ISRAEL has detained thousands of Palestinians during the war on Gaza and stands accused of numerous cases of torture, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights says in a new report.
The 23-page report, released on Wednesday, noted allegations of widespread abuse of prisoners being held incommunicado in arbitrary, prolonged detention.
It was published during a tense standoff in Israel as far-right politicians and demonstrators opposed an investigation into alleged sexual abuse of detainees by soldiers.
Based primarily on interviews with released detainees and other victims from October 7 to June 30, the UN report found that since the war began, ‘thousands of Palestinians’ including medical staff, have been ‘taken from Gaza to Israel, usually shackled and blindfolded’.
As of the end of June, Israel’s prison service held more than 9,400 ‘security detainees’, the report said, adding that those detained have been ‘held in secret, without being given a reason for their detention’ and without a lawyer.
‘At least 53 Palestinian detainees’ are known to have died in Israeli detention facilities, it said. It also detailed ‘allegations of torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, including sexual abuse of women and men’.
The report was released during an investigation by the Israeli army, which is questioning nine soldiers over allegations of ‘substantial abuse’ of a Palestinian detainee at the Sde Teiman detention camp in the Negev desert in southern Israel.
Last week, eight Palestinian prisoners who were released by the Israeli army said they experienced torture during their time in Ofer Prison in the occupied West Bank.
Former Palestinian detainees told the UN that they were held in ‘cage-like facilities, stripped naked for prolonged periods, wearing only diapers’.
The documented abuse included food, sleep and water deprivation and being burned with cigarettes.
‘Some detainees said dogs were released on them, and others said they were subjected to waterboarding, or that their hands were tied and they were suspended from the ceiling. Some women and men also spoke of sexual and gender-based violence,’ the report said.
Palestinian detainees held in Israel are mostly men and boys who are residents, doctors or patients as well as captured Palestinian fighters, it added.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said the testimonies gathered by his office and ‘other entities indicate a range of appalling acts … in flagrant violation of international human rights law and international humanitarian law’.
The Israeli military rarely explains its reasons for detaining Palestinians in Gaza although it some cases it has alleged affiliation with Palestinian armed groups or their political wings, the report added.
Israel also fails to provide information regarding the fate of detainees while the Red Cross has been denied access to prisons and other facilities.
The Ministry of Detainees in Gaza has described the practices that have happened against Palestinian prisoners from the Gaza Strip in the notorious jail of Sde Teiman as systematic and deliberate violations and war crimes committed at the behest of Israeli leaders.
‘We watched the ridiculous play that took place in front of Sde Teiman prison, whose cast are members of the Israeli Knesset and ministers of Netanyahu’s government and officials from the security and military establishment,’ the ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.
The ministry said that what those Israeli lawmakers and officials did yesterday at the prison of Sde Teiman was aimed at convincing the international public opinion that the violations that happened in the jail were individual actions.
‘However, the truth is that systematic torture practices have happened in the jail and led to the martyrdom of a large number of Palestinian prisoners,’ the ministry added.
The ministry also described the reported transfer of many prisoners to hospitals due to their exposure torture and abuse inside Sde Teiman prison as a flagrant violation of the international law and a war crime, calling for shutting down this detention facility.
Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI) said the arrest of Israeli soldiers for the alleged abuse of Palestinian prisoners at the Sde Teiman detention facility ‘follows months of PHRI raising alarms’.
The advocacy group said the move shows that Israel’s military ‘can’t ignore crimes committed by soldiers against Palestinians in their custody’, including severe violence and sexual abuse.
The Israeli military said it had detained nine soldiers for questioning at the Sde Teiman facility on Monday, which was established to hold Palestinians arrested in Gaza since the start of Israel’s war on the territory.
‘Mounting testimonies indicate these incidents are not isolated. They suggest systematic abuse and violence, and a blind eye to violations’, PHRI said in a series of posts on social media.
‘The Sde Teiman torture facility must be shut down urgently, abuse across all prisons must end, and those responsible must be prosecuted,’ the group added.
Authenticated footage shows scuffles between Israeli protesters and Israeli forces at a military court in the Beit Lid army base, which was stormed in protest at the arrest of nine soldiers suspected of abusing Palestinian prisoners.
The nine are being investigated for alleged serious abuse of a Palestinian prisoner at the Sde Teiman prison, which was set up to detained Palestinians following the launch of Israel’s war on Gaza in October.
Dozens of protesters, including far-right members of the Israeli parliament, clashed with military police at the Sde Teiman detention facility earlier on Monday in southern Israel to try to prevent the detention of the suspects.
In May, a shocking CNN report based on whistleblower testimony placed Israel’s Sde Teiman military base in the Negev desert under the global spotlight and led to it being compared to the notorious US naval base in Guantanamo Bay.
Three Israelis who worked at the desert camp doubling as a detention centre since the beginning of the Gaza war told CNN that they witnessed systemic physical and psychological abuse of Palestinian detainees at the facility.
They said the Palestinians imprisoned there, who are held without charge or legal representation, are blindfolded, forced into stress positions, beaten, insulted, and prevented from speaking for extended periods.
Prisoners at Sde Teiman, the whistleblowers claimed, routinely have their limbs amputated due to injuries sustained from constant handcuffing.
CNN also published two photographs from the facility, showing rows of men in grey tracksuits sitting blindfolded in an outdoor area ring-fenced by barbed wire and lit by floodlights.
The report was collaborated by independent reporting from other outlets, as well as testimonies of the released Palestinian prisoners.
Just as it appears to be the case with Sde Teiman, psychological abuse was rampant in Guantanamo, where detainees were routinely put in isolation, exposed to extreme temperatures and threatened with physical abuse.
After the publication of the damning CNN report, Israel vowed to shut down Sde Teiman.
Israel’s Supreme Court also sought answers about the condition of prisoners held there in response to a petition filed on May 23 by several Israeli human rights organisations.
The petition called for the closure of the facility due to inhumane conditions and severe mistreatment that violated both Israeli and international law.
The Palestinian Prisoner Society (PPS) condemned in the strongest terms on Monday the Sde Tieman rape crime against a Palestinian prisoner from Gaza.
The PPS said: ‘The Israeli crime at Sde Teiman is one of thousands of violations that have been committed by the Israeli occupation forces against Gaza detainees since the beginning of the genocide war on Gaza.’
The story went viral on social media as one of Gaza detainees was subjected to physical and sexual assault by a group of Israeli prison guards.
The PPS stressed that the criminal attack reveals the falsehood of the Israeli allegations about the intention of investigating torture crimes in Sde Teiman prison, noting that other Israeli prisons, such as the Negev prison, are also witnessing the same heinous crimes.
In light of the racist statements of Israeli leaders such as Itamar Ben-Gvir, which encourage the killing of Palestinian prisoners, it is obvious that these violations are part of a systematic criminal campaign against Palestinian prisoners, the PPS said.
It added that the Israeli calls for closing the prison and transferring its detainees to another jail, are mere attempts to cover up the ongoing crimes, and do not reflect an actual solution.
The PPS called for an urgent international investigation into the crime to hold the Israeli prison guards accountable, in light of the failure of the international community and inability of human rights organisations to take effective steps to stop the Israeli genocide and crimes against the Palestinian prisoners.
It also called for forming an urgent UN investigation committee, to address the horrific crimes and violations to which detainees are exposed, and appealed to the international community to immediately intervene to save Palestinian prisoners from these brutal crimes.