This picture shows the Ofer military prison located between Ramallah and Baytunia in the occupied West Bank city on Nov. 25, 2023. (Credit: AFP)
BEIRUT — The Palestinian Prisoners’ Media Office said on Thursday that Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir stormed the Ktzi'ot Prison, also known as Negev Prison, and ordered the confiscation of the remaining clothing belonging to Palestinian prisoners.
"The prison's administration carried out widespread confiscations of clothing, leaving most prisoners with only one shirt, one pair of trousers, and one or two pieces of underwear," reads the Prisoners' Media Office statement.
It added that the prison administration also "confiscated Qurans from the cells, leaving only one Quran for each section containing around 15 cells, preventing prisoners from reading the Quran except once every several days."
The office stressed that living conditions inside Ktziot Prison remain catastrophic, with continued poor food quality, in addition to a severe shortage of hygiene supplies.
The Prisoners’ Media Office added that what is taking place at Ktziot Prison "represents a dangerous escalation in the collective punishment policy pursued by the Israeli prison authorities against prisoners," calling on human rights and humanitarian organizations to "take urgent action to halt these violations and hold Israel accountable for what it described as ongoing crimes."
In December 2025, Ben-Gvir proposed the creation of a detention center for Palestinian prisoners “surrounded by crocodiles.” The same minister also sparked widespread condemnation after he posted a video mocking flotilla European activists while their hands were bound back in May.
The conditions of Palestinian prisoners have deteriorated after the start of the war between Hamas and Israel in Gaza on October 2023. Numerous accounts of abuse from Palestinian detainees arrested in the months following the war were reported. In a February 2025 report, the Israeli branch of Physicians for Human Rights (PHRI) described “a systematic policy of starvation, medical neglect, prolonged physical restraint, humiliation and violence.”
