Hostage Taking
Those detained since 10/7 - Since 7 October, Israeli forces have detained more than 2,200 Palestinian men and women, according to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club. According to Israeli human rights organization HaMoked, between 1 October and 1 November, the total number of Palestinians held in administrative detention, without charge or trial, rose from 1,319 to 2,070.
Number of detained Palestinians - The Israeli Prison Service informed human rights group HaMoked that as of 1 November it is holding 6,809 Palestinian prisoners.
Number of those in administrative detention - Administrative detention of Palestinians had been on the rise throughout 2023, reaching 1,319 on 1 October 2023, according to HaMoked. As of 1 November, this figure had increased to more than 2,070 Palestinians detained and held in administrative detention.
Holding prisoners without trial (Administrative Detention) - At the end of March 2024, the Israel Prison Service (IPS) was holding 3,615 Palestinians in administrative detention. (𓃠) Administrative detention, which is arrest without charge or trial, has been used as a form of collective punishment by the Israeli military against Palestinians, and is illegal in this form under international law. During the period of March 2002 to October 2002, Israeli occupying forces arrested over 15,000 Palestinians during mass arrest campaigns, rounding up males in cities and villages between the ages of 15 to 45. In October 2002, there were over 1,050 Palestinians in administrative detention. Administrative detention is indefinitely renewable under military regulations. A detainee may be given an administrative detention order for a period of between 1 – 6 months, after which the order may be renewed. Administrative detention is based on secret evidence brought forward during military tribunals, to which neither the detainee nor his/her lawyer have access to. One of the longest Palestinian administrative detainees remained in custody for over 8 years, without ever being charged. (𓃠)
al-Kurdi - Mr. al-Kurdi, the ambulance driver, said he had been captured while he attempted to bring patients through an Israeli checkpoint; law student, Fadi Bakr was captured by Israeli soldiers after getting caught in crossfire while searching for flour.
According to Yoel Donchin, a doctor at Sde Teiman, those present on the grounds of being Hamas included a paraplegic, and someone with a Tracheostomy since childhood.
Kidnapping Children
Testimonies received by Euro-Med reveal that the Israeli army regularly detains and transfers Palestinian children without disclosing their whereabouts.
Rushdi al Zhaza, who was detained along with his family, was released without being disclosed of the whereabouts of his wife or children.
According to witnesses, Israeli soldiers were seen stopping a 12-year-old girl with blonde hair. After the girl’s parents attempt to intervene, the soldiers then informed them that she would be taken away under the suspicion of being an Israeli detainee, even though she was speaking Arabic and with her parents.
After the death of officer Harel Itach, a friend of his disclosed that he had kidnapped a Palestinian infant from Gaza after killing her family, and that the girl’s whereabouts remain unknown. (𓃠)
A UN report released on 19 February 2024 states: "We are particularly distressed by reports that Palestinian women and girls in detention have also been subjected to multiple forms of sexual assault, such as being stripped naked and searched by male Israeli army officers. At least two female Palestinian detainees were reportedly raped while others were reportedly threatened with rape and sexual violence."
They also noted that photos of female detainees in degrading circumstances were also reportedly taken by the Israeli army and uploaded online.
“On at least one occasion, Palestinian women detained in Gaza were allegedly kept in a cage in the rain and cold, without food.” (𓃠)
Annual rate of incarcerated children - Israel prosecutes between 500 and 700 Palestinian children in military courts each year. (𓃠)
Number of women and children not charged - 300 Palestinian women and children identified for potential release by Israel, nearly 80 percent are not even formally charged.
DCIP testimonies - Between January 1, 2016 and December 31, 2022, DCIP collected sworn affidavits from 766 child detainees detained by Israeli forces from the occupied West Bank and prosecuted in Israeli military courts describing their arrest, interrogation, and detention experiences. 59% were arrested at night; 86% were not informed of the reason for their arrest; 97% had their hands bound; 89% were blindfolded; 75% were subjected to physical violence; 58% were subjected to verbal abuse, humiliation, or intimidation during or after their arrest; 54% were transferred from the place of their arrest on the floor of a military vehicle; 80% were strip searched; 42% were denied adequate food and water; 31% were denied access to a toilet; 66% were not properly informed of their rights; 97% were interrogated without a family member present; 55% were shown or made to sign a paper in Hebrew, a language most Palestinian children do not understand; 36% were threatened or coerced; 25% were subjected to stress positions; 23% were detained in solitary confinement for interrogation purposes for a period of two or more days;
Under military regulations in force in the OPT, a child over the age of 16 is considered an adult, contrary to the defined age of a child as under 18 in the Convention of the Rights of the Child, to which Israel is a signatory. In practice, Palestinian children may be charged and sentenced in military courts beginning at the age of 12. Between the ages of 12-14, children can be sentenced for offences for a period of up to six months – meaning that a child accused of throwing a stone can be sent to prison for six months; After the age of 14, Palestinian children are tried as adults, in violation of international law; There are no juvenile courts and children are often held and serve their sentences in cells with criminal prisoners and are often not separated from adults, also in violation of international law. (𓃠)
Save the Children stats - Save the Children statistics reveal that 86 percent experienced beatings, 70 percent faced threats of harm, 60 percent endured solitary confinement, and an equal percentage suffered physical assaults with sticks or guns. Shockingly, 69 percent reported being strip-searched during interrogation, with some disclosing incidents of sexual violence. Children were denied adequate food or healthcare, 70 percent said they suffered from hunger and 68 percent said they didn’t receive any healthcare. (𓃠)
Israel prosecutes children - Israel has the dubious distinction of being the only country in the world that automatically and systematically prosecutes children in military courts that lack fundamental fair trial rights and protections. Israel prosecutes between 500 and 700 Palestinian children in military courts each year.
Sexual violence against children - Some children have reported violence of a sexual nature, and some are transferred to court or between detention centres in small cages, the London-based child rights organisation said.
Detaining pregnant women
In an interview with Radio Asham, the head of the Palestinian Prisoners' Club, Qadura Fares, said that since 10/7 Israel has arrested 153 women in Gaza, including pregnant women and those who are being detained with their babies.
Torture in Israeli prisons
Testimony - (𓃠)
The testimonies of eight former detainees at Sde Teiman prison interviewed by the New York Times detail abuses including beating, being forced to wear only a diaper during interrogation, and electrocution torture. being forced to sit handcuffed in silence on a mat for up to 18 hours a day in the rain, sleep deprivation;
Osama Marmash testimony - (𓃠)
According to detainee Younis al-Hamlawi, during the interogation of Mr. Bakr a female officer had ordered two soldiers to lift him up and press his rectum against a metal stick that was fixed to the ground. Mr. al-Hamlawi said the stick penetrated his rectum for roughly five seconds, causing it to bleed and leaving him with “unbearable pain.” Accoring to a leaked draft of an UNRWA report read by the NYT, a 41-year-old detainee recounted interrogators me sit on something like a hot metal stick and it felt like fire,” and also said that another detainee “died after they put the electric stick up” his anus. (𓃠,𓃠)
Heba Morayef testimony - “Over the last month we have witnessed a significant spike in Israel’s use of administrative detention – detention without charge or trial that can be renewed indefinitely – which was already at a 20-year high before the latest escalation in hostilities on 7 October. Administrative detention is one of the key tools through which Israel has enforced its system of apartheid against Palestinians. Testimonies and video evidence also point to numerous incidents of torture and other ill-treatment by Israeli forces including severe beatings and deliberate humiliation of Palestinians who are detained in dire conditions,” said Heba Morayef, Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa.
