An investigation by Israeli newspaper ‘Haaretz’ has turned attention to a different, less visible front: the conditions inside Israeli prisons holding Palestinian security detainees, and a case that raises hard questions about custodial violence, command responsibility and accountability.
Haaretz reports that a Palestinian prisoner named Thaer Abu Asab, serving 25 years for attacks on Israel, died in November 2023 after being severely beaten inside Ketziot Prison in southern Israel. For nearly three years, guards involved kept silent. What broke that silence, according to Haaretz, were WhatsApp messages the guards exchanged among themselves that night and in the weeks after, later seized by investigators. Last week, prosecutors filed charges against twelve Israel Prison Service guards over the incident.
According to Haaretz, one female guard texted her partner, also a guard, as Abu Asab lay dying in the prison clinic: “They’re doing CPR in the clinic right now, Baby.” She had earlier told him the count that night had taken over two hours, adding, “Draw your own conclusions.” Another guard reportedly texted a friend, “Holy shit, What A count,” while a third described pouring “cheese” over prisoners, prison slang for blows to sensitive areas, before writing that a prisoner was dead.
Abu Asab was taken to Soroka Medical Center in the city of Be’er Sheva, where he was pronounced dead. Haaretz reports that, according to the indictment, the beating caused a fatal heart injury.
Haaretz’s account traces the violence back to a single question. Abu Asab had asked a guard whether a cease-fire had been agreed between Israel and the Palestinians. The guard’s reply, according to one of Abu Asab’s cellmates, was blunt: “Better not ask.” Word of the question reached a Prison Service officer, referred to in the report only as “the commander” because of a court gag order on all defendants’ names. Haaretz reports that he decided to answer the question with force.
Fifteen guards and fifteen members of Keter, a Prison Service tactical unit , entered the cell during the evening headcount, according to prisoner testimony cited by Haaretz. Prisoners were made to kneel with their hands above their heads. Batons were used for several minutes, a dog was set on them, and guards reportedly shouted about the cease-fire question as they left. Abu Asab, prisoners said, was beaten worst of all and did not get up again.
Guard testimony backs up the prisoners’ accounts, Haaretz reports. One guard, Diana Troitsky, told investigators that before the count, the commander said he had just learned two friends had been killed in Gaza and described himself as devastated. She said he told the guards that whatever happened that night was his responsibility, that his superiors had given him a free hand, and that they should not be afraid to act.
Another guard, Avia Arusi, said the commander and a colleague asked prisoners who had raised the cease-fire question, then began beating the one who answered. Both guards’ accounts point to the commander as the one who gave the order to enter the cell, and both say he stood at the entrance and watched.
The messages extend beyond that single night. Haaretz reports that guard Oshrit Eliga, in exchanges with a friend and with her partner at another prison, described beatings as routine. In one message cited in the investigation, she wrote of newly arrived prisoners: “We got so tired of beating them, the commander took off his belt and beat the shit out of them.” In another, discussing a batch of new arrivals, she said she would not let a prisoner into the wing unless he came out injured.
Eliga later told investigators she regretted the messages and had been exaggerating to impress a friend. Haaretz notes that investigators did not pursue the broader claims of routine beatings described in her texts.
As the case progressed, the commander began describing a wider culture of unreported violence at the prison, implicating Ketziot’s overall commander, Brigadier General Yosef Knipes, according to Haaretz. He told investigators that senior officers, including Knipes, would change into the same tactical gear worn by the masked Keter unit before entering cells, making it hard to identify who was responsible for injuries inside. “Ultimately, it’s my duty to follow his orders and procedures,” he said of Knipes.
Knipes denied the claims when questioned, telling investigators the commander was “making things up” and that the incidents described did not reflect how the prison operated. The Israel Prison Service told Haaretz that the episode took place under a previous commissioner, and that the current commissioner had already dismissed some staff involved in the case as a signal that such conduct would not be tolerated.
Because investigators could not establish exactly which blows caused Abu Asab’s death, Haaretz reported that prosecutors charged all the 12 guards who entered his cell with reckless homicide , a comparatively lenient charge. Female guards who stood at the cell entrance were questioned but not charged.
Haaretz notes that Abu Asab had a complicated history with the prison staff before his death: he had earlier been indicted for allegedly paying a guard to smuggle phones into the facility, and, according to a separate Kan News report cited by Haaretz, had threatened to expose further wrongdoing by guards before he died. The case is pending before Israeli courts, with a gag order still in place over the names of those charged.
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