High Court scraps with Ben Gvir as state ordered to answer prisoner starvation claim
After bench demands response to petition alleging inadequate nutrition for security inmates, right-wing ministers say judges shielding terrorists, drawing pushback from Judicial Authority

The High Court of Justice demanded Thursday that the state provide answers in response to a petition accusing it of giving inadequate nutrition to Palestinian terror convicts being held in Israeli jails.
The court’s order that the state explains “why it should not take steps to guarantee that security prisoners will be provided with food that enables basic conditions of existence” prompted an angry backlash from National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who was named in the suit, drawing rebuke from the courts.
The Association for Civil Rights in Israel, one of two groups which filed the petition, said the fact that the court had ordered the state to respond was in itself “a moment of deep moral failing.”
According to ACRI and the Gisha human rights group, which jointly filed the petition in April, testimony from prisoners and security detainees has indicated that the prison service has been “deploying a policy of starvation toward Palestinian prisoners and detainees” since the Hamas massacre of October 7, 2023, which sparked the ongoing war in Gaza.
“Recently released prisoners testified that they suffered from constant and extreme hunger and very poor quality of food,” ACRI and Gisha alleged in their petition against Ben Gvir and acting Prison Service Chief Kobi Yaakobi. The filing included testimony from a diabetic prisoner who allegedly ate toothpaste to raise his blood sugar level, and from prisoners “who lost dozens of kilograms in weight in recent months.”
The petition demanded that security prisoners be provided with “food in the quantity and composition suitable for maintaining their health and identical to that supplied to the other prisoners.”
In response, Ben Gvir accused the High Court on Thursday of acting as “a shield” for Hamas’s elite Nukhba force, which carried out the October 7 attack, alleging it was protecting “sick human beings who slaughtered, raped, burnt and kidnapped our sons and daughters with Nazi cruelty.”

In a statement, the far-right minister insisted that the Prison Service adheres to the law, but proudly admitted that prisoners are given “the minimum necessary according to the law, and not a gram more.”
Since taking office two years ago, Ben Gvir had repeatedly railed against so-called luxury items in prisons, moving to ban fresh pita being served behind bars as well as to limit shower times for inmates. In the wake of the October 7 attack, the minister ordered new restrictions on security prisoners, including overcrowding and removal of beds.
“Under my watch, the era of sing-alongs, marmalade and mutton has ended,” Ben Gvir said Thursday. “Terrorist jails won’t be hotels anymore.”
Ben Gvir was backed by Justice Minister Yariv Levin, who is also embroiled in a severe fight with the judiciary, accusing the three justices who issued the order of “worrying over conditions for terrorists.”
“Does anyone else think it’s possible to continue like this,” he asked sarcastically.
Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu, of Ben Gvir’s far-right Otzma Yehudit party, wrote on X that “those who massacred us with the cruelty of animals, those who raped and burned girls, those who shot babies — should say thank you for even getting food.”
In response to the criticism, the state body that administers the courts said the comments were “improper” and designed to “incite [against] and harm the High Court and its justices.”
The press statement from the Judicial Authority also pointed out that Ben Gvir’s order affected thousands of security prisoners in Israel, not only those involved in the October 7 attacks.
“The decision that was issued is designed to ensure that the provisions of the law relating to the basic conditions of existence for prisoners is implemented in practice,” the Judicial Authority said.
ACRI has filed a number of petitions with the High Court alleging mistreatment of Palestinian security prisoners in Israeli jails over the past year, including demanding that the Red Cross be allowed to visit and an appeal to shutter the Sde Teiman detention facility amid allegations of widespread abuse of detainees.
The court has yet to hold a hearing on the issue of Red Cross visits. In response to the ACRI petition on Sde Teiman, the IDF said earlier this year that it was phasing out use of the facility. Ruling in September, the court declined to order the state to shut down the facility, as demanded by the petitioners, since it said the necessary changes had been implemented.