Gruesome abuses reported at Israeli military-run prison near Gaza

WASHINGTON

A controversial Israeli military-run prison near the besieged Gaza Strip has been the site of gruesome rapes, beatings and torture, according to detainee testimony in a recently published report.

Eight former detainees told the New York Times newspaper that they had been beaten while custody, including being punched, kicked and struck with batons, rifle butts, and a metal detector while their were held at the Sde Teiman military base. Three of the victims said they had been subjected to electric shocks during interrogations, and seven said they were forced to wear only a diaper while being forcibly questioned.

Younis al-Hamlawi, 39, a senior nurse who was held at the prison, said a female officer ordered two soldiers to lift him up, and place his rectum on a metal rod, penetrating him, and causing rectal bleed that left him in “unbearable pain.”

The newspaper also cited a leaked draft of the UNRWA report that detailed an interview that gave a similar account. The report cited a 41-year-old detainee who said his interrogators made him sit "on something like a hot metal stick and it felt like fire".

In one case, another detainee "died after they put the electric stick up" his anus, said the report.

Hamlawi, as well as two other ex-detainees, recalled being forced to sit on a chair wired with electricity. He said he was shocked repeatedly, forcing him to urinate uncontrollably.

One Israeli soldier who served at the facilities, and who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he had seen signs of abuse on "several people," including one detainee who had been taken to a field hospital for treatment after he suffered a broken bone. Another detainee was returned with bleeding near his rib cage.

In all, 35 prisoners had died at the site, according to Sde Teiman officers who spoke to the Times.

The desert prison has been used by Israel's military to hold Palestinians who have been abducted from Gaza, including many people who have no proven links to militant groups, since Israel began its war on the coastal enclave in October. About 4,000 detainees have spent up to three months in limbo at the facility, including about 1,200 who were returned to Gaza without apology from Israeli authorities, according to the Times.

Some had been held without the ability to make their case before a judge for up to 75 days. Detainees are also denied access to their lawyers for up to 90 days, and rights groups and the International Committee of the Red Cross are denied information about their locations in what the Times said is a potential violation of international law.

Sde Teiman was once a military barracks, but has been transformed into a makeshift interrogation center since the onset of the war.

Fadi Bakr, a law student from Gaza City who was one of the former detainees interviewed by the newspaper, said he and hundreds of detainees were forced to sit in an open-sided hangar, handcuffed for up to 18 hours per day. The hangar had no external wall leaving detainees exposed to the elements as Israeli guards looked on.

Bakr said that he fell asleep under a state of exhaustion after being transferred to Sde Teiman, and was taken away from the group to a near command center where he was beaten.

"This is the punishment for anyone who sleeps,” Bakr recalled one of the officers telling him.

Israel’s Supreme Court on Wednesday began to hear a case from rights groups petitioning for the prison's closure.

The Israeli military denied in a statement to the Times that “systematic abuse” had occurred at Sde Teiman, saying in response to allegations of abuse that the charges presented in the report were “evidently inaccurate or completely unfounded.”