{"id":152853,"date":"2026-06-09T20:02:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T20:02:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/152853\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T20:02:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T20:02:13","slug":"comptroller-prison-overcrowding-has-harmed-shin-bet-delayed-oct-7-terror-trials","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/152853\/","title":{"rendered":"Comptroller: Prison overcrowding has harmed Shin Bet, delayed Oct. 7 terror trials"},"content":{"rendered":"

Israel was unprepared to absorb the thousands of Palestinian security prisoners it has arrested since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attacks, according to a report<\/a> published Tuesday by State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman, which charged that the situation has greatly harmed the Shin Bet\u2019s ability to detain and interrogate suspects, endangered prison guards, and led to the release of nearly 20 high-level prisoners due to apparent lack of space.<\/p>\n

The report also said that this lack of preparedness has contributed to the fact that not a single terrorist who participated in the October 7 attacks has yet been charged and brought to justice, which Englman said is of \u201ccrucial importance, from a legal, moral and public perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the overcrowding in Israeli prisons has led to reporting, even from Israel\u2019s Public Defender\u2019s Office, of widespread abuse, deprivation and neglect<\/a> suffered by Palestinian prisoners and detainees, the report published Tuesday did not address prisoners\u2019 living conditions or allegations of abuse from prison staff. Responding to a Haaretz inquiry as to why it was left out of the report, the State Comptroller\u2019s Office said, \u201cother angles were examined.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe arrest of thousands of terrorists without prior preparation exacerbated the gap in terms of the lack of space and harmed the Shin Bet\u2019s ability to carry out arrests and interrogations, while increasing the burden and risk on Israel Prison Service staff,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n

According to the report, Israel was already facing a crisis of overcrowding in its prisons, with some 16,200 prisoners being held across IPS facilities in October 2023, before the Hamas-led attacks, including some 5,200 classified as security prisoners. That number was approximately 12 percent higher than Israel\u2019s official prison capacity.<\/p>\n

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By early 2025, the number of security prisoners rose 92% to over 10,000, the report said, adding that the total prison population jumped to over 23,400.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tState Comptroller Matanyahu Englman attends a State Control Committee meeting at the Knesset in Jerusalem, May 12, 2025. (Yonatan Sindel\/Flash90)<\/p>\n

\u201cDue to the large number of security prisoners who were imprisoned after the outbreak of the war, the IPS was unable to fully realize its mission as Israel\u2019s national prison organization,\u201d Englman said in the report.<\/p>\n

As such, the Shin Bet\u2019s ability to detain and interrogate suspects has been severely hindered, the report said, pointing to the lack of space to house new detainees in the already overcrowded prison facilities.<\/p>\n

Englman added that the prison service and the IDF had failed to adequately plan for the potential absorption of thousands of detainees in the case of \u201cextraordinary events,\u201d despite earlier State Comptroller\u2019s Office reports calling for a review of such plans.<\/p>\n

This overcrowding caused the release of 19 high-level security detainees that the IDF arrested in Gaza, including Shifa Hospital director Mohammad Abu Salmiya,<\/a> who the report said \u201cposed a risk to state security.\u201d Abu Salmiya was accused of having allowed Hamas to use the Gaza City hospital as a center of operations, and was held for over six months after his arrest in November 2023.<\/p>\n

His release in June 2024 caused an uproar within Israel, but the Shin Bet defended its decision, saying it had been forced to send prisoners back to the Gaza Strip due to a lack of space in Israeli jails.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tShifa Hospital director Mohammed Abu Salmiya makes a statement after his release from Israeli prison alongside other detainees, at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, July 1, 2024. (Bashar TALEB \/ AFP)<\/p>\n

While Englman said that the Shin Bet took into account \u201cthe fact that he did not participate in military activity or a raid into Israeli territory,\u201d in their decision to release Abu Salmiya, \u201cit did not take into account the impact of his release on the Israeli public,\u201d citing the fact that at the time, over 100 Israeli hostages were still being held in Gaza.<\/p>\n

Englman also pointed to the fact that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was not consulted in the decision, and was only informed of his release after the fact.<\/p>\n

Additionally, Englman said in the report that the lack of preparedness to deal with thousands of prisoners has directly led to the fact that over 2.5 years later, not a single October 7 terrorist has yet been tried, or even charged, for acts they carried out during the attacks.<\/p>\n

Between 5,000 and 6,000 Palestinian terrorists, mostly from Hamas but including other terror groups, invaded Israel on October 7, 2023, by land, air, and sea, at multiple points on the Israel-Gaza border, and carried out a series of massacres in which some 1,200 people were killed. It was the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.<\/p>\n

The assailants also abducted 251 people as hostages and took them captive to the Gaza Strip, while committing a wave of other atrocities, including rape and torture, documenting the savagery on bodycams they wore during the attack, and posting the footage online and in messages to the victims\u2019 families.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tSmoke billows at the border fence with Israel from Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip after some 3,000 Hamas-led terrorists stormed the border and entered Israel, October 7, 2023. (Abed Rahim Khatib\/Flash90)<\/p>\n

\u201cBringing justice to the Hamas terrorists who committed crimes during the October 7 terror attack is of crucial importance, from a legal, moral and public perspective,\u201d Englman said.<\/p>\n

According to Englman, doing so would \u201cserve as a means of deterring those who plan to commit similar atrocities in the future and will send a clear message that acts of violence will not go unanswered and that the perpetrators will be held accountable for their actions.\u201d<\/p>\n

To remedy this, he suggested that Israel \u201cstreamline the legal process\u201d for their trial, including the drafting of \u201clegislative amendments in the areas of trial procedures, representation of the accused, and evidence.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Israel has yet to try any of the roughly 300 alleged terrorists captured by security forces during the invasion, the Knesset last month passed<\/a> a law to establish a special military tribunal for that purpose. Under the law, trials would be open to the public and broadcast on a website set up for that purpose.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tAlleged Hamas terrorists captured during the October 7, 2023, attacks, are seen in a cell at a prison in central Israel, February 17, 2026. (Chaim Goldberg\/Flash90)<\/p>\n

The tribunal would be staffed by a total of 15 judges who are either qualified to serve on the Supreme Court or are international jurists whom the justice minister, in consultation with the foreign minister, deems have the appropriate qualifications to sit on such a panel.<\/p>\n

An individual case would be heard by three judges \u2014 one of whom would be a retired district court judge \u2014 while a five-judge panel would hear proceedings involving multiple defendants. Appeals would be heard by all 15 judges.<\/p>\n

Rights groups have raised concerns about whether those accused of taking part in the October 7 invasion and massacres can receive fair trials after being held for nearly two and a half years without charge.<\/p>\n

They have also warned that harsh detention conditions, including allegations of abuse, torture, and severe food restrictions in Israeli prisons since the war began, could call into question the reliability of confessions or testimony obtained in custody, while the scale and horror of the attacks may create intense public and political pressure on judges for convictions.<\/p>\n

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Israel was unprepared to absorb the thousands of Palestinian security prisoners it has arrested since the Hamas-led October…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":152854,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[27634,37,18426,30351,18633,29010,48948],"class_list":["post-152853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-2023-2025-israel-hamas-war","tag-israel","tag-israel-prison-service","tag-october-7-hamas-atrocities","tag-palestinian-prisoners","tag-state-comptroller","tag-state-comptroller-report"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116721938979294144","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152853\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}