Abu Ma'amar Testimony - The interrogators later used the "exercise technique," as Abu Ma'amar calls it. "They forced me to hold my legs to the chair legs, with the back of the chair to my right and nothing supporting my back. They pushed my back backwards and told me to 'exercise.' It made my stomach muscles cramp up and caused unbearable pain," Abu Ma'amar explained.
The interrogators asked about the tunnels that he had helped dig, "while cursing me and my mother and father and threatening to demolish my house if I didn't cooperate. They also told me they had arrested my brother and were torturing him."
The Shin Bet interrogators them told him to stand on his toes and then "bend my legs and bring the lower part of my body downward .... It's very difficult and painful. They forced me to stand like that for hours on end, and each time I brought my foot to the floor or moved up or down I got hit," Abu Ma'amar wrote in his statement." (𓃠)
Torture of Mustafa Dirani - TEL AVIV, Israel – A Lebanese guerrilla leader about to be freed in a prisoner swap testified Tuesday that Israeli interrogators raped him, sodomized him with a club and kept him naked for weeks in a round-the-clock effort to extract information on a missing Israeli aviator...
Human rights groups have accused Israel of routinely mistreating Arab prisoners, but rarely to the extremes Dirani alleged to a Tel Aviv court in his $1.3 million lawsuit against the Israeli government...
On Tuesday, Dirani testified that interrogators kept him naked and shackled in a secret facility for a month as six men tortured him, splashing him with hot and freezing water, shaking him until he fainted and sexually assaulting him as they demanded information about missing airman Ron Arad...
Dirani, 53, limped badly and walked with a cane when he entered the courtroom. He had to be coaxed into giving details.
Dirani said he was interrogated around the clock for a month by six people, including a man known only as George, who threatened him, cursed him and repeatedly squeezed his testicles “until I felt I would die,” Dirani said.
One day a uniformed soldier nicknamed “Kojak” came into the room and dropped his pants, and George told Dirani the soldier would sodomize him if he did not talk, Dirani said.
Days later, Dirani was shackled and pushed down onto a bench, he said. “I couldn’t see or resist ... I was raped by the soldier. He said he would rape me, and he did,” he told the court.
“Two or three days later they started raping me with a police baton,” he said. “It’s impossible to describe the pain. I yelled to high heaven.”
The interrogators took him to a doctor to stop the bleeding, he said. They also forced him to drink castor oil, which made him incontinent, and gave him large diapers as his only clothing.
Israel’s Channel Two TV broadcast an interview with a person, his face in shadows, identified as the interrogator named George. He denied abusing Dirani, but said interrogation is a competition between questioners and detainees.
“You must be innovative,” he said, “and you can’t always run and get permission in advance...”
Dirani, 53, limped badly and walked with a cane when he entered the courtroom. He had to be coaxed into giving details. (𓃠) Chen Kugel confirmed he was raped. (𓃠)
Jeff Blankfort - Commentary by Jeff Blankfort When I was in Jordan in August, 1970 and invited to stay overnight at Schneller Camp outside of Amman by a young PLO guard, I noticed that his upper body was covered with scars. When I asked him about them he described how he had been arrested by the Israelis and accused of being a fedayeen which he wasn’t at the time, and when he wouldn’t give them the information they wanted, they burned him with cigarettes and broke both his arms at the elbows. He then became a fedayeen. A woman, who was active and leader of a women’s group, told me that when she refused to talk the Israeli soldiers raped her daughter in front of her and then asked her what kind of a mother she was to allow her daughter to be raped by withholding information. (𓃠)
Investigation by B'Tselem and HaMoked - Report based on the testimonies of 73 Palestinian residents of the West Bank who were arrested between July 2005 and January 2006. The testimonies include: the use of conditions of imprisonment as a means for weakening the body - preventing physical activity, sleep disturbance, inadequate food supply; shackling in the " shabah " position - painful binding of the detainee's hands and feet to a chair. Sleep deprivation for over 24 hours (15 cases); "Dry" beatings (17 cases); Painful tightening of handcuffs, sometimes while cutting off blood flow (5 cases); Sudden pulling of the body while causing pain in the hand joints which are cuffed to the chair (6 cases); Sudden tilting of the head sideways or backwards (8 cases); The "frog" crouch (forcing the detainees to crouch on tiptoes) accompanied by shoving (3 cases); The "banana" position - bending the back of the interrogee in an arch while he is seated on a backless chair (5 cases). (𓃠)
Khaled Mahajne testimony - (𓃠)
Blocking human rights organizations from entering Israeli prisons - Since October 7 organisations have been blocked from accessing detention facilities. (𓃠)
Amnesty International testimony - Amnesty International also spoke to two women who were arbitrarily detained for 14 hours at a police station in occupied East Jerusalem where they were humiliated, strip-searched, mocked and asked to curse Hamas. They were later released without charges.
Video 1 - In a video first published on social media on 31 October and analysed by Amnesty International’s Crisis Evidence Lab, nine detained Palestinian men can be seen, some stripped naked and others half-naked, blindfolded and handcuffed, surrounded by at least 12 soldiers. One of the soldiers is seen kicking one of the detainees in the head.
Video 2 - Another video analysed by Amnesty’s Crisis Evidence Lab uploaded to platform X (formerly Twitter) on 31 October shows a blindfolded person, along with an Israeli army sergeant mocking the prisoner and dancing around him.
Amnesty International - A recently released Palestinian detainee from occupied East Jerusalem, who spoke to Amnesty International on condition of anonymity, said how Israeli interrogators subjected him and other detainees at the Russian Compound (al-Maskoubiyeh), a detention center in Jerusalem, to severe beatings which left him with bruises and three broken ribs. He also highlighted how Israeli police interrogators beat them continuously on their heads yelling at them to always keep their heads down, while ordering them to “praise Israel and curse Hamas.” He added: “even when one of the 12 detainees with us in the cell did that, the beating and humiliation did not stop.”
Hassan Abadi testimony - Palestinian lawyer Hassan Abadi, who has been visiting at least four detainees every week since 7 October, told Amnesty International that Palestinian detainees have been denied their right to outdoor exercise and that one of the forms of humiliation to which they are subjected during inmate count is being forced to kneel on the floor. He added that Palestinians in detention have had all their personal belongings confiscated and at times burned, including books, diaries, letters, clothes, food and other items. Palestinian women prisoners in al-Damon prison have had their sanitary pads confiscated by prison authorities. According to Abadi, a client he is representing told him that when she was detained and blindfolded at Kiryat Arba police station near Hebron an officer threatened her with rape.
Sleep deprivation - Mr. Bakr recounts being taken to an enclosure called the “disco room”, where prisoners were forced to listen to loud music prevented them from sleeping, causing blood to trickle from his ear.
3 whistleblowers' testimonies - At a military base that now doubles as a detention center in Israel’s Negev desert, an Israeli working at the facility snapped two photographs of a scene that he says continues to haunt him. Rows of men in gray tracksuits are seen sitting on paper-thin mattresses, ringfenced by barbed wire. All appear blindfolded, their heads hanging heavy under the glare of floodlights.
