Mistreatment of Palestinians is “routine
Women, children, doctors, health workers and civil defense personnel have been among those detained in Gaza since Israel began its ground invasion on October 27, 2023.
While some of the thousands of Palestinians detained solely for being “old enough to fight” or for supporting the Palestinian resistance have been released, others remain in Israeli prisons.
A report by the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem noted the Israeli military’s systematic policy of harassment, torture and medical neglect against detained Palestinians.
It was noted that detained Palestinians are subjected to arbitrary and continuous violence, torture, sexual assault, insult, torment, starvation, sleep deprivation and medical neglect in Israeli prisons.
Israeli prisons turned into “torture camps”
“The testimonies of Palestinians in Israeli prisons reveal the results of a rapid operation in which more than 12 prisons, both civilian and military, were transformed into camps whose purpose was to mistreat people,” B’Tselem said in a report published in August. Anyone who once enters these places, which function as torture camps, is condemned to suffer the most severe pain, willful and unending torment.”
“Welcome to hell: Israeli prisons turned into a network of torture camps”, the report emphasized that the number of Palestinians in Israeli prisons before October 7, 2023, when Israel launched its attacks on the Gaza Strip, was 5,192, while the number of Palestinians in prisons and detention centers since July 2024 has almost doubled to 9,623.
It was pointed out that 4,781 of the detained Palestinians were held in prison within the scope of “administrative detention” without trial or any charges.
While there is no official information on the number of Palestinians detained by the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli press states that at least 4,500 Palestinians are detained in Gaza.
“Israel’s Guantanamo” Sde Teiman
Sde Teiman, where inhumane crimes, including sexual abuse and torture, were found to have been committed against Palestinians detained by the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip, is considered one of the detention centers where Palestinians are treated most severely.
In the report of the Israel-based human rights organization “Civil Rights Association”, it was stated that physical and psychological violations were committed against Palestinians in the Sde Teiman Detention Center in the Negev Desert, which is called “Israel’s Guantanamo”.
The report emphasized that at Sde Teiman, “surgery was performed without anesthesia, detainees were painfully handcuffed, blindfolded for long periods, and subjected to violence and medical neglect.”
In Sde Teiman, 10 Israeli soldiers were detained on charges of raping a Palestinian prisoner, prompting harsh regional and international criticism of the Tel Aviv administration.
Right-wing extremist Israelis opposed to the detention of the soldiers forced their way into Sde Teiman and the Beit Lid base, where the military court where the detained soldiers were taken, and stormed the base.
Among those who stormed the military bases were Israel’s far-right Minister of Heritage Amichay Eliyahu, MP Nissim Vaturi of the ruling Likud Party and Zvi Sukkot of the Religious Zionism Party.
The Israeli soldiers were investigated and placed under house arrest without indictment on August 13. Israeli human rights organizations have criticized the move as an approach to allow soldiers and army commanders to avoid punishment.
Israeli human rights activists have also called for an investigation into what they describe as “suspected torture” against Palestinians, warning that it could cause global damage to the Tel Aviv government, reaching as far as the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
Meanwhile, ICJ Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan announced on May 20 that he had applied for an “arrest warrant” against Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Gallant.
Deaths of 48 Palestinians in Israeli prisons
Haaretz newspaper reported on July 29 that the Israeli army is investigating the deaths of 48 Palestinians in Israeli prisons.
Most of them were detained in Gaza and 36 of them died in Sde Teiman.
On September 18, Israel’s Supreme Court rejected a request by human rights organizations to close Sde Teiman, despite evidence of violations at the detention center.
On June 30, Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir called for the execution of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons by “shooting them in the head instead of giving them food and water”.
On July 8, Ben-Gvir pressed to keep Sde Teiman open, claiming that the detention center’s “overcrowding” with detained Palestinians “is a good thing.
On September 12, Ben-Gvir stepped up his far-right rhetoric, demanding an additional budget to build 5,000 new detention centers to double the number of Palestinians detained in Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
“Since the beginning of the war, the prison crisis is one of the most sensitive security issues and has not been resolved,” Yedioth Ahronoth reported on September 12.
“Since the beginning of the war, the prison crisis has been one of the most sensitive security issues and remains unresolved,” Yedioth Ahronoth reported on September 12.
Haaretz reported that “in addition to Sde Teiman, Megiddo Prison in northern Israel is another prison where horrific crimes and systematic torture against Palestinian detainees are constantly committed.”
The leaked documents from Megiddo recorded numerous cases of horrific assaults and torture against hundreds of Palestinian detainees, including the use of dogs to humiliate detainees.
Footage of half-naked Palestinians detained in Gaza provokes outrage
In December 2023, the Israeli army added to its violations by filming Palestinian detainees in near-naked conditions. The photos and videos were shared by many social media activists and received widespread media coverage.
A report by the Euro-Mediterranean Organization for Human Rights (Euro-Med) confirmed that the footage, which was widely shared on social media, was real and was recorded in a shelter for displaced Palestinians in Beit Lahiya town in the northern Gaza Strip.
The report emphasized that Palestinians were stripped naked, tortured and filmed naked by Israeli soldiers.
The Tel Aviv administration claimed that the Palestinians in the photographs were “members of Hamas and were stripped naked to make sure they were not carrying weapons or explosives.”
According to an Israeli prison official, mistreatment of Palestinians is “routine”
In other footage published by Haaretz, Palestinians with naked upper bodies were seen lying on the ground on their backs with their hands handcuffed behind their backs, while Israeli guards walked over their heads with dogs.
According to the newspaper’s report dated December 7, 2023, an unnamed senior official from the Israeli Prison Administration said that these images are “routine practice” for Palestinians held in Megiddo Prison.
These human rights violations, which the Israeli official described as “routine”, are based on fatwas issued by Jewish rabbis authorizing the Israeli army to torture and kill Palestinians.
Israeli rabbi Meir Mazuz supported Israeli soldiers who raped a Palestinian detainee in Sde Teiman.
In the videos of Meir Mazuz’s interview with the soldiers detained at the time, it was noteworthy that he said that they should be “rewarded instead of arrested”. Known for his fanatical views, 78-year-old Rabbi Meir Mazuz is considered the spiritual leader of the ultra-religious Shas Party founded by Sephardic Jews. Since October 7, 41,802 Palestinians, including 17,000 children and 11,378 women, have been killed and 96,844 Palestinians have been injured in Israel’s attacks on the Gaza Strip.
