With rows of corrugated sheds surrounded by ditches, razor-wire fences and a dense network of security cameras, Holot Detention Facility in the middle of the Negev Desert resembles an Orwellian nightmare.
With over 3,500 inmates, the immigration detention site is the largest of its kind in the world, and has drawn condemnation from human rights groups. In 2015, Supreme Court Justice Uzi Vogelman described conditions as ‘wretched’, saying ‘infiltrators do not lose one ounce of their right to human dignity just because they reached the country in this way or another’.
