Israel’s High Court of Justice ruled Sunday that the state has failed to meet its legal obligation to provide Palestinian security prisoners with sufficient food and ordered authorities to immediately rectify the situation.

The court, in a 2–1 ruling, sided with petitions brought by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) and Gisha, which accused National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and the Israel Prison Service of deliberately cutting food rations to levels below subsistence.

Justices Daphne Barak-Erez, Ofer Grosskopf, and David Mintz all agreed that Israeli law obligates the state to ensure food “sufficient to enable a basic existence.” But Barak-Erez and Grosskopf concluded the state has not met that standard.

Writing for the majority, Barak-Erez pointed to evidence that rations for Palestinian prisoners had fallen below the legal threshold. “The painful testimonies of freed hostages show that a stricter food regime [for Palestinian prisoners] does not improve the suffering of our kidnapped brothers who are still in captivity, and even the opposite,” she wrote.

Grosskopf added that the state “has not sufficiently demonstrated” it is carrying out its nutritional obligations.

Mintz dissented, insisting that the state’s approved menus and food provisions were consistent with a legally acceptable minimum standard.

“The High Court of Justice ordered a halt to Ben Gvir’s policy of starving security prisoners,” said Oded Feller, an attorney for ACRI. “A state does not starve people, regardless of what they have done. This policy, which lasted nearly two years, turned prisons in Israel into torture camps, and according to testimonies from hostages, also led to increased abuse of them.”

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir immediately lashed out at the court. “Our hostages in Gaza have no High Court to defend them. The murderous Nukhba terrorists and abominable rapists have, to our disgrace, the High Court protecting them,” Ben Gvir said. He vowed to maintain a policy of providing only “the most minimal conditions under the law.”

Justice Minister Yariv Levin echoed the criticism, accusing the court of misplaced priorities. “While the hostages are being starved in the tunnels, a duo of judges in the High Court require that the food given to the worst terrorists be improved,” Levin said.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)