'Baby, an Update: He's Just Died': Israeli Prison Guards' Texts Expose a Routine of Abuse
Only the spilled blood bore witness to what happened in Cell 6 of Wing 24 at Ketziot Prison in November 2023. Those involved that night maintained the prison's usual code of silence. But WhatsApp messages the guards exchanged as events unfolded, later seized by investigators, revealed some of the horror.
"You're going to be proud of me, of my shift. After what happened, the count took two hours and 23 minutes. Draw your own conclusions," one female guard wrote to her partner, also a guard. She added: "They're doing CPR in the clinic right now, baby! God willing, that son of a thousand whores will die."
Another guard sent an excited update: "Holy shit, what a count. We fucked them up so bad." A third texted a friend: "What an insane count. There's never been anything like it. We poured cheese on them, cracked some eggs [the Hebrew word for eggs is also slang for testicles]. So much blood in the wings." She then added: "OMG, they're doing CPR on a prisoner because we beat him. He's dead. Listen, it's funny how it all happened in an instant: Boom, count. Boom, dead prisoner."
The prisoner was Thaer Abu Asab, a Fatah member sentenced to 25 years in prison for terror attacks against Israel. He was pronounced dead at Soroka Medical Center in Be'er Sheva, where he was taken that evening. According to the indictment, the severe beating caused an injury to his heart that led to his death.
Last week, nearly three years after his death, prosecutors filed an unusual indictment against 12 Israel Prison Service guards. They are accused of beating Abu Asab and eight other Palestinian prisoners in the cell in retaliation for the deaths of Druze soldiers in the war. The report of the soldiers' deaths later turned out to be nothing more than a rumor.
Since October 7, 2023, the Israel Prison Service has repeatedly faced serious allegations of violence and abuse against Palestinian prisoners. But prisoners' difficulty filing complaints, and above all the guards' stubborn silence and willingness to cover for one another, make it extremely difficult to bring cases to trial. This time, however, the guards' text messages and accounts under questioning, in which they implicated one another, provided key evidence that broke through the wall of silence.
The investigation files now coming to light offer a rare glimpse into the guards' routine use of severe violence against Palestinian prisoners. They also reveal evidence of senior officials suppressing accounts and turning a blind eye, if not taking part themselves. At least one witness alleged that Ketziot Prison commander Yosef Knipes was involved. He denied it.
'His face was blue'
Abu Asab's only offense was daring to ask a guard whether there was a cease-fire between Israel and the Palestinians. The guard relayed the question to his commander, a Prison Service officer and the main defendant in the case, referred to here as "the commander." A gag order bars publication of all the defendants' names. The commander decided to show the prisoner and his cellmates that the answer was no.
"Thaer asked the guard about a cease-fire, and the guard said, 'Better not ask,'" one prisoner told investigators. "We waited for the count. During the count, we kneel with our hands above our heads and our faces down. Fifteen guards and 15 Keter men [members of a Prison Service tactical rapid response unit] arrived. They called Thaer's name, and the Keter unit came into the cell. They beat us with batons for five minutes, everyone in the room. They said, 'No cease-fire.' Then they set the dog on us and started swearing and saying, 'A hudna, you're asking for a hudna' [a truce], and then they left. We were lying broken on the floor. Thaer didn't get up. He was unconscious. He got beaten the most. He was bleeding, and his whole face was blue. His hands were covered in blood."
"I didn't know who was from Keter, who was the officer and who was a guard," another prisoner said. "Then someone said, 'Who said cease-fire? You want a cease-fire?' And I realized it had to do with Thaer because of his question that afternoon. All I heard was shouting and blows. Everyone got beaten. Thaer got it the worst. He was hit in the head, his face was blue and he had marks on his arms. He wasn't responding."
Messages between guard Oshrit Eliga and her friend, December 2023Oshrit Eliga
A bunch of whores, sons of Amalek, surrendered right there in the street. They're sitting there on the ground in their underwear, blindfolded. I'm already getting myself and the shift ready for their arrival this Shabbat. We'll give them a proper Shabbat welcome.
Eliga’s friend
Lol, your baton still working?
Oshrit Eliga
My baton's been disinfected more than a few times.
