The Gaza government’s Detainee Media Office has issued a statement slamming what it called "international double standards" in media treatment of Palestinian prisoners freed by Israel as opposed to three Israeli captives released by Hamas in a prisoner exchange on Saturday.
Media reports on Saturday focused on the gaunt and emaciated condition of the three released captives – Eli Sharabi, 52, Eli Levy, 34, and Ohad Ben-Ami, 58.
The Israeli government said that their treatment by Hamas was "a crime against humanity", with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is himself wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes, threatening that their condition would “not pass without a response”.
The Israeli health ministry said that the released captives had suffered severe malnutrition.
However, the Detainee Media Office pointed out that dozens of Palestinian detainees had died as a result of malnutrition, abuse, and medical neglect in Israeli prisons without any international condemnation or media coverage, and said that this was an example of "double standards in dealing with the prisoner issue".
It said that hundreds of released Palestinian prisoners had left Israeli prisons with permanent injuries, "broken psychologically and physically" after years of abuse and torture, without the international community taking any notice.
The Detainee Media Office said that the emaciated condition of the released Israeli captives was due to Israel’s siege and its restrictions on the entry of food into the Gaza Strip, which have affected the population of the territory as a whole, causing a humanitarian catastrophe.
"Where was the outcry when [Israeli] prison cells turned into human slaughterhouses? Where was the emergency when Palestinian detainees came out of prison as shadows of their former selves, after being deprived of food, medicine, and their most basic human rights?"
While the Israeli captives released on Saturday appeared emaciated and gaunt, leading to outcry in Israel, captives released previously have appeared in better health, with no signs of malnutrition.
By contrast, Palestinians previously released by Israel have shown visible signs of starvation and severe mental and physical trauma.
183 Palestinian prisoners were released to Gaza and the West Bank in Saturday’s exchange, with at least seven being rushed to hospital as soon as they were released due to mistreatment in Israeli detention facilities.
Israel’s extreme right-wing Public Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has previously boasted about the "abominable" and "squalid" conditions Palestinian prisoners were kept in in Israel, saying that he had reduced food and shower times for prisoners.
Israeli right wing figures have also defended soldiers who brutally raped Palestinian detainees at the notorious Sde Teiman detention facility.
While hundreds of Palestinian prisoners have been released in exchanges with Hamas following the Gaza ceasefire, there are still over 10,000 in Israeli jails, including hundreds of children and hundreds held without charge or trial in administrative detention.