A putrid stench filled the air and the room hummed with the men’s murmurs, the Israeli who was at the facility told CNN. Forbidden from speaking to each other, the detainees mumbled to themselves. “We were told they were not allowed to move. They should sit upright. They’re not allowed to talk. Not allowed to peek under their blindfold.” Guards were instructed “to scream uskot” – shut up in Arabic – and told to “pick people out that were problematic and punish them,” the source added. They paint a picture of a facility where doctors sometimes amputated prisoners’ limbs due to injuries sustained from constant handcuffing; of medical procedures sometimes performed by underqualified medics earning it a reputation for being “a paradise for interns”; and where the air is filled with the smell of neglected wounds left to rot.
"We were told they were not allowed to move. They should sit upright. They’re not allowed to talk. Not allowed to peek under their blindfold." “They stripped them down of anything that resembles human beings,” said one whistleblower, who worked as a medic at the facility’s field hospital.
“(The beatings) were not done to gather intelligence. They were done out of revenge,” said another whistleblower.
Gazan detainees testimonies - CNN interviewed over a dozen former Gazan detainees who appeared to have been released from those camps. They said they could not determine where they were held because they were blindfolded through most of their detention and cut off from the outside world. But the details of their accounts tally with those of the whistleblowers.
Dr. Mohammed al-Ran testimony - He was stripped down to his underwear, blindfolded and his wrists tied, then dumped in the back of a truck where, he said, the near-naked detainees were piled on top of one another as they were shuttled to a detention camp in the middle of the desert. A prisoner who committed an offense such as speaking to another would be ordered to raise his arms above his head for up to an hour. The prisoner’s hands would sometimes be zip-tied to a fence to ensure that he did not come out of the stress position. For those who repeatedly breached the prohibition on speaking and moving, the punishment became more severe. Israeli guards would sometimes take a prisoner to an area outside the enclosure and beat him aggressively, according to two whistleblowers and al-Ran. A whistleblower who worked as a guard said he saw a man emerge from a beating with his teeth, and some bones, apparently broken. That whistleblower and al-Ran also described a routine search when the guards would unleash large dogs on sleeping detainees, lobbing a sound grenade at the enclosure as troops barged in. Al-Ran called this “the nightly torture.” “While we were cabled, they unleashed the dogs that would move between us, and trample over us,” said al-Ran. “You’d be lying on your belly, your face pressed against the ground. You can’t move, and they’re moving above you.” The same whistleblower recounted the search in the same harrowing detail. “It was a special unit of the military police that did the so-called search,” said the source. “But really it was an excuse to hit them.
36 dead - According to Haaretz Detainees 36 at Sde teiman have died since October. 7. (𓃠)
Sexual violence against prisoners
Ajluni family - On 10 July, between 25–30 Israeli soldiers burst into the Ajluni family’s home, forcing five Palestinian women to strip naked at gunpoint and threatening to unleash army attack dogs on them.
One woman named Amal was taken into a private room with her children and forced to take off her clothes. The report states: “the children also had to witness their mother being ordered to turn around while naked as she sobbed over the humiliation. About 10 minutes later she and the children were taken out of the room pale and trembling.” (𓃠)
UN report - A UN report released on 19 February 2024 states: "We are particularly distressed by reports that Palestinian women and girls in detention have also been subjected to multiple forms of sexual assault, such as being stripped naked and searched by male Israeli army officers. At least two female Palestinian detainees were reportedly raped while others were reportedly threatened with rape and sexual violence."
They also noted that photos of female detainees in degrading circumstances were also reportedly taken by the Israeli army and uploaded online.
Younis al-Hamlawi testimony - According to detainee Younis al-Hamlawi, during the interogation of Mr. Bakr a female officer had ordered two soldiers to lift him up and press his rectum against a metal stick that was fixed to the ground. Mr. al-Hamlawi said the stick penetrated his rectum for roughly five seconds, causing it to bleed and leaving him with “unbearable pain.” Accoring to a leaked draft of an UNRWA report read by the NYT, a 41-year-old detainee recounted interrogators me sit on something like a hot metal stick and it felt like fire,” and also said that another detainee “died after they put the electric stick up” his anus. (𓃠,𓃠)
Jeff Blankfort - A woman, who was active and leader of a women’s group, told me that when she refused to talk the Israeli soldiers raped her daughter in front of her and then asked her what kind of a mother she was to allow her daughter to be raped by withholding information. (𓃠)
Sexually targeting Palestinian women - (𓃠)
Woman testimony - (𓃠)
Khawla al-Azraq testomony - (𓃠)
Shireen Issawi testimony - (𓃠)
Khitam Saafin testimony - The leader of the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees, spent three months in administrative detention without ever being charged. She claims that during her time, Israeli soldiers of took photos of her on their cell phones and strip-searched her. She describes the process as being part of Israeli policy.
Sexual violence against children - Some children have reported violence of a sexual nature, and some are transferred to court or between detention centers in small cages, the London-based child rights organization said.
Salah Fateen Salah Testimony - On the morning of October 8, one day after Hamas’s attack, Israeli special forces units raided the cells of Gilboa prison and violently beat Palestinian prisoners held there. “They shouted through the speakers telling all the prisoners to get inside their rooms, kneel down on their knees, put their hands on their heads, and to face away from the door, so you have no idea what’s happening behind you when they open the door,” explained 23-year-old Salah. “Then they came in and started beating people, several rooms at once, with their hands, feet and batons, including metal ones,” he said. “They unleashed their dogs on us. “They beat a prisoner who has diabetes and takes three injections a day. He was throwing up so much blood … we were worried sick for two hours that he would be martyred from the amount of blood that he was throwing up,” said Salah. Israeli forces also “cut open the forehead of another man who was my cellmate,” he said, noting “there was blood all over the prison floors”. The beatings, said Salah, went on for days. “They have no humanity. Those who beat elderly and sick people have no humanity. The head of the prison himself was making death threats against us.” (𓃠)
torture in hospitals
Whistleblower testimonies - According to a whistleblower, procedures in Israeli military hospitals are “routinely” carried out without painkillers, causing “an unacceptable amount of pain” to detainees. Another whistle-blower said painkillers were used “selectively” and “in a very limited way” during an invasive medical procedure on a Gazan detainee in a public hospital.
One detainee told the BBC his leg had to be amputated because he was denied treatment for an infected wound.
Patients at the Sde Teiman hospital are kept blindfolded and permanently shackled to their beds by all four limbs, according to several medics responsible for treating patients there. They are also made to wear daipers, rather than use a toilet. Witnesses, including the facility’s senior anaesthiologist, Yoel Donchin, say both the use of nappies and handcuffs are universal in the hospital ward. “The army create the patient to be 100% dependent, like a baby,” he said. “You are cuffed, you are with diapers, you need water, you need everything – it’s dehumanisation”. One doctor with knowledge of conditions there said prolonged cuffing to beds would cause “huge suffering, horrible suffering”, describing it as “torture” and saying patients would start to feel pain after a few hours. Others have spoken of the risk of long-term nerve-damage.
Footage of Gazan detainees released after interrogation shows injuries and scarring around their wrists and legs.
