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haaretz
'Insane Torture': Israeli Soldiers Confirm Horrific Abuse of Palestinians at Sde Teiman
"Teeth were broken, bones were broken," said one soldier. "You notice how easy it is to lose your humanity," said another.
Aug 16, 2024
An Israeli newspaper on Friday published interviews with Israel Defense Forces reservists and medical staff who witnessed the "day-to-day torture" of Palestinian prisoners at the notorious Sde Teiman prison in the Negev Desert, where dozens of detainees have died and others were allegedly raped.
The Israelis described seeing torture and abuse of Palestinians detained in Sde Teiman, who included everyone from Hamas fighters to innocent civilians, and ranged in age from children to octogenarians.
"We said, 'It's torture.' But you don't get into it; you change the subject immediately."
"What's happening there is total dehumanization. You don't really relate to them as if they're real human beings," said one public hospital physician who worked at Sde Teiman. "In the end it's no less than torture. There are ways to administer even poor treatment, or even to torture a person, without crushing cigarettes on them."
One female former medical staffer said that "the place was totally unimaginable, I had never considered anything like it."
"My first thought was: What have I done?" she said, describing prisoners being forced to relieve themselves in diapers and take their meals through straws.
"The conditions there were described as torture," she added. "Maybe. In many senses, yes, I agree with that. Maybe even insane torture."
A 37-year-old male reservist said some of the worst abuse was committed by members of Force 100, the unit of the nine Israelis recently arrested for allegedly gang-raping a Sde Teiman prisoner.
"They took... guys aside and really laid into them," he said. "I think that each time teeth were broken, bones were broken... And there was also a dog."
Former Sde Teiman prisoners have described dogs attacking and performing "vile acts" on them.
Another IDF reservist said that "when you come to the camp, the first thing that hits you is the smell... of dozens of people who have been sitting in close quarters for more than a month in the same clothes and in insane heat."
"They let them shower for a few minutes around twice a week, but I don't remember ever seeing that they gave them a change of clothes, in any case not on my shifts," he added.
The Haaretz interviewees said that much of the abuse occurred in the open.
"It wasn't something that was done in the dark," the 37-year-old reservist said. "Everyone saw what was going on... It's not something that was done behind the back of the commander of the camp."
"Most of the guys were just fine with what was happening," he continued. "There were some who were a little bothered by it, and there were others who were bothered by it at the start and then they toed the line with the system."
"There were people who in conversations suddenly mentioned the word 'torture,'" he added. "And then we said, 'It's torture.' But you don't get into it; you change the subject immediately."
Some of those interviewed by
Haaretz expressed misgivings about what they did or saw at Sde Teiman.
"When I was there, I wrestled with myself about whether to stay on and try to do the right thing, the best I could as a moral person, or whether I should just get up and declare that I refused to take part in it," said one male reservist and student. "I came out with a heavy feeling of guilt."
Another reservist said, "The more distance I have from the place, the more my eyes have opened up."
"What most disturbed me was to see how easily and how quickly ordinary people can disconnect themselves and not see the reality right in front of their eyes when they're in the midst of a shocking human situation," he added.
There were also rare moments of mercy.
"Sometimes the military police gave the minors candy, like in the evening, before sleep," the 37-year-old reservist said. "One time a detainee started to cry. He was older, 60 years old. So the duty officer tried to speak to him and cheer him up a little."
But more often, guards were "filled with rage," said one reservist, who added that "there's a desire for revenge."
"What most disturbed me was to see how easily and how quickly ordinary people can disconnect themselves and not see the reality right in front of their eyes."
One reservist said that "there was a female officer who gave us a briefing on the day we arrived. She said, 'It will be hard for you. You'll want to pity them, but it's forbidden. Remember that they aren't people."
"You notice how easy it is to lose your humanity in a second, how easy it is to come up with justifications for treating people as if they're not people," he added.
One 27-year-old female reservist said that upon arriving at Sde Teiman—where she was welcomed with popcorn and cotton candy—she was alarmed to find that "good people whom I know talked about being cruel and abusive to people, like they were talking about something routine."
"The dehumanization frightened me," she said. "I couldn't understand how a group of young people who were around me every day underwent such a dangerous process in such a short time."
Another reservist said that some Sde Teiman staff—especially the volunteers—were "sadists" who "really enjoy beating up Arabs."
The
Haaretz interviews add to a growing body of evidence of torture and other war crimes perpetrated by Israelis against Palestinian prisoners at Sde Teiman and other lockups.
Former Palestinian detainees and Israeli personnel have described beatings, rape and sexual torture by male and female soldiers, routine amputations due to constant shackling, burnings, electrocutions, attacks by dogs, ice-water dousings, denial of food and water, sleep deprivation, constant loud music, and other abuse.
