12 prison guards indicted on charge of reckless homicide after Palestinian detainee beaten to death

Twelve prison guards are indicted on a charge of reckless homicide over the death of Palestinian 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 clubs while some of the prisoners were lying on the floor, screaming and crying from the severity of the blows,” the indictment alleges.

The indictment says 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 prison guards, and then after several minutes ordered the prison guards to stop and leave.

The indictment says that the prison guards intended to physically harm the prisoners and were aware that the beatings could lead to the death of their victims.

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.

Prisoner Thaer Abu Asab was beaten to death inside prison, then we were told it was not a murder.
This is how a prisoner is killed, and the blood is washed away with legal language.
Mentioning his name is a duty—because forgetting him is exactly what the jailer wants. pic.twitter.com/AQYXM7BSxl

— Osama Abu Rabee أسامة أبوربيع (@dn_osama_rabee) February 8, 2026

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 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 systematic violence and abuse in Israeli prisons and detention centers over the last three years.