A whistle-blower who worked at the Sde Teiman field hospital back in October, shortly after the Hamas attacks on Israel, described cases of patients being given inadequate amounts of painkillers, including anaesthetic. He said a doctor once refused his request that an elderly patient be given painkillers while they were opening up a recent, infected amputation wound. “[The patient] started trembling from pain, and so I stop and say ‘we can’t go on, you need to give him analgesia’,” he said. The doctor told him it was too late to administer it. The witness said such procedures were “routinely done without analgesia” resulting in “an unacceptable amount of pain”. On another occasion, he was asked by a suspected Hamas fighter to intercede with the surgical team to increase the levels of morphine and anaesthetic during repeated surgeries. The message was passed on, but the suspect again regained consciousness during the next operation and was in a lot of pain. The witness said both he and other colleagues felt there was a sense in which it had been a deliberate act of revenge. The army said in response to these allegations that violence against detainees was “absolutely prohibited”, and that it regularly briefed its forces on the conduct required of them. Any concrete details of violence or humiliation would be examined, it said.
A second whistle-blower said the situation at Sde Teiman was only part of the problem, which extended into public hospitals. The BBC is calling him “Yoni” to protect his identity.
In the days that followed the 7 October attacks, he said, hospitals in southern Israel were faced with the challenge of treating both wounded fighters and wounded victims, often in the same emergency departments.
“There were instances where I heard staff discuss whether detainees from Gaza should get painkillers. Or ways to perform certain procedures that can turn the treatment into punishment.” Conversations like this were not uncommon, he said, even if actual instances appeared very rare.
“I have knowledge of one case where painkillers were used selectively, in a very limited way, during a procedure,” he told the BBC. “The patient did not receive any explanation of what was going on. So, if you put together [that] someone is undergoing an invasive procedure, which involves even incisions, and doesn’t know about that, and is blindfolded, then the line between treatment and assault thins out.” We asked the Health Ministry to respond to these allegations, but they directed us to the IDF.
Sufian Abu Salah Testimony - Sufian Abu Salah, a 43-year-old taxi driver from Khan Youis, was one of dozens of men detained during raids by Israel's army and taken to a military base for questioning. He said soldiers carried out severe beatings during the journey and also on arrival at the base, where he was denied treatment for a minor wound on his foot, which then became infected. “My leg got infected and turned blue, and as soft as a sponge,” he told the BBC. After a week, he said, the guards took him to hospital, beating him on his injured leg on the way. Two operations to clean his wound did not work, he told the BBC. “Afterwards, they took me to a public hospital, where the doctor gave me two options: my leg or my life.” He chose his life. After they amputated his leg, he was sent back to the military base, and later released back to Gaza. (𓃠)
Doctor testimony - Last month, Israel’s daily Haaretz newspaper published allegations made by a doctor at the Sde Teiman site that leg amputations had been carried out on two prisoners, because of cuffing injuries. The allegations were made, the paper said, in a private letter sent by the doctor to government ministers and the attorney-general, in which such amputations were described as “unfortunately a routine event”. “From the first days of the medical facility’s operation until today, I have faced serious ethical dilemmas,” said the letter addressed to Israel’s attorney general, and its health and defense ministries, according to Ha’aretz. “More than that, I am writing (this letter) to warn you that the facilities’ operations do not comply with a single section among those dealing with health in the Incarceration of Unlawful Combatants Law.” (𓃠)
CNN whistleblower - “I was asked to learn how to do things on the patients, performing minor medical procedures that are totally outside my expertise,” he said, adding that this was frequently done without anesthesia. “If they complained about pain, they would be given paracetamol,” he said, using another name for acetaminophen. The same whistleblower also said he witnessed an amputation performed on a man who had sustained injuries caused by the constant zip-tying of his wrists. The account tallied with details of a letter authored by a doctor working at Sde Teiman published by Ha’aretz in April.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kmrk6jEpaXo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWhDkyi9W4Y&list=PLu2VSMZ0QRWKC1T68wKOHy87kA-AMBMKf&index=31&pp=iAQB
https://israelpalestinenews.org/israel-3400-massacres-gaza-october-7th-day-299/
https://israelpalestinenews.org/israeli-soldiers-tell-story-of-savage-cruelty-in-gaza-one-given-blessing-by-the-west/
Omar Abu Rios - National team goal keeper Omar Abu Rios was arrested at age 23 for allegedly being part of an attack on Israeli troops at the Amari Palestinian refugee camp near Ramallah.
Muhammad Nimr - National team striker Muhammad Nimr had his house destroyed by the IDF and was then jailed without charges being filed.
Zakaria Issa - National team striker Zakaria Issa was jailed for sixteen years before being released in 2013 when he was struck with terminal cancer.
Mahmoud Sarsak - National team defender Mahmoud Sarsak was jailed without charges while trying to cross a checkpoint in order to join his teammates.
Kidnapping Children
Testimonies received by Euro-Med reveal that the Israeli army regularly detains and transfers Palestinian children without disclosing their whereabouts.
Rushdi al Zhaza, who was detained along with his family, was released without being disclosed of the whereabouts of his wife or children.
According to witnesses, Israeli soldiers were seen stopping a 12-year-old girl with blonde hair. After the girl’s parents attempt to intervene, the soldiers then informed them that she would be taken away under the suspicion of being an Israeli detainee, even though she was speaking Arabic and with her parents.
After the death of officer Harel Itach, a friend of his disclosed that he had kidnapped a Palestinian infant from Gaza after killing her family, and that the girl’s whereabouts remain unknown. (𓃠)
A UN report released on 19 February 2024 states: "We are particularly distressed by reports that Palestinian women and girls in detention have also been subjected to multiple forms of sexual assault, such as being stripped naked and searched by male Israeli army officers. At least two female Palestinian detainees were reportedly raped while others were reportedly threatened with rape and sexual violence."
They also noted that photos of female detainees in degrading circumstances were also reportedly taken by the Israeli army and uploaded online.
“On at least one occasion, Palestinian women detained in Gaza were allegedly kept in a cage in the rain and cold, without food.” (𓃠)
Hostage taking
Those detained since 10/7 - Since 7 October, Israeli forces have detained more than 2,200 Palestinian men and women, according to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club. According to Israeli human rights organization HaMoked, between 1 October and 1 November, the total number of Palestinians held in administrative detention, without charge or trial, rose from 1,319 to 2,070.
Number of detained Palestinians - The Israeli Prison Service informed human rights group HaMoked that as of 1 November it is holding 6,809 Palestinian prisoners.
Number of those in administrative detention - Administrative detention of Palestinians had been on the rise throughout 2023, reaching 1,319 on 1 October 2023, according to HaMoked. As of 1 November, this figure had increased to more than 2,070 Palestinians detained and held in administrative detention.
Holding prisoners without trial (Administrative Detention) - At the end of March 2024, the Israel Prison Service (IPS) was holding 3,615 Palestinians in administrative detention. (𓃠) Administrative detention, which is arrest without charge or trial, has been used as a form of collective punishment by the Israeli military against Palestinians, and is illegal in this form under international law. During the period of March 2002 to October 2002, Israeli occupying forces arrested over 15,000 Palestinians during mass arrest campaigns, rounding up males in cities and villages between the ages of 15 to 45. In October 2002, there were over 1,050 Palestinians in administrative detention. Administrative detention is indefinitely renewable under military regulations. A detainee may be given an administrative detention order for a period of between 1 – 6 months, after which the order may be renewed. Administrative detention is based on secret evidence brought forward during military tribunals, to which neither the detainee nor his/her lawyer have access to. One of the longest Palestinian administrative detainees remained in custody for over 8 years, without ever being charged. (𓃠)
al-Kurdi - Mr. al-Kurdi, the ambulance driver, said he had been captured while he attempted to bring patients through an Israeli checkpoint; law student, Fadi Bakr was captured by Israeli soldiers after getting caught in crossfire while searching for flour.
