observed on camera carrying a sharp object, which later turned out to be a plastic spoon provided with their meals.
Overcrowding has further intensified the strain of prison conditions. The section of Damon Prison reserved for female Palestinian security detainees, according to my client, has capacity for around 50 prisoners, as this is the number of beds it holds. During my last visit, it held 63 prisoners. Within days of the war’s outbreak, a released prisoner told me that the number had risen to around 70, with some prisoners sleeping on the floor, and a joint report by the Commission of Detainees’ and Ex-Detainees Affairs and the Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association put the figure at 72 a few days later.
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Across Israeli prisons, the number of Palestinian detainees classified as “security prisoners” has surged from roughly 3,500 before October 7 to around 10,000 today — about half of whom are held without charge, as “unlawful combatants” or in administrative detention.
When prisons operate under a state of emergency and impose arbitrary and unlawful measures, the suspension of lawyer visits carries serious consequences. For convicted prisoners in particular, like my client, who have no regular access to courts, their families, or independent observers, these visits are often the only means by which they can raise complaints, seek medical follow-up, or document abuse.
Even though I was glad to learn that my client’s solitary confinement and surveillance had ended, my relief has been overtaken by deep concern for her situation. She and her fellow prisoners now remain in an overcrowded, poorly ventilated cell, with limited access to sunlight, under conditions that continue to deteriorate — and without the ability to see a lawyer.
In ordinary times, legal visits are essential. In times of crisis, they are indispensable.
