Welcome to +972’s Sunday Recap! 

New data from Physicians for Human Rights–Israel (PHRI) shows that at least 98 Palestinians have died in Israeli prisons and military detention centers since October 7, 2023, in many cases seemingly as a direct result of torture, medical neglect, and food deprivation by soldiers and prison officers. According to a leaked Israeli intelligence database, Yuval Abraham revealed, dozens were civilians.

Basel Adra reported on the ongoing wave of arson attacks by Israeli settlers: at least five West Bank villages have been targeted in recent weeks, as settlers have lit Palestinian homes, cars, and even a mosque ablaze, while the army has delayed the arrival of emergency vehicles. Meanwhile, with demolitions looming and settler violence escalating in Umm Al-Khair in Masafer Yatta, Tariq Hathaleen and Ahmed Hathaleen wrote that the community’s erasure seems only a matter of time.

While some were released in the ceasefire, Israel still holds 80 Palestinian medical workers from Gaza without charge. As Michal Feldon discussed (originally published on Local Call), they face physical violence, medical neglect, and starvation, languishing in Israeli prisons — and their families are demanding their freedom.

The outcome of two recent murder cases in Israel — one of a Jewish-Israeli, the other a Palestinian — has reaffirmed the shallow liberties of second-class citizenship, Vera Sajrawi argued. If corners of the Palestinian community in Israel once saw the judicial system as a final safeguard against state abuse, since October 7, that perception has collapsed: Israel’s courts have become ‘instruments of revenge’ against Palestinian citizens.

And Yael Berda analyzed two recent attacks on freedom of expression at Israeli university campuses (originally published on Local Call), arguing that as the occupation’s mechanisms of control seep into the civilian sphere, Jewish dissidents are next in line — marked as another ‘enemy within.’

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