RAMALLAH, July 20, 2026 (WAFA) – The Palestinian Prisoner Society (PPS) said on Monday that the Israeli Prison Service has, over recent months, turned the use of rubber bullets against Palestinian detainees into a systematic punitive policy.
This policy has affected dozens of prisoners whose cases have been documented by relevant organizations, though the actual number is likely much higher, due to severe restrictions on prisoner visits and the isolation imposed by Israeli authorities, which prevents access to many prisoners and the documentation of the violations they endure.
In a statement, the PPS affirmed that relevant organizations have followed up on several cases of prisoners injured by rubber-coated bullets, resulting in severe bleeding in their limbs and other sensitive parts of their bodies. Some required surgical intervention as a result of their wounds.
One prisoner reported that doctors informed him he might need to have a limb amputated due to the severity of his injury and its complications. The majority of injured prisoners still require urgent and specialized medical attention, but they face a policy of deliberate denial of treatment, which has become one of the most prominent tools of slow killing inside Israeli prisons.
The PPS said that prison administrations have recently expanded their use of repressive measures against prisoners, introducing new types of weapons used in torture and assaults.
Prisoners' bodies have become an open testing ground for tools of oppression and violence, particularly since the beginning of the ongoing genocide. The prison system has deliberately promoted the introduction of some of these methods through Israeli media outlets, in a display reflecting a policy of escalating the use of brutality and torture against prisoners.
It affirmed that the level of violence inside Israeli prisons has reached unprecedented levels.
The crimes committed against prisoners now surpass, in their scale and methodology, the traditional description of violations. They reflect the transformation of prisons into a comprehensive system for producing torture and an arena of extermination, based on the use of multiple methods of physical and psychological abuse, humiliation, starvation, denial of medical treatment, solitary confinement, and systematic assaults.
The PPS emphasized that this is all part of a policy aimed at breaking prisoners physically and psychologically, and constituted an extension of the ongoing crimes committed by Israeli authorities against the Palestinian people.
It also warned that the impact of rubber bullet injuries extends beyond physical harm, leaving many prisoners with long-term psychological trauma resulting from repeated raids, assaults, and intimidation, within a detention environment characterized by ongoing torture and the absence of even the most basic legal and humanitarian protections.\
The PPS reiterated its demand to the international human rights system, particularly the United Nations, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and relevant international mechanisms, to take immediate action to stop the escalating crimes committed against Palestinian prisoners and to hold the Israeli occupation leaders accountable.
It further affirmed that such crimes constitute grave violations of international humanitarian law, the Geneva Conventions, and the Convention against Torture, and, in their entirety, amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity that warrant prosecution and accountability.
Y.S
