Israeli prisons holding Palestinians becoming the 4th arena of escalation

With tensions in the West Bank and Gaza soaring, there’s one issue that has the potential to engulf the region in flames – the issue of Palestinian security prisoners in Israeli prisons.

Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has made clear his focus on taking back control over the prisons and what goes in in them. 

“You see them enjoying marmalade, chocolate, cable TV. A wide-open cellblock. They walk freely for like 22 hours a day. And I don’t want to hear that’s the law,” Ben-Gvir has said. “We need to change reality. We can change reality. With the help of God and us in power,” referring to the Jewish state’s new right-wing government. 

Since the start of 2023, Israel has imposed a series of measures that Palestinians have described as a crackdown on prisoners. 

This includes relocating some 2,000 of the 4,600 security prisoners – detainees suspected of being a threat to national security – among different prisons to “break the center of power” and to reduce crowding in cells. Another proposal is to close down in-prison bakeries.

More recently, 22 security prisoners affiliated with Gaza’s Palestinian Islamic Jihad were sent to solitary confinement last week after they celebrated a terror attack in east Jerusalem in which seven civilians were murdered.

And Palestinian factions are going on the offensive.

The day after Friday’s shooting attack outside a synagogue, the leader of Gaza’s governing Hamas movement Ismail Haniya gave the order to start a large-scale campaign to flare up tensions in the prisons. 

“We will not abandon them,” he declared, and days later, 120 Palestinian prisoners launched a hunger strike.

“We assume that the [Israeli] occupation is aware of this message, and is aware that the equation of the May 2021 war is an existing, functioning equation and that Palestinian resistance will never back down,” said Zakaria Abu Maamar, a member of the Hamas political office. “This is all related to the behavior of the occupation and its measures.”

Sources among the security prisoners have also warned that “harming the prisoners will have repercussions within and outside Israeli prisoners.”

In response to an i24NEWS inquiry, Israel's Prison Service said, "The routine of the security prisons is managed in accordance with the organization's orders and policies. We emphasize that we are prepared for any scenario and threat."

With Hamas trying to tie together the different arenas of Gaza, the West Bank, and east Jerusalem, the security prisoners are emerging as a fourth arena – potentially the most explosive of all.