Sixteen-year-old Mohammed Ibrahim, a Palestinian American, has become the face of a growing crisis that has haunted Israeli prisons for decades. His harrowing testimony, published on October 21, 2025, by Defense for Children International – Palestine (DCIP), has cast a spotlight on the treatment of Palestinian detainees, especially minors, in Israeli custody. Mohammed’s account, echoed by broader reports from rights groups and legal experts, paints a picture of systematic abuse, deprivation, and impunity that has persisted for nearly sixty years.
Mohammed’s ordeal began in February 2025, when Israeli soldiers raided his family home in the occupied West Bank. He was just 15 years old at the time. According to DCIP, Mohammed described being beaten with rifle butts as he was taken into custody. "The meals we receive are extremely insufficient," he told DCIP’s lawyer. "For breakfast, we are served just three tiny pieces of bread, along with a mere spoonful of labneh. At lunch, our portion is minimal, consisting of only half a small cup of undercooked, dry rice, a single sausage, and three small pieces of bread. Dinner is not provided, and we receive no fruit whatsoever."
Since his detention began, Mohammed has lost a considerable amount of weight. The conditions he described are stark: cold cells with no heating or cooling, thin mattresses, two blankets per prisoner, and only a single copy of the Quran in each room. "Each prisoner receives two blankets, yet we still feel cold at night," he recounted. "There is no heating or cooling system in the rooms. The only items present are mattresses, blankets, and a single copy of the Quran in each room."
Initially held in Megiddo prison, which a recently released detainee described as a "slaughterhouse," Mohammed was later transferred to Ofer detention facility. He has been charged with throwing stones at Israeli settlers, an accusation he denies. Legal experts and advocates argue that Palestinians from the occupied West Bank rarely receive fair trials in Israel’s military courts, which are notorious for their near-perfect conviction rates.
Mohammed’s case is not unique. According to The New Arab, since October 7, 2023, Israel has abducted and arrested more than 18,500 Palestinians, including workers, doctors, journalists, and students. These mass arrests have reached unprecedented levels, rights groups say, with systematic torture and mistreatment reported at every stage—from arrest and transfer to detention.
Palestinians in the West Bank are governed by Israeli military orders, putting every resident at risk of arrest and trial in military courts. Administrative detention, a practice inherited from the British mandate, allows Israeli authorities to hold Palestinian civilians indefinitely without charges or trial. As of September 2023, around 1,200 Palestinians were held as administrative detainees; by September 2025, that number had nearly tripled.
The DCIP and other organizations have documented widespread abuse in Israeli prisons and detention camps. Detainees face intense beatings, sexual violence, stress positions, sleep deprivation, and are kept in inhumane conditions. The infamous military camps of Sde Teiman and Anatot are described as de facto torture sites, where detainees from Gaza are blindfolded, chained, kept in stress positions, and subjected to loud music around the clock. According to The New Arab, detainees are often taken into interrogation for days or even weeks, enduring extremely violent forms of torture, including sleep deprivation and, in some cases, sexual torture.
Recent events have only intensified scrutiny. In mid-September 2025, Marwan Barghouti, one of the most well-known Palestinian political prisoners, was beaten unconscious by Israeli prison guards during his transfer from Rimon Prison to Megiddo Prison, suffering fractures in four ribs. Such incidents, rights groups argue, are not isolated abuses but part of a systematic pattern.
Since the start of the Gaza war in October 2023, at least 79 Palestinian detainees have died in Israeli jails due to lack of medical care, food restrictions, and reports of violence and torture, according to the Palestinian Prisoner Club. Medical officials in Gaza have described signs of torture and execution on the bodies of slain Palestinian captives handed over by Israel after the recent ceasefire.
Despite the mountain of documented violations, accountability remains elusive. According to the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI), more than 1,400 complaints of torture by Israeli Security Agency interrogators have been submitted to the Ministry of Justice since 2001. Only three criminal investigations have been opened, and all were closed without indictment. This culture of impunity, critics say, has allowed the machinery of brutality, control, and occupation to operate unchecked for decades.
Mohammed’s family, rights advocates, and US lawmakers have pleaded with the US administration to intervene. The United States has provided Israel with more than $21 billion in aid over the past two years. Yet, as Ayed Abu Eqtaish, DCIP’s accountability programme director, put it: "Not even an American passport can protect Palestinian children. Despite his family’s advocacy in Congress and involvement of the US Embassy, Mohammad remains in Israeli prison. Israel is the only country in the world that systematically prosecutes children in military court."
Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley echoed these concerns on X, formerly Twitter, writing: "Right now, Mohammed Ibrahim, a US citizen, is being held in an Israeli prison. His health is deteriorating. The circumstances are desperate. The United States must use every avenue available to secure the release of this Palestinian American child." Mohammed’s father, Zaher Ibrahim, told Al Jazeera that the US administration could free his son with a single phone call but feels ignored: "But we’re nothing to them," he said.
The issue extends far beyond individual cases. Since 1967, over 800,000 Palestinians from the Occupied Palestinian Territories have been detained by Israel, according to The New Arab. During the recent prisoner exchange, Israel released around 2,000 Palestinian detainees, including 1,700 who were abducted or arbitrarily arrested in Gaza during the 2023 conflict. Still, more than 11,000 Palestinians remain detained in Israeli prisons and camps. Since 2022, Israeli forces and settlers have killed at least 10 US citizens, including two in the West Bank in July 2025.
For decades, the suffering of Palestinian prisoners has been treated as a side issue, but rights groups argue it is central to understanding the occupation’s machinery. As one co-authored analysis in The New Arab put it, "Palestinian prisoners are central to the liberation and independence of Palestine, and overlooking or dismissing such a reality undermines international support." The struggle for justice, they contend, cannot be fragmented—what happens in Gaza, the West Bank, and inside prison walls are all components of a single, unified system of colonization, oppression, and, as some allege, annihilation of Palestinian life.
As the world’s attention drifts between shifting headlines, the fate of Mohammed Ibrahim and thousands like him remains a pressing reminder of the human cost of conflict and occupation—a story demanding not just awareness, but action.