Sde Teiman riots reveal the ‘disintegration of Israeli state’
Right-wing Israelis demonstrate next to the Sde Teiman military base on 29 July 2024
Lubna Masarwa in Jerusalem and Rayhan Uddin in London write in Middle East Eye on 30 July 2024:
The scenes of far-right Israelis breaking into a detention facility to protest the arrest of soldiers accused of raping a Palestinian reveal a society heading towards a breakdown of state institutions, analysts have told Middle East Eye.
On Monday, nine soldiers in the notorious Sde Teiman facility were detained in southern Israel’s Negev desert for questioning. They were accused of sexual abuse against a Palestinian detainee, which led to him being hospitalised with serious injuries to his rectum area. The soldiers deny the charges.
The arrests were met by angry demonstrations at the gates of Sde Teiman, with several protesters temporarily breaching the gates before being dispersed by police. Among the protesters were reservist soldiers, as well as two far-right parliamentarians: Zvi Sukkot, a member of the Religious Zionist movement, and Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu, of the Jewish Power party.
“This is a very significant event,” Israeli journalist and analyst Meron Rapoport told MEE. “An event that has the character of a rebellion… to completely dismantle what is left of the rules that are supposed to govern society.”
Israeli soldiers reportedly barricaded themselves into Sde Teiman and used pepper spray to defend themselves against arrest by the military police, before eventually being taken into custody.
May Pundak, a lawyer, activist and chair of Israeli-Palestinian peace organisation A Land for All, told MEE that the scenes following the arrests were evidence that forces within Israel were attempting to “dismantle democracy”. She noted that members of the Israeli government – which sought the arrests in the first place – joined the protests in an attempt to make “the government and the leaders of the army an enemy of the state”.
Effectively, that made these far-right leaders a threat to the government “from within”, she noted. “There is no law and order, no enforcement,” she said. “This is the disintegration of the state.”
Widespread abuse
The alleged rape in Sde Teiman is the latest such allegation of abuse from the notorious facility.
Established after the 7 October Hamas-led attack on Israel and subsequent war on Gaza, Sde Teiman is an ostensibly temporary centre to hold Palestinian detainees. More than 4,000 Palestinians from Gaza have been detained by the Israeli military, often held with no charge or evidence of wrongdoing. In April, an unnamed doctor described in harrowing detail the conditions at the facility, including limb amputation due to handcuff injuries and prisoners forced to defecate in nappies.