Oshrit Eliga
Picture you and me behind a partition with two prisoners cuffed to each other, and the shift commander's like, "Go on, go nuts." OMGGG, I swear you'd have a blast here with me.
Eliga’s friend
No way, you seriously beat them? Like, you actually do it yourself?!
Oshrit Eliga
I wish I could prove it to you, show you something. I swear, girl, I beat the shit out of them. You've never seen me like this. It's routine. Whatever batch comes in, if he doesn't end up with a busted kidney, I'm not letting him into the wing.
The guards' accounts under questioning corroborate the prisoners' testimony.
"The commander and another guard asked everyone in the cell who had asked about a cease-fire," guard Avia Arusi testified. "Then the guard pointed and asked, 'Was it you?' The commander was next to him, and then they both asked. The prisoner was scared and sort of stammered. Then they started beating him like crazy."
According to guard Diana Troitsky, during the briefing before the evening count, the commander told them he had learned that two of his friends had been killed in Gaza and that he was "shattered."
"We understood that we needed to beat them so they'd understand there was no cease-fire," she told investigators. "The commander said that whatever happened that evening was his responsibility, that he had the approval of the shift commander and the prison commander, and that everyone knew what was going to happen. He said we shouldn't be afraid and should do what he says.
"He said: 'If there's one thing I was taught at home, it's violence toward this scum. Those are the values I was raised with, and I'm going all the way with this. I don't care if I have to hand in my badge.' He said he had told the prison commander he was going into cells he'd chosen, and that the prison commander had backed him and given him a free hand."
Troitsky added that the commander "didn't say what to do, just said not to use batons." She said "the guards lost it. Kicking, punching the prisoners. All the guards and all the Keter people in the cell took part in the assault. The commander saw the guards draw their batons but did nothing. After a while, he shouted 'Stop,' when he decided they'd been beaten enough."
Keter guards enjoy anonymity in part because their black helmets make them difficult to identify in security footage. More than 20 male and female guards were questioned in the case. None reported anything unusual at the time, even though the investigation file is filled with photographs showing the prisoners from Abu Asab's cell severely beaten and bruised.
"Did you see any suspicious signs of violence?" Prison Service medic Kfir Lavi was asked on the day of the incident. "No," he replied tersely.
Because it was impossible to prove which guards had inflicted the fatal blows, prosecutors decided to charge the 12 who entered Abu Asab's cell with the relatively lenient offense of reckless homicide. The female guards who stood at the cell entrance were questioned as suspects but were not indicted.
Some of the defendants lied under questioning, at times claiming it had been a routine operation to subdue inmates. "There was nothing unusual. I don't think any of us used force, because we go in, get them under control and leave," said one Keter guard who was ultimately charged.
The investigator pressed him: "While the guards were beating the prisoners, people were heard shouting things like, 'Who said hudna? There's no hudna, you son of a bitch.' What's your response?"
"I don't know anything about that," the guard insisted, adding: "Batons? I personally didn't see any."
But a WhatsApp exchange seized by investigators told a different story. "An announcement about a prisoner's death is about to go out to the press. He died when we went in," he wrote to a friend after the incident. "There were some serious beatdowns, but that's not for WhatsApp."
"The commander authorized the use of force. Batons were used," Arusi confirmed under questioning. She had stood at the cell entrance with the other female guards. In her testimony, she named colleagues she saw beating the prisoners, some of them masked.
"Did you definitely see Keter personnel inside the cell with their batons drawn?" the investigator asked. Arusi said yes. Asked how she explained the prisoner's death, she replied: "From the beating he took. They focused on him because he was the one who asked about the cease-fire. The commander and the guard said they beat the prisoner because he asked about it."
From guard Diana Troitsky's testimony'The commander said that whatever happened that evening was his responsibility, that he had the approval of the shift commander and the prison commander, and that everyone knew what was going to happen.'
Guard Oshrit Eliga also identified Keter personnel as the ones who used batons. "All the guards used excessive force," she said under questioning. "Only Keter drew batons. The instruction was to beat them, but not with batons. That was their own decision. The commander said, 'Guys, we get to Cell 6, Keter goes in.' 'Goes in' means 'beats them.'"
