Jewish Newspaper Haaretz reported:
A new report by Israeli-Palestinian NGO B’Tselem reveals dozens of testimonies from Palestinians detained by Israel since the Gaza war began. Most were released without prosecution, and their accounts detail routine abuse, starvation, humiliation, sleep deprivation, and denial of medical treatment
Dozens of Palestinians who have been held in Israeli prisons and detention centers since the beginning of the war in Gaza describe experiences of torture, sexual abuse, violence, humiliation, starvation and denial of adequate medical treatment, according to a new report published on Monday by Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem.
According to the report, the accumulated testimonies point to a systematic and institutional policy of abuse and torture of Palestinians in Israeli prisons. It also claims that the prisons have effectively become torture camps under the direction of National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
According to Prison Service data provided to HaMoked – the Center for the Defence of the Individual, as of August 1, 9,881 Palestinians were held in Israeli prisons, of whom 3,432 were administrative detainees held without an indictment or trial. 1,584 were held by virtue of the Unlawful Combatants Law, which allows the state to hold them without an indictment and prevent them from meeting a lawyer for especially long times.
B’Tselem’s report collected testimony from 55 Palestinians held in prisons and detention centers. Thirty of them are residents of the West Bank and Jerusalem, 21 are residents of Gaza, and four are Israeli citizens. B’Tselem states that the majority of the witnesses were released without an indictment.
The report lists at least 60 cases of death of Palestinian prisoners since the start of the war, including 48 Gazan prisoners who died at army detention facilities, and 12 who died in Prison Service custody. Some of the circumstances raise concerns of abuse and withholding medical treatment.
Many of the testimonies in the report refer to the Prison Service’s Keter unit which operates as a specialized force for controlling riots. According to the testimonies in the report, its members wear black uniforms without name tags and have their faces covered. The report states that, according to the testimonies, the unit has a central role in the torture and physical, sexual, and psychological abuse of prisoners.
One of the most severe testimonies in the report deals with sexual assault and acts of sodomy carried out by prison officers on a prisoner in the Ketziot Prison in October. According to the testimony by “A.H.” (whose name and identifying details are not included in the report), a father of a boy from the Hebron district in the West Bank, members of the Prison Service’s first response unit (known by its Hebrew acronym Keter) poured water on the floor and ordered the detainees to leave their cells to clean it.
“They tied our hands behind our backs with zip ties and then forcibly dragged each one of us into the corridor. From the cell, I heard the crying and screaming of detainees who were taken before me and beaten,” he said. “When I got to the mess hall, I saw the other prisoners from my cell there. Everyone was stark naked and bleeding. They threw them one on top of the other.”
According to his testimony, the guards forced the prisoners to curse their own mothers, Hamas and its leader Yahya Sinwar, kiss the Israeli flag and sing Israel’s national anthem.
A.H. was then stripped naked by two of the guards. “[They] threw me on top of the other prisoners. One of them brought a carrot and tried to shove it in my anus. While he was trying to shove the carrot in, some of the others filmed me on their cell phones. I screamed in pain and horror. It went on like that for about three minutes.”
“They ordered us to salute the Israeli flag”
The report, titled “Welcome to Hell,” includes additional testimonies describing beatings to the genitals, the use of clubs and metal tools, photographing naked prisoners, grabbing their genitals and conducting full-body strip searches.
41-year-old Sami Khalili, who was held in the Ketziot Prison, describes in the report one of those violent incidents. “We were taken to a room which had a lot of clothes, shoes, rings and watches scattered in it. We were stripped naked and even had to take off our underwear. We were searched with a hand-held metal detector. They forced us to spread our legs and then sit half-crouching. Then they started hitting us on our private parts with the detector. They rained blows down on us. Then they ordered us to salute an Israeli flag that was hanging on the wall,” he said.
He added that when he refused to salute the flag, two guards from the Keter unit beat him and kneed him in the stomach until he fell and vomited. He was then hit in his privates.