According to Yoel Donchin, a doctor at Sde Teiman, those present on the grounds of being Hamas included a paraplegic, and someone with a Tracheostomy since childhood.
Detaining Children
Annual rate of incarcerated children - Israel prosecutes between 500 and 700 Palestinian children in military courts each year. (𓃠)
Number of women and children not charged - 300 Palestinian women and children identified for potential release by Israel, nearly 80 percent are not even formally charged.
DCIP testimonies - Between January 1, 2016 and December 31, 2022, DCIP collected sworn affidavits from 766 child detainees detained by Israeli forces from the occupied West Bank and prosecuted in Israeli military courts describing their arrest, interrogation, and detention experiences. 59% were arrested at night; 86% were not informed of the reason for their arrest; 97% had their hands bound; 89% were blindfolded; 75% were subjected to physical violence; 58% were subjected to verbal abuse, humiliation, or intimidation during or after their arrest; 54% were transferred from the place of their arrest on the floor of a military vehicle; 80% were strip searched; 42% were denied adequate food and water; 31% were denied access to a toilet; 66% were not properly informed of their rights; 97% were interrogated without a family member present; 55% were shown or made to sign a paper in Hebrew, a language most Palestinian children do not understand; 36% were threatened or coerced; 25% were subjected to stress positions; 23% were detained in solitary confinement for interrogation purposes for a period of two or more days;
Under military regulations in force in the OPT, a child over the age of 16 is considered an adult, contrary to the defined age of a child as under 18 in the Convention of the Rights of the Child, to which Israel is a signatory. In practice, Palestinian children may be charged and sentenced in military courts beginning at the age of 12. Between the ages of 12-14, children can be sentenced for offences for a period of up to six months – meaning that a child accused of throwing a stone can be sent to prison for six months; After the age of 14, Palestinian children are tried as adults, in violation of international law; There are no juvenile courts and children are often held and serve their sentences in cells with criminal prisoners and are often not separated from adults, also in violation of international law. (𓃠)
Save the Children stats - Save the Children statistics reveal that 86 percent experienced beatings, 70 percent faced threats of harm, 60 percent endured solitary confinement, and an equal percentage suffered physical assaults with sticks or guns. Shockingly, 69 percent reported being strip-searched during interrogation, with some disclosing incidents of sexual violence. Children were denied adequate food or healthcare, 70 percent said they suffered from hunger and 68 percent said they didn’t receive any healthcare. (𓃠)
Israel prosecutes children - Israel has the dubious distinction of being the only country in the world that automatically and systematically prosecutes children in military courts that lack fundamental fair trial rights and protections. Israel prosecutes between 500 and 700 Palestinian children in military courts each year.
Sexual violence against children - Some children have reported violence of a sexual nature, and some are transferred to court or between detention centres in small cages, the London-based child rights organisation said.
Detaining pregnant women
In an interview with Radio Asham, the head of the Palestinian Prisoners' Club, Qadura Fares, said that since 10/7 Israel has arrested 153 women in Gaza, including pregnant women and those who are being detained with their babies.
Torture in Israeli prisons
Testimony - (𓃠)
The testimonies of eight former detainees at Sde Teiman prison interviewed by the New York Times detail abuses including beating, being forced to wear only a diaper during interrogation, and electrocution torture. being forced to sit handcuffed in silence on a mat for up to 18 hours a day in the rain, sleep deprivation;
Osama Marmash testimony - (𓃠)
According to detainee Younis al-Hamlawi, during the interogation of Mr. Bakr a female officer had ordered two soldiers to lift him up and press his rectum against a metal stick that was fixed to the ground. Mr. al-Hamlawi said the stick penetrated his rectum for roughly five seconds, causing it to bleed and leaving him with “unbearable pain.” Accoring to a leaked draft of an UNRWA report read by the NYT, a 41-year-old detainee recounted interrogators me sit on something like a hot metal stick and it felt like fire,” and also said that another detainee “died after they put the electric stick up” his anus. (𓃠,𓃠)
Heba Morayef testimony - “Over the last month we have witnessed a significant spike in Israel’s use of administrative detention – detention without charge or trial that can be renewed indefinitely – which was already at a 20-year high before the latest escalation in hostilities on 7 October. Administrative detention is one of the key tools through which Israel has enforced its system of apartheid against Palestinians. Testimonies and video evidence also point to numerous incidents of torture and other ill-treatment by Israeli forces including severe beatings and deliberate humiliation of Palestinians who are detained in dire conditions,” said Heba Morayef, Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa.
Abu Ma'amar Testimony - The interrogators later used the "exercise technique," as Abu Ma'amar calls it. "They forced me to hold my legs to the chair legs, with the back of the chair to my right and nothing supporting my back. They pushed my back backwards and told me to 'exercise.' It made my stomach muscles cramp up and caused unbearable pain," Abu Ma'amar explained.
The interrogators asked about the tunnels that he had helped dig, "while cursing me and my mother and father and threatening to demolish my house if I didn't cooperate. They also told me they had arrested my brother and were torturing him."
The Shin Bet interrogators them told him to stand on his toes and then "bend my legs and bring the lower part of my body downward .... It's very difficult and painful. They forced me to stand like that for hours on end, and each time I brought my foot to the floor or moved up or down I got hit," Abu Ma'amar wrote in his statement." (𓃠)
Torture of Mustafa Dirani - TEL AVIV, Israel – A Lebanese guerrilla leader about to be freed in a prisoner swap testified Tuesday that Israeli interrogators raped him, sodomized him with a club and kept him naked for weeks in a round-the-clock effort to extract information on a missing Israeli aviator...
Human rights groups have accused Israel of routinely mistreating Arab prisoners, but rarely to the extremes Dirani alleged to a Tel Aviv court in his $1.3 million lawsuit against the Israeli government...
On Tuesday, Dirani testified that interrogators kept him naked and shackled in a secret facility for a month as six men tortured him, splashing him with hot and freezing water, shaking him until he fainted and sexually assaulting him as they demanded information about missing airman Ron Arad...
Dirani, 53, limped badly and walked with a cane when he entered the courtroom. He had to be coaxed into giving details.
Dirani said he was interrogated around the clock for a month by six people, including a man known only as George, who threatened him, cursed him and repeatedly squeezed his testicles “until I felt I would die,” Dirani said.
One day a uniformed soldier nicknamed “Kojak” came into the room and dropped his pants, and George told Dirani the soldier would sodomize him if he did not talk, Dirani said.
Days later, Dirani was shackled and pushed down onto a bench, he said. “I couldn’t see or resist ... I was raped by the soldier. He said he would rape me, and he did,” he told the court.
“Two or three days later they started raping me with a police baton,” he said. “It’s impossible to describe the pain. I yelled to high heaven.”
