This came according to a report issued by the Public Defender Authority of the Israeli Ministry of Justice after its representatives visited prisons during 2024, according to the Hebrew newspaper Haaretz.
The newspaper said: "During the war, Palestinian security prisoners were denied access to drinking water as a form of collective punishment, sometimes for hours or even half a day, according to reports from representatives of the Public Defender's Office who visited security prisons in 2024."
She explained that last January, the Association for Civil Rights (an unofficial organization) submitted a petition to the Jerusalem District Court demanding the release of the reports, "but the state has not yet agreed, arguing that publication would harm its security, especially since the kidnapped (Israeli prisoners) were still being held in the Gaza Strip."
The newspaper added, "On Tuesday, the Ministry of Justice delivered six reports to the association, based on the fact that circumstances had changed and it was now possible to deliver them."
The reports are based on three visits by representatives of the Public Defender Authority to Ketziot Prison in the Negev (south) in May, June and September 2024, according to the same source.
One report stated: "The results of the first two visits showed that the policy of restricting access to water was being implemented at least in some sections, so that people were continuously denied access to drinking water during part of the day."
The report also stated that depriving prisoners of drinking water "was practiced as part of collective punishment from time to time, and in other places it was a regular practice for about half the day." According to the report, the policy of restricting drinking water was discontinued before the September visit.
For its part, the Israeli Prison Service denied the report's findings, stating in a statement that "the claim regarding the denial of drinking water to prisoners or their collective punishment is incorrect," according to its assertion.
Last November, Haaretz revealed that Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails are suffering from hunger and are receiving only meager amounts of food, contrary to what an Israeli court has ruled.
Last September, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled, by a majority of its judges, that "there are indications that the Prison Service is violating its obligation to provide basic living conditions for security prisoners, including food in an appropriate quantity and composition to maintain their health."
This decision was issued following a petition filed in April by the Association for Civil Rights and the Gisha human rights organization against the Prison Service, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, and Attorney General Gali Baharav-Meara.
This petition was filed following changes made by Ben-Gvir to the conditions of detention of Palestinian prisoners after the outbreak of the war.
According to the newspaper, "Ben-Gvir's decisions included all security prisoners held in Israel, not just those captured during the fighting in the Gaza Strip."
Until October 7, 2023, prisoners were allowed to purchase food independently from prison food outlets (canteens) and prepare most of their own food.
But with the outbreak of war, “prisons switched to emergency operations, security prisoners’ access to the canteen and cooking utensils was completely cut off, and the prison service began providing all the prisoners’ food itself,” according to the same source.
More than 10,000 Palestinian prisoners, including children and women, are held in Israeli prisons, where they suffer torture, starvation, and medical neglect. Many of them have been killed, according to Palestinian and Israeli human rights and media reports.
On October 8, 2023, Israel began a two-year genocide in Gaza, which resulted in over 71,000 Palestinian martyrs and 171,000 wounded, in addition to massive destruction affecting 90% of the civilian infrastructure, with reconstruction costs estimated by the United Nations at about $70 billion.
