A 21-year-old Bedouin Israeli man held on suspicion of arms smuggling by Israel’s internal security service Shin Bet has died in hospital after being found unresponsive in his cell at a southern Israeli prison, with his family and legal representatives claiming his body bore clear signs of severe abuse. The case of Saber Amitel, a Negev-based locksmith and welder with no prior criminal record, has reignited scrutiny of treatment of detainees in Israeli custody amid a sharp rise in prisoner deaths since the start of the Israel-Gaza war last October.
According to reporting from Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Amitel was arrested earlier in June and transferred immediately to Shikma Prison in the coastal city of Ashkelon, where authorities blocked him from meeting with legal counsel for days. His family only learned of his arrest after searching for him for two full days following his disappearance during a trip to Beersheba, and reported him missing to local police, who confirmed he had been taken into custody.
Officially, Israeli police have stated Amitel attempted to die by suicide in his cell. But family and lawyers reject this account outright, noting the extensive bruising they observed when they were finally granted access to the detainee at Ashkelon’s Barzilai Hospital on June 8. This access only came after Haaretz journalists contacted Israeli authorities to inquire about the previously unreported detention.
Amitel remained hospitalized in an unresponsive, brain-dead state hooked up to life support for 12 days before his death on June 20. His body was moved to the National Centre of Forensic Medicine for official examination, but the family has declined to permit an autopsy on religious grounds, limiting officials to only an external inspection of the body.
In an interview with Haaretz, Amitel’s father Odeh described the devastating shock of seeing his healthy son reduced to an unresponsive patient on life support. “From a healthy boy who was arrested while walking on his own two feet, he ended up in this condition,” he said. “He was under guard and handcuffed. Medical staff told us that this is how he arrived. They took a healthy kid away from me only to return him dead. There’s no law in this country anymore; people are being killed under torture.” Odeh added that his son was never given the opportunity to speak with interrogators prior to being found unconscious, and had never been a violent person.
Amitel’s legal team has filed an urgent legal petition with the Beersheba District Court, calling for an independent judicial investigation into the circumstances of the young man’s death. The petition names four parties as respondents: the Israel Prison Service, Shin Bet, Israeli police, and Barzilai Medical Center. Attorneys are also requesting access to full closed-circuit camera footage from Shikma Prison, official guard duty logs, and all of Amitel’s medical records from his time in custody.
“It is inconceivable that the police and Shin Bet detained a young man, healthy in body and mind, with no criminal record, who worked long hours at a factory supporting his family, and returned him to his family as a dead body,” attorneys Esther Bar Zion and Victor Ozen told Haaretz in a statement.
In response to media inquiries, the Israel Prison Service declined to comment on any personal or medical details related to Amitel, stating only that “the circumstances are being examined by the competent authorities.” Shin Bet issued its own statement claiming that “Amitel was interrogated in accordance with the law,” and repeated the official account that a suicide attempt was discovered in his cell on June 7, after which the detainee was transferred to hospital for treatment.
The death of Amitel comes amid a growing crisis in Israeli detention facilities, following the start of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza in October 2023. Rights monitors and Palestinian sources report that at least 100 Palestinian detainees have died in Israeli custody since the war began. Many analysts and advocacy groups believe the official death toll is a significant underestimate, and that the actual number of fatalities among detainees is far higher.
For anyone experiencing mental health crisis or suicidal thoughts, free, confidential support is available globally: In the United Kingdom and Ireland, contact Samaritans at 116 123; in the United States, call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or access online support at 988lifeline.org; additional international resources can be found at befrienders.org.