The interrogators took him to a doctor to stop the bleeding, he said. They also forced him to drink castor oil, which made him incontinent, and gave him large diapers as his only clothing.
Israel’s Channel Two TV broadcast an interview with a person, his face in shadows, identified as the interrogator named George. He denied abusing Dirani, but said interrogation is a competition between questioners and detainees.
“You must be innovative,” he said, “and you can’t always run and get permission in advance...”
Dirani, 53, limped badly and walked with a cane when he entered the courtroom. He had to be coaxed into giving details. (𓃠) Chen Kugel confirmed he was raped. (𓃠)
Jeff Blankfort - Commentary by Jeff Blankfort When I was in Jordan in August, 1970 and invited to stay overnight at Schneller Camp outside of Amman by a young PLO guard, I noticed that his upper body was covered with scars. When I asked him about them he described how he had been arrested by the Israelis and accused of being a fedayeen which he wasn’t at the time, and when he wouldn’t give them the information they wanted, they burned him with cigarettes and broke both his arms at the elbows. He then became a fedayeen. A woman, who was active and leader of a women’s group, told me that when she refused to talk the Israeli soldiers raped her daughter in front of her and then asked her what kind of a mother she was to allow her daughter to be raped by withholding information. (𓃠)
Investigation by B'Tselem and HaMoked - Report based on the testimonies of 73 Palestinian residents of the West Bank who were arrested between July 2005 and January 2006. The testimonies include: the use of conditions of imprisonment as a means for weakening the body - preventing physical activity, sleep disturbance, inadequate food supply; shackling in the " shabah " position - painful binding of the detainee's hands and feet to a chair. Sleep deprivation for over 24 hours (15 cases); "Dry" beatings (17 cases); Painful tightening of handcuffs, sometimes while cutting off blood flow (5 cases); Sudden pulling of the body while causing pain in the hand joints which are cuffed to the chair (6 cases); Sudden tilting of the head sideways or backwards (8 cases); The "frog" crouch (forcing the detainees to crouch on tiptoes) accompanied by shoving (3 cases); The "banana" position - bending the back of the interrogee in an arch while he is seated on a backless chair (5 cases). (𓃠)
Khaled Mahajne testimony - (𓃠)
Blocking human rights organizations from entering Israeli prisons - Since October 7 organisations have been blocked from accessing detention facilities. (𓃠)
Amnesty International testimony - Amnesty International also spoke to two women who were arbitrarily detained for 14 hours at a police station in occupied East Jerusalem where they were humiliated, strip-searched, mocked and asked to curse Hamas. They were later released without charges.
Video 1 - In a video first published on social media on 31 October and analysed by Amnesty International’s Crisis Evidence Lab, nine detained Palestinian men can be seen, some stripped naked and others half-naked, blindfolded and handcuffed, surrounded by at least 12 soldiers. One of the soldiers is seen kicking one of the detainees in the head.
Video 2 - Another video analysed by Amnesty’s Crisis Evidence Lab uploaded to platform X (formerly Twitter) on 31 October shows a blindfolded person, along with an Israeli army sergeant mocking the prisoner and dancing around him.
Amnesty International - A recently released Palestinian detainee from occupied East Jerusalem, who spoke to Amnesty International on condition of anonymity, said how Israeli interrogators subjected him and other detainees at the Russian Compound (al-Maskoubiyeh), a detention center in Jerusalem, to severe beatings which left him with bruises and three broken ribs. He also highlighted how Israeli police interrogators beat them continuously on their heads yelling at them to always keep their heads down, while ordering them to “praise Israel and curse Hamas.” He added: “even when one of the 12 detainees with us in the cell did that, the beating and humiliation did not stop.”
Hassan Abadi testimony - Palestinian lawyer Hassan Abadi, who has been visiting at least four detainees every week since 7 October, told Amnesty International that Palestinian detainees have been denied their right to outdoor exercise and that one of the forms of humiliation to which they are subjected during inmate count is being forced to kneel on the floor. He added that Palestinians in detention have had all their personal belongings confiscated and at times burned, including books, diaries, letters, clothes, food and other items. Palestinian women prisoners in al-Damon prison have had their sanitary pads confiscated by prison authorities. According to Abadi, a client he is representing told him that when she was detained and blindfolded at Kiryat Arba police station near Hebron an officer threatened her with rape.
Sleep deprivation - Mr. Bakr recounts being taken to an enclosure called the “disco room”, where prisoners were forced to listen to loud music prevented them from sleeping, causing blood to trickle from his ear.
3 whistleblowers' testimonies - At a military base that now doubles as a detention center in Israel’s Negev desert, an Israeli working at the facility snapped two photographs of a scene that he says continues to haunt him. Rows of men in gray tracksuits are seen sitting on paper-thin mattresses, ringfenced by barbed wire. All appear blindfolded, their heads hanging heavy under the glare of floodlights.
A putrid stench filled the air and the room hummed with the men’s murmurs, the Israeli who was at the facility told CNN. Forbidden from speaking to each other, the detainees mumbled to themselves. “We were told they were not allowed to move. They should sit upright. They’re not allowed to talk. Not allowed to peek under their blindfold.” Guards were instructed “to scream uskot” – shut up in Arabic – and told to “pick people out that were problematic and punish them,” the source added. They paint a picture of a facility where doctors sometimes amputated prisoners’ limbs due to injuries sustained from constant handcuffing; of medical procedures sometimes performed by underqualified medics earning it a reputation for being “a paradise for interns”; and where the air is filled with the smell of neglected wounds left to rot.
"We were told they were not allowed to move. They should sit upright. They’re not allowed to talk. Not allowed to peek under their blindfold." “They stripped them down of anything that resembles human beings,” said one whistleblower, who worked as a medic at the facility’s field hospital.
“(The beatings) were not done to gather intelligence. They were done out of revenge,” said another whistleblower.
Gazan detainees testimonies - CNN interviewed over a dozen former Gazan detainees who appeared to have been released from those camps. They said they could not determine where they were held because they were blindfolded through most of their detention and cut off from the outside world. But the details of their accounts tally with those of the whistleblowers.
Dr. Mohammed al-Ran testimony - He was stripped down to his underwear, blindfolded and his wrists tied, then dumped in the back of a truck where, he said, the near-naked detainees were piled on top of one another as they were shuttled to a detention camp in the middle of the desert. A prisoner who committed an offense such as speaking to another would be ordered to raise his arms above his head for up to an hour. The prisoner’s hands would sometimes be zip-tied to a fence to ensure that he did not come out of the stress position. For those who repeatedly breached the prohibition on speaking and moving, the punishment became more severe. Israeli guards would sometimes take a prisoner to an area outside the enclosure and beat him aggressively, according to two whistleblowers and al-Ran. A whistleblower who worked as a guard said he saw a man emerge from a beating with his teeth, and some bones, apparently broken. That whistleblower and al-Ran also described a routine search when the guards would unleash large dogs on sleeping detainees, lobbing a sound grenade at the enclosure as troops barged in. Al-Ran called this “the nightly torture.” “While we were cabled, they unleashed the dogs that would move between us, and trample over us,” said al-Ran. “You’d be lying on your belly, your face pressed against the ground. You can’t move, and they’re moving above you.” The same whistleblower recounted the search in the same harrowing detail. “It was a special unit of the military police that did the so-called search,” said the source. “But really it was an excuse to hit them.