The Israeli military is investigating the deaths of at least 36 Sde Teiman detainees, including one who died after allegedly being sodomized with an electric baton.
On Friday, Alice Jill Edwards, the United Nations special rapporteur on torture, said that "there are no circumstances in which sexual torture or sexualized inhuman and degrading treatment can be justified."
"I am troubled by recent attempts by Israeli citizens—including reportedly one member of Parliament—to intervene violently after the arrests of soldiers on these abuse charges," she said of the recent storming of Sde Teiman and another base by a far-right mob in response to the arrests of the alleged rapists.
"Criminal proceedings into all allegations must proceed unhindered," Edwards added. "No one is above the law. No one is immune from prosecution for torture."
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Israeli Newspaper Confirms IDF Employed 'Hannibal Directive' on October 7
IDF soldiers were reportedly ordered to "turn the area around the border fence into a killing zone."
Jul 07, 2024
The Israeli newspaper Haaretzreported Sunday that Israel's military repeatedly employed a protocol known as the "Hannibal Directive" during the October 7 Hamas-led attack in an attempt to prevent the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers—even if it meant putting the lives of army captives and civilians at risk.
Haaretz found based on documents and interviews with soldiers and senior Israeli officers that Hannibal—an operational order developed in 1986 that "directs the use of force to prevent soldiers being taken into captivity" by enemy militants—was used "at three army facilities infiltrated by Hamas, potentially endangering civilians as well."
During the first hours of the Hamas-led attack, according to Haaretz, Israeli soldiers were given an order: "Not a single vehicle can return to Gaza."
"At this point, the IDF was not aware of the extent of kidnapping along the Gaza border, but it did know that many people were involved," the newspaper continued. "Thus, it was entirely clear what that message meant, and what the fate of some of the kidnapped people would be."
The full text of the Hannibal Directive has never been published. But according to a Haaretz story about the directive from more than two decades ago, part of it states that "during an abduction, the major mission is to rescue our soldiers from the abductors even at the price of harming or wounding our soldiers."
"Light-arms fire is to be used in order to bring the abductors to the ground or to stop them," it adds. "If the vehicle or the abductors do not stop, single-shot (sniper) fire should be aimed at them, deliberately, in order to hit the abductors, even if this means hitting our soldiers. In any event, everything will be done to stop the vehicle and not allow it to escape."
Israeli authorities have acknowledged "multiple incidents of our forces firing on our forces" on October 7. In April, Israel's military said that one of the hostages taken by Hamas militants during the October attack was likely killed by Israeli helicopter fire.
But the IDF, which has killed more than 38,000 people in Gaza since October 7, has declined to say whether Hannibal was used during the Hamas-led attack.
Haaretz stressed Sunday that it "does not know whether or how many civilians and soldiers were hit due to these procedures, but the cumulative data indicates that many of the kidnapped people were at risk, exposed to Israeli gunfire, even if they were not the target."
The first of the known uses of the Hannibal Directive on October 7 came "when an observation post at the Yiftah outpost reported that someone had been kidnapped at the Erez border crossing, adjacent to the IDF's liaison office," Haaretz reported.
"'Hannibal at Erez' came the command from divisional headquarters, 'dispatch a Zik.' The Zik is an unmanned assault drone, and the meaning of this command was clear," the newspaper found.
The directive was employed at least two additional times during the attack, according to Haaretz, which cited one unnamed source in Israel's Southern Command as saying that the country's forces were instructed to "turn the area around the border fence into a killing zone, closing it off toward the west."
The newspaper continued:
One case in which it is known that civilians were hit, a case that received wide coverage, took place in the house of Pessi Cohen at Kibbutz Be'eri. Fourteen hostages were held in the house as the IDF attacked it, with 13 of them killed. In the coming weeks, the IDF is expected to publish the results of its investigation of the incident, which will answer the question of whether Brig. Gen. Barak Hiram, the commander of Division 99 who was in charge of operations in Be'eri on October 7, was employing the Hannibal procedure. Did he order the tank to move ahead even at the cost of civilian casualties, as he stated in an interview he gave later to The New York Times?
Haaretz's reporting comes weeks after a United Nations investigation concluded that the IDF "had likely applied the Hannibal Directive" on October 7, killing more than a dozen Israeli civilians.
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Doctor at Israeli Detention Camp for Gazans Blows Whistle on War Crimes
"Just this week, two prisoners had their legs amputated due to handcuff injuries, which unfortunately is a routine event."
