Holly Johnson
The National / July 30, 2024
Detainees from Gaza fed while handcuffed and only allowed to shower once a week, investigative committee says.
An Israeli advisory committee has published findings on the poor conditions suffered by Palestinian detainees held at the Sde Teiman detention camp, including being blindfolded in sheds and only allowed to shower once a week.
Allegations of torture have surrounded the base for months after reports of widespread abuse from whistle-blowers. On Monday, military police arrested nine soldiers accused of “substantial abuse” against a detainee as right-wing government ministers and their supporters tried to obstruct investigators.
The committee was formed after a detainee from Gaza was taken to hospital with serious injuries, raising suspicions of torture and sexual abuse. Headed by former military judge Ilan Schiff, it was tasked by Israeli army chief Herzi Halevi to investigate conditions of Palestinian detainees and was not looking into criminal incidents.
The findings, first published by Israel’s Kan public broadcaster on Tuesday, said detainees are kept in “harsh conditions” and are blindfolded at all times at the desert camp close to the Gaza border.
Detainees are kept in sheds used to store Israeli tanks and should not have been kept at the site for so long, the committee said, adding that they should have been moved to Israeli prisons within the first two weeks of detention.
They are only entitled to one shower a week and eat while handcuffed, the report added.
In May, CNN published harrowing details of torture and mistreatment at the site from Israeli whistle-blowers, who said detainees are forbidden from speaking to each other, forced to undergo operations without anesthesia and are attacked by dogs.
They said the sprawling facility is split into two sections – an enclosure, holding about 70 detainees from Gaza placed under “extreme physical restraint”, and a field hospital where detainees are strapped to their beds, forced to wear diapers, and fed through straws.
One whistleblower, who worked at the field hospital, said detainees were beaten “out of revenge” for the Hamas attack on October 7.
Speaking on Monday, Abdullah al-Zaghari, the head of the Palestine Prisoner’s Club, said the detention facility is the “biggest example” of torture against Gaza detainees.
Reports of sexual abuse against a detainee “constitute one of the thousands of crimes that have been carried out against Palestinian detainees since the beginning of the war of extermination, and which are increasing in severity with the passage of time”, Al-Zaghari said.
Similar crimes have been recorded at other prisons and detention sites, he added, most notably at the Ktzi’ot prison in southern Israel.
More than 4,000 Palestinians have been arrested in Gaza and almost 10,000 Palestinians across the occupied West Bank since the war in Gaza began.
Palestinian authorities have long warned of terrible conditions in Israeli prisons and detention facilities.
At least 12 detainees have died in Israeli prisons since the war began, according to Physicians for Human Rights.
Among those was Dr Adnan al-Bursh, head of Al-Shifa’s orthopaedics department, who died in Ofer prison in April.
Under Israeli law, detainees can be held by the military for 45 days, after which they must be transferred to prisons.
The committee claimed the army was “forced to improvise” holding centres as prisons were unable to deal with thousands of new detainees.
The findings have been passed on to Halevi.
Germany’s ambassador to Israel, Steffan Seibert, said he was “alarmed” at reports of mistreatment in Israeli facilities and said they must be investigated.
The arrival of military investigators at the site caused chaos on Monday, with right-wing protesters and government members storming the site as investigators attempted to question soldiers suspected of abuse, some of whom fled the scene.
The unrest has halted discussions on Israel’s response to mounting tension on its border with Lebanon, the army said on Tuesday.
Nine soldiers were taken into custody and will appear in front of a military court in Beit Lid on Tuesday afternoon, while Israel’s foreign affairs and defence committee met on Tuesday morning to discuss their arrest.
Roadblocks and fences have been erected outside the courthouse, according to Israeli media, while the army has bolstered security at Sde Teiman.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who oversees Israel’s police force and has advocated for the death penalty against Palestinians to solve prison overcrowding was among those who stormed Sde Teiman.
The move has exacerbated political tensions within Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s fractured government.
In a letter to the PM, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said he must act “with a heavy hand” against government ministers who participated in what he described as a “riot”, and investigate whether Ben-Gvir instructed the police against arresting right-wing protesters.
The event “seriously harms the security of the country and the authority of the government”, he added.
“We can’t go back to the reality of social disintegration … that would be our next disaster,” former cabinet minister Benny Gantz said, adding that the army must not be “dismantled” if Israel hopes to dismantle Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