36 dead - According to Haaretz Detainees 36 at Sde teiman have died since October. 7. (𓃠)
Sexual violence against prisoners
Ajluni family - On 10 July, between 25–30 Israeli soldiers burst into the Ajluni family’s home, forcing five Palestinian women to strip naked at gunpoint and threatening to unleash army attack dogs on them.
One woman named Amal was taken into a private room with her children and forced to take off her clothes. The report states: “the children also had to witness their mother being ordered to turn around while naked as she sobbed over the humiliation. About 10 minutes later she and the children were taken out of the room pale and trembling.” (𓃠)
UN report - A UN report released on 19 February 2024 states: "We are particularly distressed by reports that Palestinian women and girls in detention have also been subjected to multiple forms of sexual assault, such as being stripped naked and searched by male Israeli army officers. At least two female Palestinian detainees were reportedly raped while others were reportedly threatened with rape and sexual violence."
They also noted that photos of female detainees in degrading circumstances were also reportedly taken by the Israeli army and uploaded online.
Younis al-Hamlawi testimony - According to detainee Younis al-Hamlawi, during the interogation of Mr. Bakr a female officer had ordered two soldiers to lift him up and press his rectum against a metal stick that was fixed to the ground. Mr. al-Hamlawi said the stick penetrated his rectum for roughly five seconds, causing it to bleed and leaving him with “unbearable pain.” Accoring to a leaked draft of an UNRWA report read by the NYT, a 41-year-old detainee recounted interrogators me sit on something like a hot metal stick and it felt like fire,” and also said that another detainee “died after they put the electric stick up” his anus. (𓃠,𓃠)
Jeff Blankfort - A woman, who was active and leader of a women’s group, told me that when she refused to talk the Israeli soldiers raped her daughter in front of her and then asked her what kind of a mother she was to allow her daughter to be raped by withholding information. (𓃠)
Sexually targeting Palestinian women - (𓃠)
Woman testimony - (𓃠)
Khawla al-Azraq testomony - (𓃠)
Shireen Issawi testimony - (𓃠)
Khitam Saafin testimony - The leader of the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees, spent three months in administrative detention without ever being charged. She claims that during her time, Israeli soldiers of took photos of her on their cell phones and strip-searched her. She describes the process as being part of Israeli policy.
Sexual violence against children - Some children have reported violence of a sexual nature, and some are transferred to court or between detention centers in small cages, the London-based child rights organization said.
Salah Fateen Salah Testimony - On the morning of October 8, one day after Hamas’s attack, Israeli special forces units raided the cells of Gilboa prison and violently beat Palestinian prisoners held there. “They shouted through the speakers telling all the prisoners to get inside their rooms, kneel down on their knees, put their hands on their heads, and to face away from the door, so you have no idea what’s happening behind you when they open the door,” explained 23-year-old Salah. “Then they came in and started beating people, several rooms at once, with their hands, feet and batons, including metal ones,” he said. “They unleashed their dogs on us. “They beat a prisoner who has diabetes and takes three injections a day. He was throwing up so much blood … we were worried sick for two hours that he would be martyred from the amount of blood that he was throwing up,” said Salah. Israeli forces also “cut open the forehead of another man who was my cellmate,” he said, noting “there was blood all over the prison floors”. The beatings, said Salah, went on for days. “They have no humanity. Those who beat elderly and sick people have no humanity. The head of the prison himself was making death threats against us.” (𓃠)
torture in hospitals
Whistleblower testimonies - According to a whistleblower, procedures in Israeli military hospitals are “routinely” carried out without painkillers, causing “an unacceptable amount of pain” to detainees. Another whistle-blower said painkillers were used “selectively” and “in a very limited way” during an invasive medical procedure on a Gazan detainee in a public hospital.
One detainee told the BBC his leg had to be amputated because he was denied treatment for an infected wound.
Patients at the Sde Teiman hospital are kept blindfolded and permanently shackled to their beds by all four limbs, according to several medics responsible for treating patients there. They are also made to wear daipers, rather than use a toilet. Witnesses, including the facility’s senior anaesthiologist, Yoel Donchin, say both the use of nappies and handcuffs are universal in the hospital ward. “The army create the patient to be 100% dependent, like a baby,” he said. “You are cuffed, you are with diapers, you need water, you need everything – it’s dehumanisation”. One doctor with knowledge of conditions there said prolonged cuffing to beds would cause “huge suffering, horrible suffering”, describing it as “torture” and saying patients would start to feel pain after a few hours. Others have spoken of the risk of long-term nerve-damage.
Footage of Gazan detainees released after interrogation shows injuries and scarring around their wrists and legs.
A whistle-blower who worked at the Sde Teiman field hospital back in October, shortly after the Hamas attacks on Israel, described cases of patients being given inadequate amounts of painkillers, including anaesthetic. He said a doctor once refused his request that an elderly patient be given painkillers while they were opening up a recent, infected amputation wound. “[The patient] started trembling from pain, and so I stop and say ‘we can’t go on, you need to give him analgesia’,” he said. The doctor told him it was too late to administer it. The witness said such procedures were “routinely done without analgesia” resulting in “an unacceptable amount of pain”. On another occasion, he was asked by a suspected Hamas fighter to intercede with the surgical team to increase the levels of morphine and anaesthetic during repeated surgeries. The message was passed on, but the suspect again regained consciousness during the next operation and was in a lot of pain. The witness said both he and other colleagues felt there was a sense in which it had been a deliberate act of revenge. The army said in response to these allegations that violence against detainees was “absolutely prohibited”, and that it regularly briefed its forces on the conduct required of them. Any concrete details of violence or humiliation would be examined, it said.
A second whistle-blower said the situation at Sde Teiman was only part of the problem, which extended into public hospitals. The BBC is calling him “Yoni” to protect his identity.
In the days that followed the 7 October attacks, he said, hospitals in southern Israel were faced with the challenge of treating both wounded fighters and wounded victims, often in the same emergency departments.
“There were instances where I heard staff discuss whether detainees from Gaza should get painkillers. Or ways to perform certain procedures that can turn the treatment into punishment.” Conversations like this were not uncommon, he said, even if actual instances appeared very rare.
“I have knowledge of one case where painkillers were used selectively, in a very limited way, during a procedure,” he told the BBC. “The patient did not receive any explanation of what was going on. So, if you put together [that] someone is undergoing an invasive procedure, which involves even incisions, and doesn’t know about that, and is blindfolded, then the line between treatment and assault thins out.” We asked the Health Ministry to respond to these allegations, but they directed us to the IDF.
