An Israeli judge has ordered the country's prison authority to pay an inmate over $1,000 in compensation after he complained of having to share a cell with cockroaches.

Mordechai Yehudai filed a lawsuit complaining of poor hygiene, a lack of fresh air, broken windows and inmates who smoke in a handful of cells, a spokeswoman for the Israel Prisons Service said

"The Prisons Service mistreated the plaintiff in a number of ways, including ... broken windows, cockroaches as well as incarceration with smokers," judge Irit Cohen wrote in her verdict, according to newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth.

The spokeswoman said the inmate's cell would be cleaned up. Yehudai has been held in three different prisons and has had complaints about conditions in all of them.

"Prisoners have the right to sue us whenever they see fit and we comply with the court's rulings," she said.