Palestinian detainee institutions have sounded the alarm after 75-year-old former Palestinian lawmaker Muhammad Abu Tîr was transferred to the underground “Rakevet” section of Israel’s Nitzan Prison — a facility widely known for extreme torture, prolonged isolation, and harsh interrogation practices.

Rights groups described the move as “the practical execution of a death sentence.” According to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society, Israeli authorities moved Abu Tîr to the notorious underground unit only eight days after raiding his home in Bethlehem and re-arresting him. He was once again placed under a four-month administrative detention order, part of what the organization described as a long chain of political retaliation that has targeted him for decades.

Abu Tîr has spent more than 44 years in Israeli prisons since the 1970s, mostly under administrative detention without charge or trial. His health has deteriorated sharply in recent years, and he was previously stripped of his Jerusalem ID and forcibly expelled from the city as part of mounting punitive measures imposed on him.

Rights groups and Arabic-language media report that detainees — particularly those taken from Gaza — held in the Rakevet section face systematic torture, including shackling for long hours, sleep deprivation, exposure to extreme cold, continuous surveillance, and repeated strip searches. The unit has increasingly been referred to as a “death corridor” by Palestinian and international human rights monitors.

The Prisoners’ Society also noted that as of November 2025, the number of Palestinians held without charge under administrative detention has risen to 3,368, including nine former members of parliament. The practice, they said, represents a grave violation of fundamental human rights and due process.

The organization held the Israeli occupation authorities fully responsible for Abu Tîr’s life, stressing that transferring a frail 75-year-old detainee with chronic health issues to one of Israel’s harshest underground cells constitutes an immediate and severe threat to his survival. (ILKHA)