Adalah Files An Urgent Petition Demanding Immediate Medical Care and Legal Access for Political Leader Raja Eghbariah held in Israel under Administrative Detention
On 11 May 2025, Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel – filed an urgent prisoner petition to the Be’er Sheva District Court on behalf of Raja Eghbariah, a 73-year-old Palestinian political leader of the Abnaa al-Balad movement. The petition demands that the Israel Prison Service (IPS) immediately allow Eghbariah access to urgent medical care outside the prison and a prompt meeting with his legal counsel.
Eghbariah has been held under administrative detention without charge since 9 April 2025, when Israeli police and Shabak (GSS) forces raided his home in Umm al-Fahem, seized personal belongings, and arrested him on suspicion of alleged contact with a foreign agent. On 14 April, Israel’s Minister of Defense issued an administrative detention order against him—despite the acknowledged lack of evidence for a criminal indictment. The order is based entirely on secret evidence that Eghbariah’s legal team –Adalah attorneys and private lawyers – were barred from viewing, in clear violation of Israeli law requiring at least a substantial summary to be disclosed.
Throughout his detention, Eghbariah has endured severe physical abuse. During a hearing on 22 April before the Haifa District Court, he testified that IPS guards beat him repeatedly, including while transferring him from his cell to a remote video hearing room. He described targeted blows to his neck, just weeks after undergoing surgery in that area. The court referred the case to the relevant prosecutorial and internal investigation units.
Despite three written requests by his attorneys on 22, 24, 29 April and 7, 8 May, the IPS denied all visits, violating his fundamental right to access to legal counsel. There is no prohibition on meeting with lawyers in place in this case. On 6 May, Adalah learned that Eghbariah had been transferred to Ganot prison in the Naqab (Negev) and had sustained fractures in his thighs during the transfer due to violent treatment. He now requires assistance to move and cannot walk independently. The IPS did not bring him to his scheduled court hearing on 8 May, nor did he appear via video, with IPS claiming that he was in medical isolation due to scabies.
Adalah’s General Director Dr. Hassan Jabareen and Attorney Hadeel Abu Salih represent Eghbariah. They filed the petition, urgently calling on the court to intervene to prevent further harm. They emphasized that denying medical treatment and access to counsel, combined with severe physical abuse, constitute a life-threatening violation of Eghbariah’s rights and amount to cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment. The petition argues that such actions breach both Israeli constitutional protections and international legal standards governing the treatment of detainees.
Eghbariah suffers from multiple chronic health conditions and recently underwent major surgery. His continued detention without adequate medical attention and access to legal counsel is a direct threat to his life. Despite the grave risk, the court granted the IPS a full week to respond to the petition.
In a court hearing on 19 May 2025 regarding the prisoners' petition—at which Eghbariah was not present—the IPS claimed he was in isolation due to exposure to scabies, a justification they had also provided in early May. The court ordered the IPS to submit an update within one week as to his medical situation.
This case is part of a broader and worsening pattern of medical neglect, torture, and ill-treatment of all Palestinian detainees by the IPS over the past 20 months, since 7 October 2023.
Adalah has been representing Eghbariah since 2018 on criminal charges related to Facebook posts that he posted over the course of a year. He was detained for over one month and then released to house arrest, after the Court agreed with the defense team that police behavior confirmed that he posed no threat justifying detention. His criminal case remains pending.