Two years ago, Eliga appeared in a Prison Service recruitment ad. "If you're looking for a job that keeps you interested, something different, with action and excitement all the time and the chance to go far in your career, come join us," she urged viewers. "I also love the adrenaline, the action, the feeling that I've done something meaningful," she said as footage showed her practicing boxing.
Beyond the details of Abu Asab's death, the guards' accounts reveal a routine of violence that senior officials knew about. "It was kind of routine, so we didn't report the incident to anyone," a Keter guard said of what happened in Cell 6. "As far as the senior commanders were concerned, it was fine. That was the policy."
The commander initially denied what had happened. At one point, he played dumb: "How do you know they didn't do it to themselves?" But investigators then confronted him with the incriminating evidence and brought him face-to-face with the female guards. Avia Arusi said he had instructed them to enter the cell "to show them there was no cease-fire, to go in and beat them."
She described what she saw: "They were just beating the prisoners. They were on the floor, crying. The commander was at the cell entrance. He saw everything. He was the one who gave the order."
The commander responded: "I've already told my truth."
Eliga's messages to her partner, Tamer Tarudi, a guard in the wing for female security prisoners at Damon Prison, also implicated the commander. "Baby, an update: He's just died," she texted shortly after Abu Asab's death, adding that she was "very happy and satisfied, but now it's a mess. There was a lot of blood and they broke them."
She added: "It'll be fine. I'm glad it happened. I'm willing to put my career on the line for this. I'm at peace with it. We all are. The commander knew something like this would happen. He told us in the briefing and asked anyone who felt they couldn't do it to say so, because he really wanted to break them. I'm honestly fine, but you know how it is, investigations and all that mess."
As the investigation progressed, the commander began describing the Prison Service's treatment of security prisoners, eventually implicating the prison commander, Brig. Gen. Yosef Knipes.
"In hindsight, the incident should have been logged," he said. "The top brass are good at putting out reports about the good things, saying, 'Wow, we did something good,' while nobody knows about the bad stuff. From the moment I got there, I was caught up in that situation and that culture. Do you know how many times they stormed cells while I was shift commander and didn't even tell me? They told me I didn't need to know."
Investigator: "Who?"
Commander: "Everyone, starting with the prison commander. He changes out of his uniform into Keter gear [including a helmet that conceals his face], goes into cells, and I hear screaming without knowing what's happening inside. Ultimately, it's my duty to follow his orders and procedures."
Investigator: "Who else, apart from the prison commander?"
Commander: "I have no idea who they are. People of all different ranks, senior people."
Investigator: "So you know it's wrong, and you behave like them anyway?"
Commander: "I don't behave like them. That's the whole point. I don't change my clothes and dress up as someone else so I won't be recognized, then go in and do the things they do. And I'm not the one turning off the cameras before an operation or a mission. To answer your question, I don't know who these people are, but I'm not an idiot. I know what the communications room is [where the security cameras are monitored], and then, exactly 10 minutes later, a squad goes in. What business do you have in the communications room?"
Investigator: "What you're telling me is very serious."
Commander: "What goes on there is harbu darbu [all-out mayhem]. That's apparently how they're used to operating, especially Keter, because they're always the ones going in to subdue prisoners. That's not how it is with me."
Investigator: "But that is how it was."
Commander: "I didn't see it happening that way."
Given the gravity of the allegations, investigators also summoned Knipes. In his testimony, he claimed the commander was "making things up" and did not attend meetings. He said instructions issued since the start of the war called for more rigorous reporting of incidents.
"He's a new officer who arrived full of values," Knipes said of the commander. "Everything is done according to procedure. There's no harbu darbu, and the situation he describes is divorced from reality. There were a few occasions at the start of the war when I put on Keter tactical gear. I don't recall being with him on an occasion when I entered cells and there was screaming. These things are divorced from reality, a figment of his imagination. The organization will not forgive anyone who made a mistake."
That professed refusal to tolerate wrongdoing bears little resemblance to the reality reflected in the guards' messages and testimony. The shift sergeant, for example, told investigators that shortly after the incident, he contacted a friend because he was worried about what would happen next. The friend, an officer at Ofer Prison, reassured him, he said.
