Leaked Images Have Exposed The Horrific Conditions Palestinians Abducted By Israel Face In Israeli Detention Camps
Leaked photos showed rows of men in grey tracksuits sitting on paper-thin mattresses, blindfolded and forbidden from moving or speaking.
In a shocking report by CNN, Israeli whistleblowers have exposed the harrowing conditions Palestinians abducted by Israel during its war on Gaza face at an Israeli detention facility.
The accounts from three whistleblowers at Sde Teiman detention center in Israel’s Negev desert paint a grim picture of extreme physical restraint Israeli authorities imposed on Palestinians it abducted, including physical and psychological abuse.
Leaked photos showed rows of men in grey tracksuits sitting on paper-thin mattresses, blindfolded and forbidden from moving or speaking.
“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,” one whistleblower told CNN.
In one part of the former military center, guards are reported to have been instructed to silence detainees and to single out "problematic" individuals for punishment, including beating them severely not to gather intelligence but out of revenge.
“It was punishment for what they (the Palestinians) did on Oct. 7 and punishment for behavior in the camp,” one whistleblower said.
The facility also includes a field hospital where wounded Palestinians tied to beds, stripped of their clothes to only diapers and fed through straws.
“They stripped them down of anything that resembles human beings,” another whistleblower who worked as a medic at the camp told CNN.
Reports indicate that detainees’ limbs were amputated due to injuries sustained from being constantly handcuffed, and medical procedures were sometimes performed by under-qualified medics.
One whistleblower said he was ordered to perform medical procedures he was not qualified for on Palestinians.
“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.”
“Just being there felt like being complicit in abuse,” he added.
The accounts by the whistleblowers have been corroborated by Palestinians from Gaza who were detained and released from Israeli detention centers.
Many of the Palestinians said they did not know where they were being held because they were blindfolded throughout most of their time and cut off from the outside world.
CNN also interviewed Dr Mohammed Al-Ran, who headed the surgical unit at northern Gaza’s Indonesian hospital before it was shut down and raided by Israeli forces.
Al-Ran was detained in an Israeli detention center for 44 days andrecounted the details of being held in prison.
“We cried and cried and cried. We cried for ourselves, cried for our nation, cried for our community, cried for our loved ones. We cried about everything that crossed our minds”.
After being cleared of links with Hamas, Al-Ran and other similar detainees were forced to serve as interpreters – or “shawish” – between the guards and the prisoners, which allowed him to have his blindfold removed.
He said that was another form of torture for him because he was then able to see how people were being tortured.
“At first you couldn’t see. You couldn’t see the torture, the vengeance, the oppression. When they removed my blindfold, I could see the extent of the humiliation and abasement… I could see the extent to which they saw us not as human beings but as animals,” Al-Ran told CNN
Palestinian prisoners associations reported that 18 Palestinians, including leading Gaza surgeon Dr. Adnan al-Bursh, had died in Israeli custody since Oct. 7.
The Israeli military denied holding detainees unnecessarily, or using them for translation purposes.
“If there is no reason for continued detention, the detainees are released back to Gaza,” it said in a statement.
The Israeli military also said that any misconduct by Israeli soldiers is being examined and addressed accordingly.
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Kassy Cho
Kassy Cho
