Israeli Press
Ben-Gvir says he cut women prisoners' conditions to a bare minimum
Graphic: Times of Palestine
Original Reporting
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Israel's national security minister toured a prison holding Palestinian women, heard them describe their conditions, and answered that reducing those conditions is his achievement.
The Jerusalem Post reported the exchange on Sunday. Itamar Ben-Gvir, whose ministry controls the prison service, was at Damon, the facility above Haifa where Israel holds most of its Palestinian women prisoners. His office described the women who complained as female Islamic Jihad prisoners; that characterisation is his office's, and the Post carried it as such.
"Our hostages did not have shampoo and did not have these conditions," the minister said, according to the paper. "I am proud that we succeeded in reducing the conditions for terrorists to the barest of bare minimums."
He added: "We are not apologising; anyone who harms Israeli civilians will not receive a kindergarten in prison." On social media he wrote that the whining of the prisoners about conditions does not work on him.
What the Palestinian institutions have documented at the same prison#
The conditions Ben-Gvir describes as an achievement have a documented record, and it is not the minister's.
The Commission of Detainees' Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoners' Society have reported through August that Damon holds roughly ninety Palestinian women, among them two girls under eighteen, mothers separated from their children, two pregnant women, women in solitary confinement, an elderly prisoner with Alzheimer's disease and several with chronic illness.
The Prisoners' Society reported an outbreak of scabies in the section, with at least ten women infected, and the confiscation of clothing, medication and personal belongings.
Israeli activists protested outside the prison on 22 August over the treatment of the women held inside.
Why the quote matters beyond the quote#
Prison conditions in Israel are governed by regulation, not by the minister's mood, and Palestinian institutions have argued for two years that deterioration inside the sections is policy rather than drift.
Ben-Gvir's own words, delivered inside the prison and published by an Israeli newspaper, are the plainest statement yet that they are right about the intent. He is not denying that conditions were reduced. He is claiming credit for it.
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