For months, Palestinian prisoners and their advocates have spoken of empty plates and shrinking rations inside Israel’s crowded jails. On Sunday, Israel’s Supreme Court put the weight of law behind those claims, ruling that the state is failing to provide adequate food and must take urgent steps to correct it.
The three-judge panel described nutrition as a minimum right, a matter of “basic existence.” It was an unusual rebuke, given the broader political climate: Israel has detained thousands of Palestinians over the years, and since the October 7 Hamas attack that killed some 1,200 people, arrests have surged. Prison conditions have grown harsher, while access for monitors such as the International Committee of the Red Cross remains blocked.
The petition was brought by human rights groups last year, amid complaints of malnutrition and deliberate deprivation. The Association for Civil Rights in Israel, one of the petitioners, hailed the ruling and demanded swift compliance. “Prisoners must not be left to hunger,” the group said.
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The judgment arrived against the backdrop of a war grinding on in Gaza, and with politics increasingly consumed by the question of Israeli hostages still held there. President Donald Trump, in a striking intervention Sunday night, declared that Israel had accepted his proposal for a cease-fire and hostage deal. “This is my last warning,” he wrote on his social media site, urging Hamas to agree. Hamas responded hours later that it was ready to return to the negotiating table.
Nearly a year into the conflict, pressure is mounting at home for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Tens of thousands of Israelis rallied over the weekend to demand a deal that would free the 48 remaining hostages—fewer than half believed alive—and to end a war that has left Gaza in ruins. Health authorities in the enclave, whose figures are broadly accepted by the United Nations, report more than 64,000 Palestinians killed since October.
Netanyahu insists that only “total victory” over Hamas will bring the captives home. Yet Sunday’s court ruling underscored another obligation Israel cannot ignore: the treatment of those it already holds behind bars.
It was a reminder, delivered from the country’s highest bench, that even in wartime, the state’s duty to uphold the barest standards of humanity does not stop at prison walls.