Leaked messages expose 'Israeli' guards abusing Palestinian detainees

• WhatsApp messages show ‘Israeli’ prison guards celebrating severe beatings and the fatal assault of Palestinian detainees.
• Messages and testimonies describe guards boasting about extreme violence against detainees.
• Interrogations reveal commanders authorized violence, disabled security cameras, and joined cell raids.

Internal WhatsApp exchanges and investigative testimonies have exposed a culture of violent abuse, boasting, and systemic torture carried out by 'Israeli' guards against Palestinian detainees at Ketziot Prison in southern 'Israel'.

Obtained during an investigation into the November 2023 death of Palestinian detainee Thaer Abu Asab—a Fatah member serving a 25-year sentence who died from a heart injury caused by a severe beating—the messages published by Haaretz depict guards celebrating physical violence and gloating over dead and injured detainees.

The revelations come nearly three years after the assault, as prosecutors filed charges against 12 'Israel' Prison Service guards for the fatal beating of Abu Asab and eight other Palestinians in his cell.

Boasts of routine brutality

The leaked text messages show guards openly laughing about the fatal assault on Abu Asab, who was targeted simply for asking whether a ceasefire had been declared.

During the beating, one female guard texted her partner:

"You're going to be proud of me, of my shift... They're doing CPR in the clinic right now, baby! God willing, that son of a thousand whores will die."

Another guard wrote:

"OMG, they're doing CPR on a detainee because we beat him. He's dead. Listen, it's funny how it all happened in an instant: Boom, count. Boom, dead detainee."

A third guard detailed the blood-soaked scene, boasting:

"What an insane count. There's never been anything like it. We poured cheese on them, cracked some eggs. So much blood in the wings."

Further messages from guard Oshrit Eliga highlighted how extreme violence against incoming Palestinian detainees had become a normalized routine:

"I swear, girl, I beat the s** out of them. You've never seen me like this. It's routine. Whatever batch comes in, if he doesn't end up with a busted kidney, I'm not letting him into the wing,"* Eliga wrote.

Following confirmation of Abu Asab's death, Eliga texted:

"Baby, an update: He's just died... I'm very happy and satisfied, but now it's a mess. There was a lot of blood and they broke them."

Systemic authorization, disabled cameras

Testimonies collected by investigators show that the violence was explicitly sanctioned from the top down.

Guard Diana Troitsky testified under questioning that the shift commander ordered the assault to demonstrate "there was no cease-fire," assuring guards that senior officers had authorized the attack and that he had "a free hand" from the prison commander.

The commander reportedly told staff:

"If there's one thing I was taught at home, it's violence toward this scum. Those are the values I was raised with, and I'm going all the way with this."

Investigators also uncovered messages where guards instructed each other to hide details from public record, with one guard writing via WhatsApp:

"There were some serious beatdowns, but that's not for WhatsApp."

The main defendant in the case directly implicated top leadership, including Ketziot Prison commander Brig. Gen. Yosef Knipes—who denied the allegations—stating that senior officials frequently raided cells in tactical gear and turned off surveillance cameras to cover up the abuse.

"What goes on there is harbu darbu [all-out mayhem]," the defendant told investigators, noting that senior officers regularly disabled security cameras prior to launching cell raids.

The exposure of routine abuse inside 'Israeli' detention facilities coincides with the ongoing genocidal war in Gaza since October 8, 2023, which has killed more than 73,000 Palestinians and injured over 174,000, the vast majority being women and children.