Israel’s far-right national security minister on Sunday boasted of worsening conditions for Palestinian prisoners as he visited female inmates.
Ben Gvir again drew international condemnation recently when he said Israel should kill 30 to 40 Palestinians each night in Gaza. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition is struggling in some polls ahead of October 27 elections, and Ben Gvir has refused his pleas to boost the right-wing’s chances by running jointly with a fellow ultranationalist.
Two months before elections, Itamar Ben Gvir posted a video in which a veiled woman, her face blurred out, said that prisoners had “extremely bad” conditions and “don’t get any rights, and we have particular needs as women”. “We haven’t bathed for three days and we haven’t changed our underwear,” she said, warning of the risk of disease. The summer camps in the prisons are over,” Ben Gvir said. The Gaza prisoners ministry under Hamas said Ben Gvir’s video “reflects the depths of depravity to which the occupation regime has sunk”.
“Our hostages had no shampoo and had no such conditions. I am proud that we have succeeded in reducing the terrorists’ prison conditions to the bare minimum.