Sufian Abu Salah Testimony - Sufian Abu Salah, a 43-year-old taxi driver from Khan Youis, was one of dozens of men detained during raids by Israel's army and taken to a military base for questioning. He said soldiers carried out severe beatings during the journey and also on arrival at the base, where he was denied treatment for a minor wound on his foot, which then became infected. “My leg got infected and turned blue, and as soft as a sponge,” he told the BBC. After a week, he said, the guards took him to hospital, beating him on his injured leg on the way. Two operations to clean his wound did not work, he told the BBC. “Afterwards, they took me to a public hospital, where the doctor gave me two options: my leg or my life.” He chose his life. After they amputated his leg, he was sent back to the military base, and later released back to Gaza. (𓃠)
Doctor testimony - Last month, Israel’s daily Haaretz newspaper published allegations made by a doctor at the Sde Teiman site that leg amputations had been carried out on two prisoners, because of cuffing injuries. The allegations were made, the paper said, in a private letter sent by the doctor to government ministers and the attorney-general, in which such amputations were described as “unfortunately a routine event”. “From the first days of the medical facility’s operation until today, I have faced serious ethical dilemmas,” said the letter addressed to Israel’s attorney general, and its health and defense ministries, according to Ha’aretz. “More than that, I am writing (this letter) to warn you that the facilities’ operations do not comply with a single section among those dealing with health in the Incarceration of Unlawful Combatants Law.” (𓃠)
CNN whistleblower - “I was asked to learn how to do things on the patients, performing minor medical procedures that are totally outside my expertise,” he said, adding that this was frequently done without anesthesia. “If they complained about pain, they would be given paracetamol,” he said, using another name for acetaminophen. The same whistleblower also said he witnessed an amputation performed on a man who had sustained injuries caused by the constant zip-tying of his wrists. The account tallied with details of a letter authored by a doctor working at Sde Teiman published by Ha’aretz in April.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kmrk6jEpaXo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWhDkyi9W4Y&list=PLu2VSMZ0QRWKC1T68wKOHy87kA-AMBMKf&index=31&pp=iAQB
https://israelpalestinenews.org/israel-3400-massacres-gaza-october-7th-day-299/
https://israelpalestinenews.org/israeli-soldiers-tell-story-of-savage-cruelty-in-gaza-one-given-blessing-by-the-west/
Administrative detention is arrest without charge for six months, with sentences being reputedly extended on the grounds of "secret evidence." By March Israel held 3,615 Palestinians in administrative detention, many of which are women and children. (𓃠)
Israel is the only country in the world which prosecutes children in military courts, charging around 700 Palestinians each year. (𓃠)
According to witnesses, Israeli soldiers were seen stopping a 12-year-old girl with blonde hair. After the girl’s parents attempt to intervene, the soldiers then informed them that she would be taken away under the suspicion of being an Israeli detainee, even though she was speaking Arabic and with her parents.
After the death of officer Harel Itach, a friend of his revealed that he had kidnapped a Palestinian infant from Gaza after killing her family, and that her whereabouts remain unknown. (𓃠)
In 2022 the DCIP collected sworn affidavits from 766 children detained by the IDF from the occupied West Bank, most of which reported having been abducted during the night, blindfolded, beaten, interrogated and strip searched.
Save the Children stats reveal that 86 percent experienced beatings, 60 percent endured solitary confinement, and 69 percent reported being strip-searched, with some disclosing incidents of sexual violence. 70 percent said they suffered from hunger and 68 percent said they didn’t receive any healthcare. (𓃠)
Among those detained under suspicion of belonging to Hamas are pregnant women and the disabled.
According to a doctor at Sde Teiman those present on the grounds of being Hamas included a paraplegic and someone with a Tracheostomy since childhood.
According to the head of the Palestinian Prisoners' Club, since October 7th Israel has arrested 153 women in Gaza, including pregnant women and women detained with their babies.
Palestinian children freed in a prisoner exchange deal say they were subjected to torture in captivity and that several others were beaten to death. (𓃠)
A Palestinian detainee who spoke to Amnesty International talked about how interrogators subjected him and others to severe beatings, leaving him with three broken ribs. Israeli interrogators also beat them on their heads, while ordering them to praise Israel and curse Hamas. And that even when one of the detainees did this, the beating did not stop.
According to Israeli authorities, four Palestinian detainees have died in Israeli detention since October 7th. (𓃠)
Fadi Bakr recounts being taken to an enclosure called the “disco room”, where prisoners were forced to listen to loud music preventing sleep, and causing blood to trickle from his ear.
Dr. Mohammed al-Ra described a routine of guards unleashing dogs on sleeping detainees, lobbing a sound grenade at the enclosure as troops barged in. He called this “the nightly torture.”
The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) has collected thousands of testimonies of Palestinian men allegedly tortured sexually or otherwise by Israeli authorities. Of 60 cases during 2005-2012, 36 report verbal sexual harassment towards either Palestinian men and boys or their family; 35 report cases of forced nudity. There are six testimonies of Israeli officials involved in the sexual assault of arrested or imprisoned Palestinian men, including pressing and/or kicking the genitals, simulated rape, and real rape with a blunt object. (𓃠)
On October 8, Israeli special forces raided the cells of Gilboa prison and violently beat Palestinian prisoners held there. they came in and started beating people, several rooms at once, with their hands, feet and batons, including metal ones,” “They unleashed their dogs on us. “They beat a prisoner who has diabetes and takes three injections a day. He was throwing up so much blood … we were worried sick for two hours that he would be martyred from the amount of blood that he was throwing up,” Israeli forces also “cut open the forehead of another man... (𓃠)
A whistle-blower who worked at the Sde Teiman said a doctor once refused his request for an elderly patient be given painkillers while they were opening up an infected amputation wound. The witness said such procedures were “routinely done without analgesia” resulting in “an unacceptable amount of pain”.
According to a whistleblower: “There were instances where I heard staff discuss whether detainees from Gaza should get painkillers. Or ways to perform certain procedures that can turn the treatment into punishment.”
“I have knowledge of one case where painkillers were used selectively, in a very limited way, during a procedure,” “The patient did not receive any explanation of what was going on." The BBC asked the Health Ministry to respond to these allegations, but they were directed us to the IDF.
Taxi driver Sufian Abu Salah was detained during raids by Israel's army and taken to a military base for questioning. He said soldiers carried out severe beatings during the journey on arrival at the base, where he was denied treatment for a minor wound on his foot, which then became infected. “My leg got infected and turned blue, and as soft as a sponge,” After a week, the guards took him to hospital, beating him on his injured leg on the way. "They took me to a public hospital, where the doctor gave me two options: my leg or my life.” He chose his life. (𓃠)
A whistleblower who spoke to CNN said: “I was asked to learn how to do things on the patients, performing minor medical procedures that are totally outside my expertise,” adding that this was frequently done without anesthesia. They also said they witnessed an amputation performed on a man who had sustained injuries caused by the constant zip-tying of his wrists.
According to a doctor at the Sde Teiman, leg amputations were carried out on two prisoners, because of cuffing injuries. In a private letter sent by the doctor to government ministers and the attorney-general, such amputations were described as “unfortunately a routine”. It also read: “More than that, I am writing (this letter) to warn you that the facilities’ operations do not comply with a single section among those dealing with health in the Incarceration of Unlawful Combatants Law.” (𓃠)
Defending Rape of hostages - The Knesset defending the rape of Palestinian prisoners: 𓃠. After 9 IDF soldiers were detained for raping Palestinian prisoners, a mob of Settlers including Knesset members Zvi Sukkot and Nassimi Vaturi, broke into Sde Teiman to try and free the perpetrators. (𓃠) On the same day a different group including Knesset members Tally Gotliv and Yitzhak Kroizer went to another military base to raid the court there. (𓃠,𓃠) Israel's finance minister Ben-Gvir praised these soldiers as "true heroes". (𓃠)
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