DaysofPal – Inside Israeli prisons, punishment does not end with iron bars and restraints. It extends into the most basic human right: food. This is how two recently released Palestinian detainees, Ibrahim Breis and Bilal Mousa, describe the harsh reality they endured during their imprisonment prior to their release as part of the Al-Aqsa Flood prisoner exchange.
In testimonies given to the Palestinian Information Center, both men recount how daily meals were transformed from a human necessity into a calculated tool of humiliation and the deliberate breaking of dignity.
Objection Met With Repression
According to Breis, food inside Israeli prisons was never provided according to basic health or humanitarian standards. Instead, it was part of a clear and systematic punishment policy.
He explains that meals were often left for long hours under extreme heat before being served to detainees, even after they had spoiled. Prisoners were forced to eat food emitting foul odors and visibly unfit for consumption.
Objecting was not an option. Any complaint, Breis says, was met with repression or punishment.
The humiliation, he adds, went far beyond the poor quality of the food itself. Prison guards would deliberately step into food containers with their boots in full view of the prisoners, sending a clear message: dignity would be stripped before hunger was addressed.
Bread, the most basic staple, was thrown onto the ground, forcing detainees to either pick it up or go hungry, a daily scene that encapsulated the policy of degradation.
Breis also recounts how bird droppings would fall into food containers without any attempt to remove or replace the meals, leaving prisoners with a single choice: eat contaminated food or endure starvation.
Food Unfit for Human Consumption
Bilal Mousa offers an equally harrowing testimony. He states that the food provided to detainees was, on many occasions, simply unfit for human consumption.
He recalls seeing rotten cucumbers served to prisoners, emitting unbearable odors and covered with fuel, with no regard for the health or safety of those forced to eat them.
Mousa says the scenes of humiliation crossed every possible boundary. In one incident, he witnessed a dog stepping into a food container before it was handed to detainees, a moment that, he says, perfectly captured the level of deliberate abuse and disregard for prisoners’ humanity.
These practices, Mousa emphasizes, were not isolated incidents. They were repeated frequently, reflecting a consistent and entrenched policy rather than the actions of individual guards.
The consequences were not only psychological. Mousa explains that many detainees suffered pain and medical complications after consuming the food, while medical care was largely absent and prison authorities faced no accountability for the health damage inflicted on prisoners.
These testimonies, revealed after the men’s release, shed light on a deeply troubling aspect of life inside Israeli prisons, where food is used as a slow weapon, combining psychological torture with deliberate humiliation. Such practices constitute a grave violation of international conventions that guarantee detainees the right to adequate nutrition and humane treatment.
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