Apr 04, 2024
A doctor at an Israeli field hospital inside a notorious detention center where hundreds of Palestinian prisoners are temporarily held is sounding the alarm about torture and horrific conditions at what some human rights defenders—including Israelis—are calling "Israel's Guantánamo Bay" and even a "concentration camp."
In a letter to Israel's attorney general and defense and health ministers viewed byHaaretz—which reported the story Thursday—the anonymous physician describes likely war crimes being committed at the Israel Defense Forces' Sde Teiman base near Beersheva. Palestinian militants captured by IDF troops, as well as many civilian hostages ranging in age from teenagers to septuagenarians, are held there in cages, 70-100 per cage, until they are transferred to regular Israeli prisons or released.
"From the first days of the medical facility's operation until today, I have faced serious ethical dilemmas," the doctor wrote. "More than that, I am writing to warn you that the facility's operations do not comply with a single section among those dealing with health in the Internment of Unlawful Combatants Law."
Gazans arrested and detained by Israeli forces are not legally considered prisoners of war by Israel because it does not recognize Gaza as a state. These detainees are mostly held under the Internment of Unlawful Combatants Law, which allows the imprisonment of anyone suspected of taking part in hostilities against Israel for up to 75 days without seeing a judge.
Human Rights Watch has warned that the law "strips away meaningful judicial review and due process rights."
Sde Teiman detainees are fed through straws and forced to defecate in diapers. They're also forced to sleep with the lights on and have allegedly been subjected to beatings and torture. Other Palestinians taken by Israeli forces have described being electrocuted, mauled by dogs, soaked with cold water, denied food and water, deprived of sleep, and blasted with loud music at temporary detention sites.
The whistleblowing Sde Teiman physician said that all patients at the camp's field hospital are handcuffed by all four limbs, regardless of how dangerous they are deemed. In December, Israeli Health Ministry officials ordered such treatment after a medical worker at the facility was attacked. Now the camp's estimated 600-800 prisoners are shackled 24 hours a day.
At first, the cuffs were plastic zip ties. Now they're metal. The doctor said that more than half of his patients at the camp have suffered cuffing injuries, including some that have required "repeated surgical interventions."
"Just this week, two prisoners had their legs amputated due to handcuff injuries, which unfortunately is a routine event," he told Haaretz.
The whistleblower also alleged substandard medical care at the facility, where there is only one doctor on duty, who is sometimes a gynecologist or orthopedist.
"This ends in complications and sometimes even in the patient's death," he said. "This makes all of us—the medical teams and you, those in charge of us in the Health and Defense ministries, complicit in the violation of Israeli law, and perhaps worse for me as a doctor, in the violation of my basic commitment to patients, wherever they are, as I swore when I graduated 20 years ago."
The doctor claims in his letter that he warned the Health Ministry's director-general about the appalling conditions at Sde Teiman, but that there have been "no substantial changes in the way the facility operates."
An ethics committee visited the camp in February; the physician said that its members "are worried about their legal exposure and coverage in view of their involvement in a facility that is operated contrary to the provisions of the existing law."
Last month, Haaretzrevealed that 27 detainees have died in custody at the Sde Teiman and Anatot camps or during interrogation in Israel since October 7. While some were Hamas or other militants captured or wounded while fighting IDF troops, others were civilians, including some with preexisting health conditions like the diabetic laborer who was not suspected of any offense when he was arrested and sent to his death at Anatot.
One former Sde Teiman detainee claims that he personally witnessed Israeli troops execute five prisoners in separate incidents.
"Israel's indifference to the fate of Gazans, at best, and desire for revenge against them, at worst, are fertile ground for war crimes."
Responding to the 27 detainee deaths and invoking the U.S. military prison in Cuba known for torture and indefinite detention, the Haaretz editorial board wrote last month that "Sde Teiman and the other detention facilities are not Guantánamo Bay and... the state has a duty to protect the rights of detainees even if they are not formally prisoners of war."
"Israel's indifference to the fate of Gazans, at best, and desire for revenge against them, at worst, are fertile ground for war crimes," the editors said. "Indifference by Israelis and desire for revenge must not constitute license to shed the blood of detainees... The fact that Hamas is holding and abusing Israeli hostages cannot excuse or justify the abuse of Palestinian detainees."
In December, the Geneva-based advocacy group Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor—which has also
accused IDF troops of allowing Israeli civilians to witness the torture of Palestinian prisoners—demanded an investigation of what it called the "new Guantánamo."
Israeli rights groups and individuals have also condemned the abuses at Sde Teiman, which, like Guantánamo, has been described as a "concentration camp."
"Enough, just enough. We have to stop this gallop into the abyss," urged Hebrew University senior lecturer Tamar Megiddo on Wednesday. "This war has to end. This government needs to end."
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