Israel’s underground jail, where Palestinians are held without charge and never see daylight. Exclusive: Detainees at Rakefet include nurse and teenager who have been deprived of natural light since January

Rakefet, part of the prison complex in Ramla, pictured, was reopened under the orders of the far-right security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, in 2023. Photograph: Nir Elias/Reuters

Emma Graham-Harrison in Jerusalem

Sat 8 Nov 2025 03.00 EST

Israel is holding dozens of Palestinians from Gaza isolated in an underground jail where they never see daylight, are deprived of adequate food and barred from receiving news of their families or the outside world.

The detainees include at least two civilians who are being held without charge or trial: a nurse detained in his scrubs, and a young food seller, according to lawyers from the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) who represent both men.

The two men have been kept in the subterranean Rakefet complex since January, and described regular beatings and violence consistent with well-documented torture in other Israeli detention centres.

Rakefet prison was opened in the early 1980s to house a handful of the most dangerous organised crime figures in Israel but closed a few years later on the grounds that it was inhumane. The far-right security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, ordered it back into service after the 7 October attacks in 2023.

The cells, a tiny exercise “yard” and a lawyers’ meeting room are all underground, so inmates live without any natural light.

The jail was initially designed for a small number of high-security inmates occupying individual cells, holding 15 men when it shut in 1985. In recent months, about 100 detainees have been incarcerated there, official data obtained by PCATI shows.

Under the ceasefire agreed in mid-October, Israel released 1,700 Palestinian detainees from Gaza who had been held indefinitely without charge or trial, as well as 250 Palestinian prisoners who had been convicted in Israeli courts.

However, the scale of detentions has been so vast that even after that mass release, at least 1,000 others are still held by Israel under the same conditions.

“Though the war is officially over, [Palestinians from Gaza] are still imprisoned under legally contested and violent wartime conditions that violate international humanitarian law and amount to torture,” PCATI said... READ MORE  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/nov/08/israel-underground-jail-rakefet-palestinians-gaza-detainees 

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