The IDF’s brutal abuses of Palestinian prisoners
The Associated Press and B’Tselem have collected testimonies
by shivangi sharma and allister white, news writer and news editor
The most recent Israeli-Hamas conflict began in October 2023. Since then, near-unfathomable horrors have been reported, including the IDF’s use of genocidal AI tech (read more on page 3), and the destruction of hundreds of thousands of homes in Gaza. According to the United Nations, more than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed since the beginning of last October.
Reports of the IDF brutally abusing Palestinian prisoners have also circulated.
According to data released by The Israeli Information Centre of Human Rights in the Occupied Territories (B’Tselem),“at the end of June 2024, the Israel Prison Service (IPS) was holding 9,440 Palestinians in detention or in prison on what it defined ‘security’ grounds, including 1,761 from the Gaza Strip.” Furthermore, B’Tselem reports that 1,526 Palestinians are being held for “being in Israel illegally.”
B’Tselem also reports that Palestinians are, on occasion, held in “military facilities” which release figures with “significant” time delays and do not share details about the legal standing of Palestinian inmates at the facilities.
B’Tselem’s website claims to be working towards a future where “the Israeli occupation and apartheid regime end.”
An article published by the Guardian discusses a months long investigation carried out by B’Tselem wherein 5 former Palestinian prisoners were interviewed. The five prisoners were kept in centers run by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), and detail the treatment of prisoners by the IDF.
Yuli Novak, B’Tselem’s executive director claimed to have expected to find sporadic cases of extreme treatment. Novak told the Guardian that the emerging accounts were far from the sporadic cases expected.
“We were shocked by the scale of what we heard. It is uncomfortable as an Israeli-Palestinian organisation to say Israel is running torture camps. But we realized that is what we are looking at,” Novak states.
A former prisoner interviewed by B’Tselem spoke about prolific mistreatment that included “severe beatings and sexual violence” as well as “starvation rations, refusal of medical care, and deprivation of basic needs including water, daylight, electricity and sanitation, including soap and sanitary pads for women.”
B’Tselem suggested that the systemic torture should be classed as an IDF policy of “institutionalized abuse.”
In an article published by the Associated Press in August 2024, released prisoners recounted how the conditions in prisons have worsened since October 7, 2023, and spoke of lasting trauma.
“At night, he hallucinates and stands in the middle of the house, in shock or remembering the torment and pain he went through,” said Aya Abayat, speaking about his cousin, former prisoner Muazzaz Abayat. Muazzaz could only muster the strength to say that he was regularly beaten.
Earlier in July, reports of nine Israeli soldiers being detained for sodomizing a Palestinian prisoner in the desert base of Sde Teiman was also released by the Associated Press.
Five of the nine Israeli soldiers have been released and deny all charges.
The IDF claims that it “rejects outright allegations concerning systematic abuse of detainees in detention facilities” and acts “in accordance with Israeli law and international law.”
The Israeli National Security Minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, according to the Associated Press ,“boast[s] that prisons will no longer be ‘summer campus’ under his watch.”
The testimonies of former prisoners tell an entirely different story: one where Israeli prisons are inhumane, the stuff of nightmares.
Munthir Amira’s testimony to the Associated Press shared that 13 people shared a single, sparsely furnished cell, with limited blankets and only six beds. During the winter, Amira said the cell was freezing.
Prisoners “were handcuffed and bent over” to use the washroom, the Associated Press reports. The brutality of IDF guards drove prisoners to suicide, according to Amira’s testimony. He recounted a situation to the Associated Press where another inmate attempted suicide “by jumping off a high fence.”
Amira and his cellmates watched through their window, and when they attempted to signal for help, “soldiers with two large dogs entered their cell, bound their hands, lined them up in the corridor, and beat them, including on their genitals.”
Many prisoners could not even speak of the abuse they endured. An unnamed prisoner told the Associated Press, “I just spent two months in prison… I don’t want to go back.”
Sources:
https://www.btselem.org/statistics/detainees_and_prisoners#Notes