Another prisoner, 45-year-old Thaer Halahleh, a resident of the West Bank village of Kharas, also recounted violence and being attacked by dogs on the way to the prison bus. “Each member of Nachshon [the prisoner transport unit] held a detainee, and another held a dog and let it attack us. The dog had a metal muzzle, and the guard kept loosening the leash and then pulling it back. It was very frightening. Every time I tried to move away from the dog, the guard would kick me hard in the legs, and another guard would grab me by the testicles and push me forward hard while swearing at me. I was very angry and felt extremely humiliated in front of the other detainees,” he said.
The report details testimonies of violence that include the use of pepper spray, stun grenades, sticks, wooden and metal clubs, tasers, dog attacks and beatings. According to B’Tselem, the assaults, which led to injuries, loss of consciousness and death, were described by the prisoners as a usual part of the prison routine.
53-year-old prisoner Ashraf al-Muhtaseb, a father of five from Hebron, was detained at the Etzion, Ofer and Ketziot detention centers. He described one such violent incident.
On November 18, five Keter unit members, guards, and an officer entered his cell, claiming to be searching for a radio. “They beat us with batons, punched us and kicked us all over our bodies. They brought a dog into the cell, which attacked a young detainee and scratched his back badly. We were all badly injured in that attack. When it was over, we lay on the floor,” states his testimony.
“I leaned against a wall. I had broken ribs and was injured in my right shoulder, my right thumb, and a finger on my left hand. I couldn’t move or breathe for half an hour. Everyone around me was screaming in pain, and some inmates were crying. Most were bleeding. It was a nightmare beyond words,” he added.
Amputate a leg or die
Another key issue in the report is the withholding of medical treatment from prisoners. Sofian Abu Selah, a 43-year-old father of four was detained at the military base of Sde Teiman. After soldiers physically abused him, he had to have his leg amputated over lack of medical treatment.
Abu Selah testified that when he was arrested in Gaza, he was first brought to an improvised detention facility where he was beaten with a baton and kicked during questioning. Later, he and about 80 other men were kept in the same position, naked. “[they] put us all on a truck – about 80 people piled one on top of the other. We weren’t allowed to move or talk,” he said.
He said that soldiers beat them if they thought that the prisoners had moved, and he felt an injury to his left leg. Later, his hands were cuffed behind him and he was transferred to an investigations center in Israel. “On the first day in detention, we were kept on gravel all day long, with our hands and feet tied. I only slept two hours at night,” he recalled.
He said that, after two days, he felt pain and swelling in his leg and asked a guard to check it. “I asked the prison guard to get someone to check my leg. A soldier came and took a picture of my leg, twice, to show the doctor, but she never got back to me. I was in pain for a week and had a high fever.”
He said that he was then transferred to the hospital at Sde Teiman, where he waited for two hours for a doctor while on the ground with his hands and feet cuffed, and lost consciousness. When he woke up, still blindfolded, he was told that he had undergone surgery, but didn’t know who the speaker was and was provided no details about the treatment. He was later transferred to a hospital, where a doctor told him that his leg would need to be amputated or he would die and that he had to decide.
“It was the hardest decision of my life, deciding to have my leg amputated. I was shocked, especially since I was alone and there was no one from the family with me to consult,” he recalled. As for the surgery, he said that he was brought handcuffed and blindfolded, and then sent back to Sde Teiman, where he was held at the hospital for five days, during which his bandages were changed only once. He was then returned to the detention facility, where soldiers punished him by demanding that he stand on one leg for 30 minutes. He was finally released in April and returned to Gaza.
If you complain to the judge, you’ll pay for it
Most of the witnesses in the report said they had not met a lawyer throughout their detention. Some described being subjected to violence en route to legal hearings – which were only held virtually – and threats by guards not to report the violence and their living conditions.
“They took us one by one to a room where we attended our hearings via Zoom. On the way there, Keter members punched me very hard in the chest. An Arabic-speaking guard was in the room, and he listened to the entire conversation between me, the judge and the lawyer. He threatened that if I complained to the judge, I would pay,” said Firas Hassan, 50, from the village of Hindaza in the West Bank, in his testimony about his detention at Ofer Prison.
