TEL AVIV — In a highly rare exercise of wartime legal restraint, Israel's Supreme Court ruled Sunday that the Israeli government has deprived Palestinian detainees of even a minimum subsistence diet and ordered authorities to increase the amount and improve the quality of food served to deprived Palestinian inmates.
Although it's the job of the Supreme Court to advise the government of the legality of its policies, the Israeli judiciary has seldom taken issue with its actions in the 23-month Israel-Hamas war.
Since Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel that killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, Israel has largely rejected growing international criticism of its conduct by arguing that it was doing what was necessary to defeat Hamas.
The Israeli army has detained large numbers of Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank on suspicion of militant ties. Thousands have been released from months of detention in camps and jails without charge to tell of brutal conditions, including overcrowding, scant food supplies, inadequate medical attention and scabies outbreaks.
As Israel's highest tier of accountability, the Supreme Court hears complaints from individuals and organizations against Israeli government actions, such as its practice of restricting food and medical supplies to Gaza or, in this case, what two Israeli human rights groups described in their complaint as the security establishment's "systemic policy" of depriving Palestinian prisoners of food.
The three-judge panel ruled unanimously that the Israeli government had a legal duty to provide Palestinian prisoners with three meals a day to ensure "a basic level of existence" and ordered authorities to fulfill that obligation.
In an unexpected 2-1 decision, the court furthermore accepted the petition filed last year by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, or ACRI, and the Israeli rights group Gisha, siding with their allegations that the government's deliberate restriction of prisoners' food in Israeli detention facilities has caused Palestinians to suffer malnutrition and starvation during the Israel-Hamas war.
"We are not speaking here of comfortable living or luxury, but of the basic conditions of survival as required by law," the ruling said. "Let us not share in the ways of our worst enemies."
Palestinian authorities have recorded the deaths at least 61 Palestinians in Israeli custody since the war started. In March, a 17-year-old Palestinian in Israel prison died of what doctors said was likely starvation.
Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who oversees the prison system, boasted last year that he degraded the conditions of security prisoners to the bare minimum required by Israeli law.
Ben-Gvir, who leads a small far-right ultranationalist party, lashed out at the court ruling Sunday.
"Are you from Israel?" he asked the judges, arguing that while Israeli hostages in Gaza have no one to help them, Israel's Supreme Court defends Hamas "to our disgrace." He vowed the policy of providing prisoners with "the most minimal conditions stipulated by law" would continue unchanged.
ACRI called on authorities to implement the verdict immediately. In a post on social media platform X, the rights group said Israel's prison service has "turned Israeli prisons into torture camps."
"A state must not starve people," it said. "People must not starve people — no matter what they have done."
