Rape, torture, stripping: How Israel is abusing Palestinian detainees

In Sde Teiman, Israel’s “torture centre” in the Negev desert, where increasing reports of torture bear haunting resemblances to the abuses at the US’s notorious Abu Ghraib detention facility, thousands of Palestinian men captured from Gaza since October 7 have been held without charge.

What happened on July 29, where nine Israeli soldiers were detained for questioning over reports of gang rape involving a Palestinian detainee, is only the latest in a series of similar sexual abuse allegations emerging from the shadowy facility and the wider Palestinian territories since October 7.

Besides killing nearly 40,000 people in its genocidal war on Gaza, Israel has ramped up arbitrary arrests and detention without trial of Palestinians across all occupied territories.

Here is a compilation of reports of Israeli abuse targeting Palestinian detainees since October 7.

Palestinian activists and human rights organisations, however, say that these are just the tip of the iceberg and a large number of similar cases of Israeli abuse are waiting to be exposed to the world.

July 29, 2024

Israeli media reported that a Palestinian detainee was gang-raped by Israeli soldiers in Sde Teiman. The Palestinian was taken to a hospital with severe injuries to an intimate body part, rendering him unable to walk.

Military police officers who arrived at Sde Teiman in southern Israel to detain the soldiers were met with protests by far-right Israeli protesters. The soldiers being questioned should be treated like heroes, not criminals, Israeli far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a prominent leader of the ultra nationalist-religious bloc in Netanyahu's government, said on X.

June 6, 2024

A New York Times report revealed incidents of sexual abuse in Sde Teiman, citing an eyewitness report of a Palestinian captive suffering injuries after being ordered to “press his rectum against a metal stick that was fixed to the ground”.

The article also referenced a leaked UNRWA report that revealed a pattern of mistreatment involving a metal stick in similar instances.

In the report, a 41-year-old victim who survived the abuse is cited as saying that another detainee had died from his injuries.

June 15, 2024

In a press briefing, Khalid Mahajneh, the first Palestinian lawyer to be allowed into the detention facility since October 7, detailed harrowing accounts of sexual abuse involving dogs as well as a fire extinguisher.

His statements were based on descriptions by Mohammed Arab, Al Araby TV’s Gaza correspondent, who was released after being detained from Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital amid a large-scale Israeli raid on March 18.

“Mohammed Arab, the journalist with Al Araby TV, informed me of cases of rape of inmates as well as torture in front of everyone,” the Palestinian lawyer said.

June 13, 2024

A UN-backed commission’s report, based on interviews with victims and witnesses, revealed widespread sexual violence against Palestinians by Israel in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, involving forced public nudity, public stripping as well as sexualised torture.

The panel also noted that Israel obstructed and prevented its access to Palestine to probe war crimes. “Based on testimonies and verified video footage and photographs, the commission finds that sexual violence has been perpetrated throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory during evacuation processes, prior to or during arrest, at civilian homes and at a shelter for women and girls,” the report read.

February 19, 2024

UN experts cited reports of female Palestinian detainees being raped as well as threatened with sexual violence in a report on "credible allegations" of human rights violations against Palestinian women and girls in Gaza and the West Bank.

“At least two female Palestinian detainees were reportedly raped while others were reportedly threatened with rape and sexual violence,” the press release read.