Christian Sørgjerd

Israeli prisons are using rubber bullets from very close range on prisoners, especially Palestinian ones, according to multiple reports. The results are utterly devastating: 1) A prisoner at Ktziot lost a testicle after a rubber bullet hit him in June 2026. Soroka's medical document says it was "completely mangled." He says a guard had kicked him in the testicles during a strip search a week earlier. The Masada unit then fired "rubber bullets that looked like marbles" through his cell door window. He was hit in the testicle and behind the right knee and dragged about 50 meters while bleeding. "From what the prisoners described, I looked like a slaughtered animal." He was shackled and blindfolded, and clinic staff called him a "dog." (Haaretz, Oct 14) 2) A prisoner at Megiddo was shot in October 2025, which left a hematoma in his right thigh. He fell on the same thigh during a raid on his cell in February. In March, hospital scans found a broken pelvis, and he needs a total hip replacement. IPS says the fracture came from the fall. (Haaretz, Oct 14) 3) A prisoner at Shita was among four hit on September 29, 2025. He is a criminal prisoner. A Masada unit threw stun grenades at the cell door, ordered the prisoners to lie down with their hands on their heads, and then fired rubber bullets at them. Several bullets hit his legs. His lawyer says "a huge hole was created in my client's leg." He bled for a long time without treatment. (Ynet, Jan 2026) 4) A prisoner at Ktziot was shot at close range in April 2026 while kneeling with his hands on his head. About 40 prisoners had been crammed into one cell, and he puts the range at no more than two meters. "I heard a gunshot and felt pain in my left leg. At the same time I heard prisoners screaming in pain." Four prisoners were hit. All of them were made to lie face down with their heads near the sewage, and guards stepped on them. The wounded were put in solitary the next day. He went 15 days without proper treatment and had surgery only after his release. (Haaretz, Oct 14) 5) A prisoner at Ktziot had surgery to fix a broken left tibia after being shot in July 2026. The source is an IPS medical document. (Haaretz, Oct 14) 6) A prisoner at Nitzan was hit by a rubber bullet during a cell search in May 2024. He is a criminal prisoner. His lawyer describes "a large hole, the size of a tennis ball, and a deep wound." A judge ordered that he be sent to a doctor. (Ynet, Jan 2026) 7) A prisoner at Ofer was shot and tasered in the head after asking for scabies treatment. He had refused to go back into his cell until he got medication. (PHRI via Haaretz, Oct 14) 8) A cellmate of journalist Samer Khuwaira "had been shot with a rubber bullet from two meters away" for moving too slowly during a cell raid. The reprint places this in its Nafha section but doesn't name the prison outright. Khuwaira also describes guards firing four or five rounds into the ground in the yard. (Haaretz magazine, Oct 8, via Anadolu) 9) Journalist Ali Samoudi says guards "fired rubber bullets at naked prisoners in the showers" during a Ramadan raid. He was held at Ktziot and Megiddo. (Haaretz magazine, Oct 8, via Anadolu) 10) A former prisoner known as R., released from Ktziot in April 2025, says guards fired rubber bullets into cells at about 2 a.m. nearly every night. (Haaretz magazine, Oct 8, via Countercurrents) 11) An unnamed prisoner was told by doctors he "might need to have a limb amputated" because of complications from a rubber-bullet wound. The Palestinian Prisoners' Society also reported dozens of other cases with severe bleeding, some needing surgery. It gave no names, prisons or dates. (WAFA, Jul 20, 2026) This is yet another cruel element of how Israel treats their prisoners. Other elements involve torture, rape, bestiality, murder, arbitrary punishment, deprivation and starvation. Many of these prisoners have not been charged with any crimes.