"Something like four prisoners died there during the war," he said. "He told me, 'Don't worry, they won't do anything, but they have to set up an inquiry committee for the record.'"
One subject that did not come up in the investigation, and appears not to have been examined at all by the National Prison Guard Investigations Unit, was Abu Asab's history with the guards at Ketziot.
"He works with the prison administration. He's the cell's spokesman," one of his cellmates told investigators. In December 2022, Abu Asab was indicted on suspicion of paying a guard 70,000 shekels to smuggle cellphones into the prison. The guard was a conscript doing his compulsory service in the Prison Service. Abu Asab had previously paid him to smuggle in an electronic cigarette.
According to a Kan News report, Abu Asab threatened under questioning to expose further misconduct by other guards at the prison. But his death brought the case to an end, along with the possibility that he might implicate others in the Prison Service.
Accounts of other incidents of violence against prisoners since the start of the Gaza warsurfaced during the investigation but were not pursued. Troitsky admitted that on the evening Abu Asab was beaten, she slapped another prisoner in Wing 21 at the commander's instruction.
"The same thing happened there as in Wing 24. They went into a cell and beat the prisoners," she said. "I was holding the door. The commander shouted, 'Bring me Diana.' They were holding a prisoner, the commander on one side and a Keter man on the other. The commander asked the prisoner in Arabic, 'What organization are you in?' and he answered, 'Islamic Jihad.' Then the commander told me, 'Diana, slap him.' I slapped him because the commander told me to. He'd had a one-on-one meeting with me that day and said it was important to him that the girls take part in everything that happens, not stay on the sidelines."
Asked whether she knew the identity of the prisoner she slapped or which cell it happened in, Troitsky said no.
Arusi's messages to her partner that evening also show that the violence was no isolated incident. She confirmed that the guards were "happy" about Abu Asab's death but were "only worried about our commander, because we got a really great guy. Like yesterday on my shift, three cells were praying hard, trying to test us because they see we've eased up a bit on the beatings," she said. "So they tried praying out loud. We went in and beat the shit out of them in the morning."
From the testimony of the main defendant in the case'The prison commander changes out of his uniform into Keter gear, goes into cells, and I hear screaming without knowing what's happening inside. Ultimately, it's my duty to follow his orders and procedures.'
Eliga's WhatsApp messages also show how routine the violence had become. In December 2023, about a month after Abu Asab's death, she texted a friend about incoming prisoners: "A bunch of whores, sons of Amalek, surrendered right there in the street. They're sitting there on the ground in their underwear, blindfolded. I'm already getting myself and the shift ready for their arrival this Shabbat. We'll give them a proper Shabbat welcome."
Her friend laughed: "Lol, your baton still working?"
Eliga replied: "My baton's been disinfected more than a few times," adding: "Picture you and me behind a partition with two prisoners cuffed to each other, and the shift commander's like, 'Go on, go nuts.' OMGGG, I swear you'd have a blast here with me."
Her friend was impressed: "No way, you seriously beat them? Like, you actually do it yourself?!"
Eliga confirmed: "I wish I could prove it to you, show you something. I swear, girl, I beat the shit out of them. You've never seen me like this. It's routine. Whatever batch comes in [apparently referring to incoming prisoners], if he doesn't end up with a busted kidney, I'm not letting him into the wing."
In another exchange that month, Eliga wrote to her partner, Tamer Tarudi: "We got another 70 whores from October 7. Obviously, everyone got their own personal welcome. Some got theirs in pairs because we only had so many cuffs."
Tamer Tarudi: "Haha, love that there's always a welcome."
Eliga: "We got so tired of beating them, the commander took off his belt and beat the shit out of them. And the screaming, like little girls, like they were punching bags."
Eliga would later say she regretted the messages. "I was trying to impress people and got carried away. I wrote stupid things. I was bragging. I'm really sorry about it." Investigators showed no interest in the messages describing routine beatings of prisoners.
The Israel Prison Service said: "This incident took place during the previous commissioner's tenure, before the current prison commissioner took office. Nevertheless, and in keeping with the organization's values, the commissioner decided at the start of his tenure to dismiss some of those involved in the affair, sending an unequivocal message that there is and will be no tolerance for any violation of the law or organizational discipline.".