According to Ma’an, the Palestinian news agency, Palestinian prisoners have complained of poor conditions in Israel’s Nafha prison, citing insect and rat infestations, a lawyer from the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society has said. Several prisoners being held at Ward 3 of Nafha prison were quoted in a statement as saying that the ward falls short of basic health standards, and is infested with insects and rats.

Nafha Prison in the Negev (Photo: Al Ittihad)

The statement reported that one prisoner was recently bitten in the ear by a rat. The Israeli Prison Service usually only holds prisoners in Ward 3 for an interim period until they are moved to other wards. But 80 Palestinian prisoners were moved from Rimon prison to Ward 3 of Nafha prison on January 31, a step which prisoners considered provocative, the statement said. Ward 3 is very densely populated, as ten prisoners are currently being kept in each room. The floors are damaged and wastewater floods into the rooms, according to the statement. In addition, beds where prisoners sleep are full of moths as a result of the high levels of humidity.

5,200 Palestinians were being held in Israeli jails as of Oct. 2013, according to the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Prisoners’ Affairs. Another 1,280 are in Israeli prisons for being inside Israel without permits. Since 1967, more than 650,000 Palestinians have been detained by Israel, representing 20 percent of the total population and 40 percent of all males in the occupied territories. Under international law, it is illegal to transfer prisoners outside of the occupied territory in which they are detained, and the families of Palestinian prisoners’ face many obstacles in obtaining permits to see their imprisoned relatives.