Eight Palestinian Prisoners Put in Solitary After Making Cake To Celebrate Ben-Gvir's Possible Election Defeat

Israeli prison staff confiscated a makeshift cake that Palestinian prisoners had saved food for days to make, according to Israel's far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, who said eight prisoners were reportedly moved to solitary confinement.

Ben-Gvir said the prisoners at Lavi prison had planned to eat the cake on Tuesday if he was not re-elected in Israel's general election. He used the episode in a final campaign appeal to voters, telling his followers on X that 'the party is over'.

His post drew criticism from some users, one of whom compared it to a message from a Nazi extermination camp.

Minister Boasts of Cake Seizure

Ben-Gvir, whose ministry oversees the Israel Prison Service, described the episode in Hebrew in a post on X on Sunday, 25 October 2026. The post had been viewed about 1.9 million times at the time of writing.

He wrote that the prisoners had 'hoarded from the little food they have', saving a spoonful of jam and a slice of bread at a time over several days to make an improvised cake. They planned to eat it on Tuesday, he said, if he was not returned to office.

According to Ben-Gvir, the prison service commissioner and his staff found the cake. The prisoners were referred for disciplinary proceedings and transferred to solitary confinement.

'They had already planned the celebrations, but with us the party is over,' he wrote. He closed with a direct appeal to voters. 'On Tuesday, it's forbidden to let them celebrate, vote B at the ballot box!' he wrote, according to a translation by Middle East Eye, referring to his party's ballot letter.

Turkish state news agency Anadolu reported on Monday that eight prisoners had been placed in solitary confinement and referred for disciplinary proceedings after staff found the cake in a cell. The agency said, citing the paper, that the prisoners had saved food over several days in the hope that the 27 October election would end Ben-Gvir's tenure. Ben-Gvir's post did not give a number.

Critics Condemn Post

Several of the most-viewed replies criticised the post. One of the most widely viewed came from an account under the name Itamar Greenberg, which wrote in Hebrew that the message 'sounds like a tweet from the Nazi extermination camps'. That reply had been viewed about 195,000 times.

Another user wrote in Hebrew that Ben-Gvir was 'a shocking person' and said they hoped God would show him the same compassion he showed others.

The minister had made similar claims on television. On Saturday night, he told Channel 14's programme The Patriots that intelligence showed security prisoners were hoarding food in case he left office, JFeed reported.

'They're stockpiling food, they don't have much, but they're hoarding food for Tuesday night,' he said. JFeed reported that he named Lev and Ketziot prisons in the interview. JFeed reported the claims as Ben-Gvir's account and did not independently verify the alleged stockpiling. The interview concerned those two prisons, not the cake found at Lavi.

In the same interview, Ben-Gvir claimed that Bedouin and Arab residents of the Negev were working to stop him continuing as minister because of his policy of demolishing structures the authorities consider illegal.

Ben-Gvir has spoken openly about making conditions harsher for Palestinian prisoners. Middle East Eye noted that he has previously said he made their lives 'hell'. Anadolu reported that he has cut food allocations and amenities for Palestinian prisoners since taking charge of the prison service.

Palestinian rights groups accuse Israeli authorities of systematic abuses against detainees, including torture, starvation, solitary confinement and the denial of medical care, Anadolu said.

Ben-Gvir's Future Hangs on Tuesday Vote

Israelis vote in a general election on Tuesday, 27 October. The vote has not yet taken place, and Ben-Gvir remains in office.

Polls suggest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's bloc faces a difficult night. Final surveys published on Friday, 23 October, by Kan 11, Channel 12 and Channel 13 put former IDF chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot's Yashar party ahead of Netanyahu's Likud, Ynet reported. Yashar was projected to win between 22 and 23 seats, against 19 to 21 for Likud.

All three polls gave Ben-Gvir's Otzma Yehudit party eight seats. They put Netanyahu's bloc at 50 seats and the opposition bloc at between 52 and 56, leaving both short of the 61 needed for a majority in the 120-seat Knesset. Arab parties, which sit outside both blocs, were projected to win between 14 and 16 seats.

Ben-Gvir's future as national security minister will depend on the election outcome and the coalition negotiations that follow. A strong showing for his party would not by itself guarantee him a place in the next government.

In his Channel 14 interview, he also urged right-wing voters not to back smaller parties at risk of missing the electoral threshold, calling such votes 'a gift' to Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara. He described himself as the only minister she had wanted to remove.

Polls open across Israel on Tuesday morning.