World Prisons
All prisons

Israel

Holot

Low
Verified 29 May 2026
Fresh · 0d ago

Data is aggregated from public sources and may be incomplete or out of date. Always verify with primary sources before acting on any figure. See data sources.

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How to send mail, money, and visit Holot

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Photograph of Holot

Gallery

From Wikimedia Commons (CC-BY-SA where not otherwise stated).

  • Entrance to Holot detention center 2013.jpg

    Photo by Hagits via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

  • Holot detention center 1.jpg

    Photo by המוקד לפליטים ומהגרים via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

  • Holot detention center 2.jpg

    Photo by המוקד לפליטים ומהגרים via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

  • Holot detention center 2013 - Asylum seekers.jpg

    Photo by Hagits via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

  • Holot detention center 2013 - Fence.jpg

    Photo by Hagits via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

  • Holot detention center 2013 - Gate.jpg

    Photo by Hagits via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

  • Holot detention center 2013 - Guard position.jpg

    Photo by Hagits via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

  • Holot detention center 3.jpg

    Photo by המוקד לפליטים ומהגרים via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Background

The Holot detention center or Holot prison was a facility of the Israel Prison Service established to detain and hold illegal immigrants from Eritrea and Sudan who had been living in Israel after having entered through the Israel-Egypt border prior to the building of the Egypt-Israel barrier in 2013. The facility was opened on December 12, 2013, about two kilometers from the Israel-Egypt border, near Ktzi'ot Prison and Saharonim Prison. As countries are prohibited under international law from expelling asylum-seekers who have already reached another nation, Israel established Holot as a way to coerce them into requesting to be deported from Israel. The facility included three wings, each of which housed 1,120 inmates, and an administrative wing. In September 2014, the Supreme Court of Israel ruled that Holot should be closed, on the grounds that it infringed on the human right of "human dignity": “infiltrators do not lose one ounce of their right to human dignity just because they reached the country in this way or another.” After almost four years, on March 14, 2018, the facility was finally closed.

Source: Wikipedia article lead, CC-BY-SA.

Capacity

Current population

Occupancy

Year opened

2013

Operational

Facility profile

Operator

Population held

Mixed/unknown

Opened

2013

Region

Security level

Death-row facility

No

Conditions

No conditions summary available yet.

Visiting

No visiting information available.

Mailing

No mailing information available.

Practical info

Contact the operator's website for inmate-specific procedures.

Known issues

No major issues documented in our database.

Contact & address

No public contact details available.

Conditions Risk Score

Derived signal — not a judgement. How it's calculated

Insufficient data
We don't have enough public data on this facility to score it. Have something to add? Send us a correction.

Data completeness

16%

How many of our profile fields are populated. We surface this so families and researchers know the limits.

Sources