Israel holds 9,265 “security” prisoners, and 7,756 of them have not been sentenced. Its prisons have room for 14,500 and hold about 23,000. In al-Naqab (Ketziot), at least 16 prisoners died after Oct. 7, 2023, according to data published in November 2025. At Sde Teiman, an army camp, more than 1,000 detainees were held in pen-like structures, HaMoked says, while Rakefet, an underground wing of Ayalon prison, keeps its detainees without natural light.
This part reflects information available before publication on Oct. 9, 2026.
“security” prisoners and detainees in Israeli prisons as of October 2026.
Israel classifies 1,419 of them as “unlawful combatants.”
“Security” is the Israel Prison Service’s label. These are its own figures, and exclude Gaza detainees held by the army.
In detail
On Oct. 1, 2023, days before the war, the Israel Prison Service reported 5,192 “security” prisoners in Israeli custody. The number rose to 11,040 in September 2025, “the most Israel has ever held,” according to HaMoked, which receives its figures from the Prison Service.
Israel held 105 people from Gaza as “unlawful combatants” in November 2023. The number rose to 2,662 in September 2025, then fell to 1,419 in October 2026. The label comes from the Incarceration of Unlawful Combatants Law, in The Jerusalem Post’s words, “a 2002 law that allows Israel to hold people it defines as unlawful combatants.”
Israel’s “security” prisoners, by status, October 2026
7,756
not yet sentenced.
Sentenced: 1,509. Held pending trial or sentencing: 3,236. Administrative detention, without trial: 3,101. Held as “unlawful combatants”: 1,419.
The figures leave out Gaza detainees held by the army.
In detail
In November 2023, according to government data reported by HaMoked, Israel held 2,313 sentenced prisoners, 2,321 people pending trial or sentencing, and 2,070 administrative detainees. Three years later, only the sentenced group had shrunk, to 1,509. The other two had grown.
People held as “unlawful combatants” are “not necessarily held for the purpose of filing an indictment against them,” The Jerusalem Post reported in June 2026. At that time, an adult held under the law could wait up to 40 days before being brought before a judge.
About 23,000 prisoners, in prisons built for 14,500.
Capacity, as reported in December 2025: 14,500. Prisoners, September 2026: 23,049.
A lawyer at Israel’s National Security Ministry gave the September 2026 figure, saying the number had stabilized and new construction would add room for about 3,000 more by late 2026 and early 2027. Both figures include all prisoners, criminal and “security.” We found no more recent capacity figure (as of Oct. 9, 2026).
The overcrowding began before the war. Israel “had already exceeded the prison system’s capacity of 14,500 detainees,” The Times of Israel reported, and on Oct. 6, 2023, it was holding 16,353 prisoners. By the end of 2024 the number had risen to 23,000.
The latest figure came from Aviv Israeli, a lawyer in the legal adviser’s office at Israel’s National Security Ministry, as Channel 14 reported it. He said the number had recently stabilized, and that construction steps were “expected to add” about 3,000 places by late 2026 and early 2027.
Israel’s Ketziot prison, known to Palestinians as al-Naqab
At least 16
In the same prison, at least 16 prisoners died between Oct. 7, 2023, and November 2025.
According to Physicians for Human Rights–Israel
When Israel’s Public Defender’s Office visited in 2023 and 2024, it found the prison holding twice its capacity, with many prisoners sleeping on the floor.
In detail
Ha-Makom, describing the Public Defender’s report, put occupancy at al-Naqab at about 200%. Z.A., an administrative detainee from East Jerusalem, was transferred there a week after he was told of his administrative detention order.
That’s when my Ketziot ordeal started.
Z.A., from East Jerusalem, in testimony to B’Tselem
The figure of 16 comes from data obtained by Physicians for Human Rights–Israel and published by +972 Magazine in November 2025. In that data, Ketziot is the Israel Prison Service facility where the most prisoners died: at least 16. Megiddo follows with 7, then Nitzan prison and the Prison Service’s medical center, together, with at least 6, then Ofer with at least 5.
The Israel Prison Service refused to answer +972 Magazine’s detailed questions about the deaths in its report, referring the magazine instead to the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT).
Scabies, a contagious skin disease, in Ketziot prison
2,500
cases in Ketziot in May alone.
In March 2025, responding to a media inquiry, the Israel Prison Service said that of the prisoners in Ketziot, 49 had been diagnosed with scabies and the situation was “under control.”
In July 2025, the Prison Service presented its own data.
In detail
In its March answer, the Prison Service put the 49 “out of the hundreds of prisoners held in Ketziot,” saying “only 49” had been diagnosed, The Times of Israel reported. The paper called Ketziot “just one of Israel’s primary security prisons.”
The Prison Service’s own data, presented in July 2025, recorded 2,500 scabies cases in Ketziot in May 2025 alone. The figures “showed a very different picture,” in The Times of Israel’s words.
In December 2025, the Public Defender’s Office reported that in the prisons it visited, scabies had “developed into an epidemic within these facilities.”
In September 2024, HaMoked wrote that, as far as it knew, more than 1,000 detainees had been held there in pen-like structures, without beds.
On Sept. 1, 2024, Israeli authorities told Israel’s High Court that only 24 detainees were being held there at that time, according to HaMoked.
On Sept. 18, 2024, Israel’s High Court ruled that Israel must run the facility in accordance with the law, according to HaMoked.
In detail
HaMoked wrote this on a page that follows a petition to Israel’s High Court over the facility, petition No. 4268/24.
The state, as respondent to the petition, said in a supplementary notice to Israel’s High Court on Sept. 1, 2024, that the detention infrastructure at the facility had been “upgraded,” according to HaMoked.
Rakefet, an underground wing of Israel’s Ayalon prison
About 100
detainees were held there in the months before November 2025, according to official data obtained by the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel.
After Oct. 7, 2023, Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir ordered it back into service, The Guardian reported. In July 2025, Israel’s public broadcaster Kan reported that it held dozens it described as members of Hamas’ Nukhba and naval commando units and Hezbollah’s Radwan Force.
The number is approximate.
In detail
When Rakefet was shut in 1985, it held 15 men, The Guardian reported.
In July 2025, Kan called it “the Rakefet wing in Ayalon prison,” a compound it said had opened the previous September.
The Guardian published the figure of about 100 on Nov. 8, 2025, saying the detainees had been held there “in recent months.”
The cells, a tiny exercise “yard” and the lawyers’ meeting room are all underground, The Guardian reported. Detainees there, it said, lived without natural light.
Yusuf Diya al-Khalidiletter to Zadoc Kahn 1899
Let a place be sought somewhere for the unfortunate Jewish nation; nothing more just and equitable. My God, the earth is vast enough; there are still uninhabited countries where the millions of poor Jews could be placed, who would perhaps become happy there and one day form a nation. That would perhaps be the best, the most rational solution to the Jewish question. But, in the name of God, let Palestine be left alone.
