12 guards charged with reckless homicide for fatally beating Palestinian security prisoner

Twelve prison guards were indicted Tuesday on charges of reckless homicide in the death of Palestinian security prisoner Thaer Abu Asab in November 2023, who was severely beaten in his prison cell in Ketziot Prison in the Negev desert.

Abu Asab sustained tears in the wall of the heart on the left-ventricular side and in the right atrium, and several broken ribs, as a result of the beating, which led to cardiac failure and his ultimate death, the indictment said.

According to the indictment filed by the State Attorney’s Office to the Beersheba District Court, senior prison officer Walid Hatib initiated and oversaw the beatings. He ordered 11 prison guards in the prison wing he was responsible for to enter one of the cells and beat the prisoners on November 18, 2023.

“Immediately upon entering the cell, as detailed above, the defendants, acting together, beat the deceased [Abu Asab] and all the other prisoners in the cell with their fists and kicked them. Some of them struck the prisoners forcefully with batons while some of the prisoners were lying on the floor, screaming and crying from the severity of the blows,” the indictment alleged.

The indictment said Hatib led the prison guards to the cell, entered it with them, and beat at least one prisoner while overseeing the physical assault of the other prisoners by the other guards, only ordering the prison guards to stop and leave after several minutes.

The indictment said that the prison guards intended to physically harm the prisoners and were aware that the beatings could prove deadly.

Abu Asab, 38 at the time of his death, was a member of the Fatah movement and had been jailed since 2005 on charges of attempted murder relating to a terror attack.

In a statement, the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel praised the indictment even though it was a “drop in the ocean.”

“In a normal reality, this decision should have been the first step toward bringing the truth to light and achieving justice for the victims — and full justice for the accused,” the watchdog group said.

“However, as long as Israel pursues a policy in which prisoners are denied basic rights, and government ministers are photographed glibly glorifying their own humiliation and dehumanization, it is highly doubtful that this can be achieved,” it added, in an apparent reference to National Security Itamar Ben Gvir, who has repeatedly published footage of himself tormenting prisoners.

The far-right Ben Gvir, whose ministry oversees the prison service, voiced his support for the guards when they were questioned.

According to the Physicians for Human Rights Israel organization, 105 Palestinian prisoners and security prisoners have died in Israeli prisons and detention facilities since the October 7, 2023, Hamas invasion and amid the subsequent wars.

Israel’s Public Defender’s Office has reported on severe violence against Palestinian prisoners since October 7, while numerous Israeli and international organizations have alleged that Palestinian prisoners have been subjected to systemic violence and abuse in Israeli prisons and detention centers over the last three years.