The Israel Prison Service has began absorbing 140 prisoners from the controversial military Sde Teiman facility that is holding security prisoners from Gaza, in accordance with a government decision from last week, the agency announced on Sunday.

The government instructions saw 50 prisoners moved to a “tent wing” in Ketziot Prison on Thursday, 50 on Sunday, and the final 40 were set to be moved on Monday.

The IPS said in its statement that it would continue to operate in an emergency capacity “on the frontlines of incarceration and detention of security prisoners for the sake of public peace and safety.”

The decision to move the prisoners was made following a petition to the High Court of Justice by the Association of Civil Rights in Israel urging it to order the state to close the facility after reports emerged of abuse at the facility.

The reports alleged that prisoners were held in bad conditions, handcuffed and blindfolded and forced to spend hours in uncomfortable positions. There were also reports that prisoners were routinely humiliated and that their medical rights were not met at the facility’s hospital.

Last week, the High Court gave the state 10 days to respond to the petition, and the state’s representatives laid out the plan to transfer the 140 prisoners on Thursday.

The response noted that there were expected to be 40 prisoners left in Sde Teiman on Monday but that numbers could change at any time as the IDF continues to fight in Gaza and arrest suspected terrorists in the process.

It is unclear what will happen with the remaining prisoners after the plan is completed on Monday.

Earlier this month, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the High Court that Sde Teiman should only be used for short-term detention and questioning of Palestinian security detainees caught in Gaza, a stance that National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir strongly opposes.

Terror operatives and other suspects are generally initially held in detention facilities at the IDF’s Sde Teiman, Anatot and Ofer bases, before being handed over to the IPS.

The detainees are legally allowed to be held for 45 days before they must be either released or moved into the care of the IPS.

Throughout the war Israel-Hamas war, Sde Teiman has been used to hold more than 1,000 detainees from Gaza who were suspected of terrorist activity. The vast majority were suspected of taking part in Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel in which terrorists murdered some 1,200 people and took 251 hostages.

The IDF announced in May that it was investigating reports of abuse and torture of the detainees being held in Sde Teiman following multiple reports that the prisoners were being severely mistreated.

Maj. Gen. Yifat Tomer Yerushalmi, the military advocate-general, said that as of the end of May, the military had opened 70 investigations that it was treating “very seriously.”

Following the abuse and torture allegations and the ACRI’s petition to the High Court, the state announced that the IDF would phase out the use of Sde Teiman and prisoner transfers began immediately.