“The lawyer told me before the hearing that the judges already knew about everything that was going on in the prison, so there was no point talking about it. Still, in the hearing he asked me, ‘Have you been exposed to violence in prison?’ I didn’t dare answer, because I was afraid the guards would retaliate and beat me even more brutally. […] Every time they took me to the room where we attended our court hearings on Zoom, I endured the same path of torture, beating and humiliation,” he recounted.
Released prisoners also testified about various methods of sleep deprivation, including leaving the lights in the cells on all night or guards playing loud music. Others told about very difficult hygienic conditions after toiletries and cleaning supplies were confiscated, the water was cut off, and limited access to showers.
“We felt our bodies were rotting with dirt. Some of us had rashes. There was no hygiene. There was no soap, shampoo, hair brushes or nail clippers. After a month and a half, we got shampoo for the first time,” said Muhammad Srur, 34, a father of two, about his detention at Nafha Prison.
Another witness from East Jerusalem, whose name was not disclosed in the report, said that because water flowed in the detention room for only an hour a day, they could use the toilets in the cell only during this hour, otherwise it was impossible to flush. “Sometimes people couldn’t hold it in and it was disgusting, causing a stench and bad hygiene conditions,” he said.
According to testimonies, since October 7, the quantity of food given to prisoners was drastically cut and its quality was poor, which is evident in pictures published of released prisoners who suffered extensive weight loss. “The food was terrible, both in quantity and quality. We were given portions that wouldn’t satisfy anybody,” said Hisham Saleh, 38, of the billage of a-Sawiyah in the West Bank, about his detention at Ofer Prison.
Most of the time the food was rotten – for instance, the eggs and yogurt. Once, when a detainee in the cell next to ours asked to swap his yogurt because the expiration date had passed, they punished all the inmates in the cell: they set dogs on them, beat them with clubs, dragged them to the bathroom and beat them up. The next day, I could still see their blood on the floor,” he added.
Others testified about the extreme overcrowding in the cells, which increased by over 100 percent since the beginning of the war. Consequently, prisoners lacked beds and were forced to sleep on the floor. Prisoners testified that the worsening conditions meant that could not go out to the yard for long periods. “We were also forbidden to go outside to the yard, unlike before. For 191 days, I didn’t see the sun,” said Halahleh in his testimony.
Israel Prison Service: Claims are ‘unfounded’
The IDF spokesperson stated in response that “The IDF operates in accordance with Israeli law and international law, protecting the rights of individuals held in its detention facilities. Any abuse of detainees, whether during their arrest or interrogation, is a violation of the law and IDF guidelines and is strictly prohibited. The IDF takes such acts very seriously, as they contradict its values, and thoroughly investigates specific allegations of detainee abuse. The IDF categorically rejects claims of systematic abuse of detainees in its facilities.”
Additionally, the IDF stated: “The IDF has various oversight mechanisms to ensure that the Sde Teiman detention facility is managed according to IDF orders and the law. These include inspection tours by senior officers not assigned to the facility, who subsequently publish inspection reports, continuous monitoring via closed-circuit television, regular review discussions in the IDF Operations Directorate, facility commander supervision, and more. Specific complaints regarding misconduct or inadequate detention conditions are referred to the relevant IDF authorities and addressed accordingly.”
The Israel Prison Service responded, stating: “The Israel Prison Service is part of Israel’s security and enforcement system, operating under the law and subject to constant oversight by the State Comptroller and various other official monitors. All prisoners are held legally, and their basic rights are fully provided by trained and professional guards and commanders.”
The statement added, “The cited claims have not been officially presented to the Prison Service and are believed to be unfounded. However, every prisoner has the right to file an official complaint through the proper channels, and their claims will be investigated by the appropriate authorities.”
The Israel Prison Service noted that “Since the outbreak of the war, under the direction of National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, conditions for security prisoners have been tightened, with previously improved conditions for terrorists now revoked.
“For legal proceedings and issues within military detention facilities, relevant bodies should be contacted,” the statement concluded.
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-08-05/ty-article/.premium/dozens-of-testimonies-from-palestinians-describe-israeli-jails-conditions-during-gaza-war/00000191-238f-d825-abd9-afaf1a3b0000?172
