Rakefet, Israel’s notorious underground detention site, was once shut down for cruelty so severe that even Israeli authorities deemed it untenable. Today, it is operating again. It has been revived at a moment when more than 9,500 Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank have been detained since October 2023. According to multiple reports, the subterranean network is not a side effect of war but a deliberate extension of it. It is ultimately a hidden arena where torture, disappearance, and psychological destruction unfold far from cameras, oversight, and public scrutiny.
A Facility Once Closed for Cruelty, Reopened for Gaza
Rakefet did not return to life by accident. Originally constructed in the 1980s, the facility was abandoned after a series of internal reviews deemed its underground interrogation chambers incompatible with even Israel’s own prison standards. Yet when Gaza came under siege again, the far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir ordered its reopening. His ministry sought a place beyond legal and humanitarian monitoring, a site where detainees could be isolated completely.
Human rights groups estimate that at least one hundred detainees were transferred into Rakefet in the first months of the war. Israeli media leaked that these individuals were labelled “high-risk Gazans,” a term that often means nothing more than being young, displaced, or simply male. Many were taken from schools-turned-shelters, from hospital courtyards, or from streets where they queued for scarce food and water.
Life in a World Without Sunlight
Inside Rakefet, the concept of time collapses. Some cells are blasted with harsh artificial light without pause, burning into the eyes of detainees until they lose their sense of day and night. Others are submerged in darkness for long stretches, creating a different kind of torment. The air is cold and damp in winter, and the underground passages trap a stagnant humidity that clings to the skin.
Former detainees describe an existence engineered for disorientation. They recount being ordered to stand for hours with their hands tied behind them, the metal of the cuffs cutting into their wrists. When allowed to sit, they were often shackled in ways that made rest impossible. Buckets served as toilets. Water was rationed to a few sips at a time. Showers, when granted, lasted barely two minutes and offered no respite from the cold.
Moreover, medical neglect is not accidental but structural. Lawyers reported meeting clients whose ribs had healed incorrectly after beatings, whose jaws were swollen from repeated blows, whose wounds festered without treatment. Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) has recorded more than 160 formal complaints of torture since the war began, though rights groups believe the real number is far higher due to limited legal access.
Civilians Swept into the System
Despite Israeli claims that these underground detainees are militants, the profiles of the prisoners contradict that narrative. Among them was a Gaza City nurse taken from Al Shifa hospital during a raid. A sixteen-year-old boy was arrested while searching for clean water. Moreover, teachers, vendors, labourers, and men displaced from northern Gaza were seized at checkpoints or during mass roundups. Their arrests did not follow intelligence-led operations, but a pattern of collective punishment.
As per the reports, Israel has held over one thousand Gazans under the “Unlawful Combatants Law,” allowing for prolonged detention without charge, trial, or legal representation. Some detainees later recounted interrogations where no questions were asked, only threats, slaps, and instructions to kneel or stand for long periods. The purpose was not to gather information, but to shatter morale.
The Legal Black Hole
Israel’s “Unlawful Combatants” designation has created a legal vacuum in which detainees can be held for up to forty-five days without any court review, and lawyers may be blocked from visiting for two or three months. Families receive no confirmation that their loved ones are alive or in custody. This secrecy violates the Geneva Conventions and meets the criteria for enforced disappearance.
OHCHR reports that Israel’s detention system “operates outside the boundaries of international law” and displays “clear signs of systematic torture.” Such warnings, however, have done little to change the conduct of those running these facilities.
Rakefet is only one part of a larger architecture. In the Negev desert, the Sde Teiman base has grown infamous. There, detainees were placed in open cages, forced to kneel under the sun until they collapsed, subjected to severe beatings, and denied adequate medical care. Israeli doctors have come forward with accounts of amputations performed in conditions that no ethical medical practitioner would accept. Survivors have also reported sexual violence committed during interrogations.
According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, at least thirty-six detainees died in military custody between October 2023 and October 2024. Their deaths are rarely investigated.
Torture as a Tool of Genocide
The UN Commission of Inquiry concluded that Israel’s actions in Gaza meet four of the five acts of genocide under international law. Torture and enforced disappearance fall squarely into the categories of causing serious bodily and mental harm and deliberately inflicting conditions intended to destroy a population in whole or in part.
Inside Rakefet, this destruction happens in silence. There is no smoke rising from the ground to signal suffering, and no viral videos. The violence is intimate, aimed at erasing personal dignity and collective identity.
One of the most disturbing elements of this underground system is the global indifference surrounding it. Western governments continue supplying arms and political cover. The European Union maintains close security cooperation with Israel. Many Arab governments issue statements of concern but stop short of any sustained pressure. The structures of torture endure because those with influence refuse to wield it.
Survivors Return With Invisible Wounds
The men who leave Rakefet do not return whole. Doctors in Gaza and the West Bank speak of former detainees who jump at sudden noises, who refuse to sit in dark rooms, who struggle with nerve damage and persistent tremors. Malnutrition leaves them weak, while the psychological trauma leaves them silent.
One man told his lawyer that the worst moment was when he realised he no longer knew whether it was day or night. “I thought I had been buried alive.”
The Genocide Continues Below the Ground
Even if Israel halts its bombing campaign, the war beneath the earth continues. Rakefet is not an anomaly. It is a symbol of a system designed to erase Palestinians physically, mentally, and socially. A ceasefire can quiet the sky, but it cannot reach the darkness beneath Israel’s prisons.
Justice demands exposing these sites, demanding international investigations, and holding Israeli officials accountable. Only then can the hidden front of Gaza’s genocide be brought to light, and only then can the silent torment below the ground finally end.
