The Israeli authorities on Tuesday brought charges against 12 prison guards accused of beating a Palestinian prisoner to death nearly three years ago, a rare prosecution after repeated reports by human rights groups of abuse in Israeli detention centers.
The guards were charged with reckless homicide in connection with the death of the prisoner, Thaer Abu Asab, who was from the occupied West Bank. A statement issued by prosecutors said that a dozen Israel Prison Service personnel had entered the cell he shared with eight other detainees during an evening head count in November 2023 and punched, kicked and, in some cases, beat them with clubs.
Soon after, Mr. Abu Asab, who was 38, collapsed and lost consciousness. He was taken to the prison clinic and then a hospital, where his death was confirmed, the statement added. Prosecutors determined that he had died from the beating, which caused serious damage to his heart and respiratory system.
The Israeli authorities in recent years have toughened conditions for what they call security detainees under the orders of the far-right minister of national security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, particularly after the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel in October 2023 that ignited the war in Gaza.
The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, a rights group, says that more than a hundred Palestinian detainees had died in Israeli custody since October 2023. The group said this was the first case it was aware of since then in which charges were brought in the death of a Palestinian detainee.
In a statement, the group said that dozens of Palestinian prisoners who had died “were healthy when arrested but were carried out as corpses” due to starvation, medical neglect or, as in the case of Mr. Abu Asab, “torture and beatings.”
Israel has come under international scrutiny over accusations of impunity for the Israeli authorities in connection with the mistreatment of Palestinians in custody. This scrutiny increased after the Israeli military dropped a high-profile case in March against five reserve soldiers charged with brutalizing a Palestinian detainee, citing difficulties with the evidence.
On the day that Mr. Abu Asab died, he had asked one of the guards at the Ketziot detention center in Israel’s southern Negev desert if there was a cease-fire in Israel’s war in Gaza. The guard relayed the question to the shift commander, Walid Khatib, who instructed the guards to enter the cell during the head count, contrary to usual practice, and “show the prisoners that there is no cease-fire,” the prosecutors’ statement said.
Mr. Khatib himself oversaw the beatings and hit one or more of the prisoners, the statement said.
On that day, Mr. Khatib, from the Beit Jann, a predominantly Druse village in northern Israel, had shared with some of the other defendants his “difficult feelings” about the deaths of Druse soldiers in the Israeli military during battle in Gaza, according to the indictment.
In addition to the charge of reckless homicide in connection with Mr. Abu Asab’s death, the guards face charges of aggravated assault of the other prisoners.
Neither Mr. Khatib nor any lawyer representing him could immediately be reached for comment. Adi Keidar, a criminal lawyer representing another guard, said he had been in touch with all 12 defendants before the indictment and they had all denied abusing prisoners. Mr. Keidar said the charges would be “hard to prove” and the trial could take years, given the number of defendants.
According to the indictment, Mr. Abu Asab was a member of Fatah, the mainstream Palestinian faction that dominates the Palestinian Authority and administers parts of the West Bank. He was detained in 2005 and sentenced to 25 years in prison for security offenses. The Israeli news media reported that he had been convicted of attempted murder.
Mr. Abu Asab’s brother, Muadh Abu Asab, said he hoped that Israel would bring the men who killed his brother to justice. “We hope for this and that Israel will finally return his body to us for burial,” he said in a telephone interview. “We don’t want anything else.”
The Israeli military and the Israel Prison Service said they could not provide further information. The Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security agency, did not respond to a request for comment.
Sari Bashi, director of the Public Committee against Torture in Israel, welcomed the indictment filed against the guards. “This indictment is an exception to the rule of impunity for torture and mistreatment of detainees,” she said. “Israeli authorities should follow through on prosecuting those responsible for Abu Asab’s death — and the deaths of dozens of other detainees.”
Aaron Boxerman and Johnatan Reiss contributed reporting.
