Stripped, blindfolded, and bound Palestinian civilians are taken prisoner and ordered into a line by Israeli occupation forces in Gaza in December 2023.
(Photo: Social media post by Israeli soldier)
“The torture of Palestinian healthcare workers is a window into the much larger issue of the Israeli government’s treatment of detainees generally,” said one Human Rights Watch expert.
Brett Wilkins, Common Dreams, Aug 26, 2024
Palestinian medical workers’ harrowing accounts of arbitrary detention and torture by Israeli occupation forces in Gaza prompted calls on Monday for a war crimes investigation by the International Criminal Court, whose chief prosecutor is already seeking to arrest Israeli and Hamas leaders for atrocities committed on and after last October 7.
Eight doctors, nurses, and paramedics formerly held by Israeltold Human Rights Watch (HRW) that they suffered “torture—including rape and sexual abuse by Israeli forces—denial of medical care, and poor detention conditions,” as well as “humiliation, beatings, forced stress positions, prolonged cuffing, and blindfolding.”
“The Israeli government’s mistreatment of Palestinian healthcare workers has continued in the shadows and needs to immediately stop,” HRW acting Middle East director Balkees Jarrah said in a statement. “The torture and other ill-treatment of doctors, nurses, and paramedics should be thoroughly investigated and appropriately punished, including by the International Criminal Court (ICC).”
“The torture of Palestinian healthcare workers is a window into the much larger issue of the Israeli government’s treatment of detainees generally,” Jarrah added. “Governments should publicly call on the Israeli authorities to release unlawfully detained healthcare workers and end the cruel mistreatment and nightmarish conditions for all detained Palestinians.”
The medical workers interviewed by HRW provided similar accounts of being detained in Gaza before being sent to detention facilities in Israel, including the notorious Sde Teiman prison, where former prisoners and Israeli whistleblowers have described torture and other abuse including amputations due to extreme shackling. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is investigating the deaths of at least 36 Sde Teiman detainees, including one man who died after allegedly being sodomized with an electric baton.
A group of Sde Teiman guards has also been arrested in connection with an alleged gang-rape of a detainee that was caught on video. The IDF reservists’ arrests sparked a violent attempt to free the suspects by a far-right mob whose members included senior Israeli government officials. Meanwhile, many Israeli leaders, media personalities, and celebrities have publicly defended the rape and torture of Palestinian prisoners.
One paramedic who was imprisoned at Sde Teiman and featured in the new HRW report said he was “suspended from a chain attached to handcuffs, electroshocked, denied medical care for broken ribs caused by beatings, and administered what he believed was a psychoactive drug before interrogations.”
“It was so degrading, it was unbelievable,” he said. “I was helping people as a paramedic, I never expected something like this.”
Another paramedic imprisoned at Sde Teiman, 36-year-old Walid Khalili, said that when his captors removed his blindfold, he saw “dozens of detainees in diapers… suspended from the ceiling.”
“He said that personnel at the facility then suspended him from a chain, so his feet were not touching the ground, dressed him in a garment and a headband that were attached to wires, and shocked him with electricity,” the report states.
An ambulance driver told HRW that he saw Israeli guards beat two men to death with metal pipes while he and other Palestinians were being held in a large metal cage near the Israel-Gaza border fence.
Eyad Abed, a 50-year-old surgeon at the Indonesian Hospital, was seized by Israeli forces during the November siege and invasion of the facility. Abed said Israeli soldiers broke his ribs and tailbone during torture sessions.
“Every minute we were beaten,” Abed told HRW. “I mean all over the body, on sensitive areas between the legs, the chest, the back. We were kicked all over the body and the face. They used the front of their boots which had a metal tip, then their weapons. They had lighters: One soldier tried to burn me but burned the person next to me. I told them I’m a doctor, but they didn’t care.”
In addition to torture, the medical workers interviewed by HRW described hellish living conditions in Israeli custody.
According to the report:
Abed, the surgeon, said the food was “horrible” and inadequate, and that he lost 22 kilograms (49 pounds) during a month and a half in detention. The bathrooms were “not even fit for animals.” The mattresses and blankets were thin, and the cold nights were “unbearable.” In the cells, water for toilets and for drinking was only available for one hour a day, with a “disgusting” stench emanating from the nonflushable toilets. “They gave us a bag for the garbage. We used to fill it with water and drink from it later. It smelled horrible but we had no choice,” Abed said.
The new HRW report is the latest evidence of Israeli torture of Palestinian medical workers, more than 500 of whom have been killed by Israeli bombs and bullets since October, according to United Nations agencies. There have been numerous reports of Israeli forces deliberately targeting medical workers.
Healthcare professionals living and working—often without pay for months—under such conditions are experiencing severe trauma.
“Several staff members told us they were simply waiting to die, and that they hoped Israel would get it over with sooner rather than later,” a pair of U.S. surgeons who volunteered at Gaza European Hospital wrote earlier this month for Politico.
Israel is currently on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands. Israeli forces have killed more than 40,400 Palestinians—mostly women and children—in Gaza since October, while wounding at least 93,500 others. At least 10,000 more Gazans are missing and believed dead and buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of buildings in the obliterated strip.
Most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been forcibly displaced by Israel’s bombardment and invasion. Israel’s ” complete siege” of Gaza has pushed hundreds of thousands of Palestinians over the brink of starvation; dozens of children have died due to malnutrition, dehydration, and lack of adequate medical care. Preventable diseases including measles, hepatitis, and polio are spreading, threatening not only Gazans but people in nearby countries including Israel and Egypt.
Meanwhile at the ICC—which is also located in The Hague—Prosecutor Karim Khan is pushing the tribunal to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders, at least one of whom, former political chief Ismail Haniyeh, has been assassinated by Israel.
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