Inside Israel’s prisons, where Ben-Gvir’s cruelty is policy

When Palestinian photojournalist and former prisoner Muath Amarneh saw Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’ s videos gloating over the decrepit conditions endured by imprisoned Palestinians, he thought of what happened before and after the cameras started rolling.

“When a figure like that comes to the prisons, they don’t show everything. What they do show is only certain video clips where the arrogance of that figure comes through,” Amarneh told Al Jazeera.

“But before and after, the prisoner is subjected to humiliation and beatings they don’t show the public. That whole hour of humiliation, they show half a minute of it, or a minute, or two minutes.”

Ben-Gvir, who oversees Israel’s prison system in his role, has spent recent weeks broadcasting what he views as his accomplishments in office.

An AI-generated video posted to his social media in August showed well-fed Palestinian men on a conveyor belt entering a detention facility, then emerging emaciated, weeping – captioned “We promised, we delivered”. He deleted it as comparisons to Nazi concentration camps mounted.

Days later, he posted footage of himself confronting female prisoners. One told him she had not showered in three days and was not receiving medical treatment. “The good conditions in the prisons are over,” Ben-Gvir told her. “I am directly responsible for everything. I am pleased with these conditions.”

Detainees’ testimonies and data from Palestinian rights groups offer a glimpse of what that policy has meant inside Israeli prisons.

Amarneh, 39, who now lives in the Dheisheh refugee camp south of Bethlehem, has been arrested twice since the genocidal war on Gaza began, both times under administrative detention.