Sde Teiman doctor on abused Gazan detainee: ‘I couldn’t believe an Israeli prison guard could do such a thing’
Palestinian detainees from Gaza show signs of abuse and torture on their bodies after being released from Israeli custody
Hagar Shezaf, Bar Peleg and Ran Shimoni report in Haaretz on 30 July 2024:
A doctor at the army detention facility at Sde Teiman said that after seeing the Gazan detainee who allegedly suffered severe sexual abuse at the hands of reservists, he “couldn’t believe an Israeli prison guard could do such a thing.”
“I was certain this was revenge by the Nukhba against the Nukhba,” added the doctor, Prof. Yoel Donchin, referring to Hamas’ elite unit that carried out many of the atrocities in southern Israel on October 7.
Nine reservists were arrested by the military police on Monday on suspicion of sodomizing the prisoner. On Tuesday, they were brought to the military court at the Beid Lid base for a bail hearing. The court rejected requests by Haaretz and other media outlets to enter the courtroom.
Information obtained by Haaretz shows that the Gazan detainee suffered from a ruptured bowel, a severe injury to his anus, lung damage and broken ribs. He was taken to a hospital for an operation.
“If the state and Knesset members think there’s no limit to how much you can abuse prisoners, they should kill them themselves, like the Nazis did, or close the hospitals,” Donchin said, adding, “If they maintain a hospital only for the sake of defending ourselves at [the International Criminal Court at] the Hague, that’s no good.” He added that the hospital staff is working hard even as it is being “attacked from all sides. But my duty is to the patients.”
The nine reservists who were detained Monday afternoon included one with the rank of major – the commander of Force 100, the unit tasked with guarding the detainees at Sde Teiman.
Following their arrest, protesters, including Knesset members, broke into the base and remained there for quite some time. After they left, they demonstrated outside the base. MK Limor Son Har-Melech (Otzma Yehudit) accused the military advocate general, who ordered the arrests, of being a “criminal.” “The people of Israel are fighting outside enemies while enemies are trying to eat away at it from within,” she said.
Israeli protesters attempting to break into Sde Teiman detention center on 29 July 2024
The police entered the base only long after the protesters broke in. “There were police near the base, but they entered the base to help arrest the demonstrators only about an hour after the break-in, when the protesters had already left,” a soldier at the base said on Tuesday. “There was no security force to deal with them, and there was no senior officer managing the incident.”
After their arrest, the reservists were taken to Beit Lid. There too, protesters broke into the base, then eventually left and demonstrated outside it. They initially entered the military court despite soldiers’ efforts to block them, then left it and mobbed the base’s jail. They called the soldiers outside the jail “traitors” and lit a bonfire.
Border Police officers were present at the site, but didn’t arrest anybody. A call was issued over the base’s public address system for officers to come to the scene of the confrontation. IDF Chief of Staff Herzl Halevi finally arrived at the base at 11 P.M. and was greeted by protesters yelling that he should resign.
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