Prominent Israeli human rights group denounces decision to place victim in a situation where he could face his abusers
Soldiers lock a gate at Sde Teiman detention facility, after Israeli military police arrived as part of an investigation into the suspected abuse of a Palestinian detainee on 29 July (Reuters)
By MEE staff, 1 August 2024
A Palestinian detainee hospitalised in Beersheba after allegedly being raped by Israeli soldiers in Sde Teiman detention centre has been returned to the notorious facility, according to the Israeli news outlet Haaretz.
The prisoner was discharged to a field hospital at Sde Teiman.
He suffered from “a ruptured bowel, a severe injury to his anus, lung damage and broken ribs”, according to Haaretz and Arab48.
On Monday, nine Israeli soldiers at Sde Teiman were arrested on suspicion of raping a Palestinian detainee, sparking a riot when far-right activists and MPs stormed the facility.
The reservists, who are members of Force 100, a unit tasked with guarding the prisoners in Sde Teiman, were brought to the military court at the Beid Lid base for a bail hearing.
They claimed the prisoner attacked them during the search process, according to Haaretz.
Israeli NGO Physicians for Human Rights denounced the prisoner’s return to the facility where he was allegedly abused.
‘Serious ethical and professional failure’
“The return of the detainee to the clinic at Sde Teiman, the facility where he was subjected to torture, is a serious ethical and professional failure of the medical officials and hospital management who were involved in his medical care,” the organisation was quoted as saying in Haaretz.
“Through this decision, the medical teams exposed the detainee to the possibility that he would once again meet the soldiers suspected of raping him, thereby putting his life in danger.”
Yoel Donchin, a doctor at Sde Teiman who has attended the prisoner, was also quoted as saying that he “couldn’t believe an Israeli prison guard could do such a thing”.
He said: “If the state and Knesset [parliament] members think there’s no limit to how much you can abuse prisoners, they should kill them themselves, like the Nazis did, or close the hospitals… If they maintain a hospital only for the sake of defending ourselves at [the International Criminal Court] the Hague, that’s no good.”
About 4,000 Palestinians have been detained from Gaza in Israel since October 2023. Most are detained and interrogated in the enclave but many are brought to Sde Teiman, even if they are a non-combatant.
Torture, rape and murder have all been reported as rife at the facility, one of several facilities where Palestinians have been mistreated for decades.
On 15 July, Israel’s High Court issued a conditional order seeking to close Sde Teiman in response to the reports of abuse there.
The court’s order seeks an explanation as to “why the Sde Teiman detention facility is not operated in accordance with the conditions set forth in the law governing internment of unlawful combatants”.
Investigations by Middle East Eye, CNN and the New York Times found widespread examples of abuse at the centre.
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