Video alleging Israeli abuse questions treatment of Palestinian detainees

Rights groups say incidents of maltreatment are common in detention centres

Gaza's Al Shifa Hospital director Mohammed Abu Salmiya is embraced by relatives after his release from Israeli incarceration. AFP

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Footage published by Israel's Channel 12 that purportedly shows Israeli soldiers sexually abusing a Palestinian detainee has shed light on incidents of torture in the country’s detention centres.

The National was not able to independently verify the video or the claims made by Channel 12 regarding the contents of the clip, which was presented as leaked surveillance footage from Israel’s Sde Teiman military base, which is now doubling as a detention centre.

The Israeli army did not respond to The National's request for comment.

Israeli media reported on Wednesday that the country’s Supreme Court was considering a petition to close down the centre after a months-long legal battle by rights group B’Tselem.

Last month, the Israeli military arrested 10 soldiers on suspicion of sexually assaulting a Palestinian detainee at Sde Teiman.

B’Tselem spokesman Shai Parnes interviewed 55 Palestinian detainees who had been released from 16 detention centres – 13 under the Israeli prison system and three under the military – and used their testimonies to write a report on conditions facing detainees. Fifty-one of the interviewees come from the occupied West Bank or Gaza, and four are Arab-Israelis.

“We have some testimonies about sexual assaults on the entire spectrum from sexual harassment to rapes both by males and females,” he told The National.

Mr Parnes said the severity of the alleged abuse varies and not all of it is to extract information from detainees. Most victims are men, he said.

“We’ve heard the entire spectrum, from nude searches, sometimes by the opposite gender, entering a female cell without any notice … to touching them, pushing them or beating them," he added.

Physicians for Human Rights Israel said it received reports of a Gazan inmate in Sde Teiman who was the victim of “severe sexual assaults that resulted in his hospitalisation”.

The group did not specify whether the inmate in the video is the same detainee.

“Despite widespread media coverage, this incident is neither isolated nor unique,” Naji Abbas, head of the prisoners and detainees department at the group, told The National.

Speaking to The National last week, Mr Abbas warned of dozens of similar cases at Sde Teiman and said the detainee who was taken to hospital was treated for three days before disappearing.

The group is worried the detainee was then returned to Sde Teiman.

“We’ve received various reports of sexual abuse and rape at several Israeli detention facilities, some of which have been formally reported to the authorities, yet the torture persists,” Mr Abbas added.

“The testimonies of Palestinians detained by Israel, detailing systematic abuse by prison guards and soldiers, along with the emerging information about the extent and cruelty of their torture, leave no room for doubt: as we’ve warned for months, the life of every Palestinian in Israeli prisons is at risk.”

The Israeli military has denied allegations of abuse inside detention centres. “Any abuse of detainees, whether during arrest or interrogation, is illegal and against Israeli military guidelines, and is strictly prohibited,” it told AFP this week.