Ktzi'ot Prison (Hebrew: בית הסוהר קציעות, romanized: Bet HaSohar Ketziot, Arabic: سجن كتسيعوت, romanized: Sijn Katsīʿōt) is an Israeli detention facility located in the Negev desert 45 miles (72 km) south-west of Beersheba.

It is Israel's largest detention facility in terms of land area, encompassing 400,000 m2 (40 hectares; 99 acres).

According to Human Rights Watch, in 1990 it held approximately one out of every 50 West Bank and Gazan males older than 16.

[2] On September 28, 1953 the Israel Defense Forces established a fortified settlement, Ktzi'ot, overlooking the al-Auja junction.

[3][4] On October 6, 1954 a member of the Ktzi'ot kibbutz drove a water truck across the border into Egypt and gave himself up to the Egyptians at Abu Aweigila.

[5] In early 1956, prior to Israel taking full control of the al-Auja DMZ, Ktzi'ot included twelve squad tents and had a small runway with light aircraft visiting almost daily.

[7] Four days later, Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin announced that 3,000 Palestinians were under arrest and that a new prison had been opened in the Negev desert.

[8] Three weeks later the Palestinian Human Rights group al-Haq quoted a Gaza lawyer, Raji Surani, as describing conditions in the camp as "harsh and inhuman".

A few weeks before their visit deputy commander, Major Avi Chasa'i, ordered the firing of tear gas into one of the sections after prisoners refused to stop praying outside their tent.

Shortly after the camp was opened, on August 16, 1988, two inmates were shot dead in a riot involving 1,000 prisoners.

The camp commander at the time, Colonel David Tsemach, fired the shots that killed at least one of the victims.

It was noted that the Commander, Ze'ev Shaltiel, broke judicial rulings and was using solitary confinement as a means of punishing prisoners.

The report states that "conditions in the facility were illegal and inhuman" and described the solitary confinement area as "human chicken coops."

[29] In 2010 plans were put forward to construct a large detention center at Ktzi'ot for illegal immigrants.

The border between Israel and Egypt has been used as a crossing point for economic migrants and asylum seekers; it is estimated that two-thirds come from Eritrea and one third from Sudan.

Documentation from security cameras shows the guards attacking prisoners with punches, batons and kicks, without provocation on their part.

In 2021, video footage emerged of dozens of Palestinian “security prisoners” (an Israeli category that includes people detained without trial) were first restrained and then forcibly thrown onto a concrete floor, sometimes on top of each other, as guards passed between them with batons and kicking them randomly, without any resistance from their victims.

The Prison Service described the incident as “gaining control over a riot.” According to a lead editorial in Haaretz, “the evidence clearly shows there was no riot, just the abuse of prisoners.“ Despite the video footage, the police failed to identify all the officers in the wing that night.

An attorney for the Israeli human-rights organisation Hamoked said: “The incident at Ketziont is a case of brute, wholesale violence against tied, helpless people.