‘Something You Can’t Imagine’ – Israeli Doctor Recounts Horrors at Sde Teiman

An unnamed Israeli physician gave a first-hand account to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz on Friday of the inhumane practices detainees from Gaza are subjected to. (photo: screen grab)

Many of the Palestinian detainees from Gaza had recently either undergone major surgeries or suffered gunshot wounds, which they endured in some cases only hours prior to their arrival at the detention camp.

An unnamed Israeli physician gave a first-hand account to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz on Friday of the inhumane practices detainees from Gaza are subjected to by Israeli forces at the infamous Sde Teiman detention facility, in the Naqab (Negev) desert.

The Israeli doctor, who reportedly served at the facility last winter, spoke of horrifying scenes of brutal treatment of Palestinian detainees from Gaza inside the medical tents.

“In one hospitalization tent, there were no more than 20 patients. All had their four limbs shackled to old steel beds, like the ones used in our hospitals years ago. All were conscious and all were blindfolded all the time,” the physician said, as reported by Haaretz.

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According to the unnamed doctor, many of the Palestinian detainees from Gaza had recently either undergone major surgeries or suffered gunshot wounds, which they endured in some cases only hours prior to their arrival at the detention camp.

“Every physician knows that what such a person needs is a day or two in intensive care and then to be moved to a ward. … But the person was sent to a pen in Sde Teiman two hours after surgery,” the doctor reportedly revealed.

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According to the report, the doctor highlighted the case of “another patient suffering from a systemic infection – sepsis.”

“He was in critical condition, and even according to the protocol, he should not have been there. Only patients who are completely stable are supposed to be hospitalized at Sde Teiman. But he was there and they said there was no alternative,” the doctor stressed.

“To hold a person without letting them move any of their limbs, blindfolded, naked, under treatment, in the middle of the desert, … in the end, it’s no less than torture,” the physician added.

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The Israeli doctor also told Haaretz that his entire experience of serving at the detention facility of Sde Teiman “felt so surrealistic to me. (…)  Like, everything I’d been taught, all the years in university and in hospitals, how to treat people – all that exists, but in an environment in which 20 people are being held naked in a tent. It’s something you can’t imagine.”

This latest testimony of the Israeli physician concurs with previous testimonies by other whistleblowers and human rights organizations as the likes of B’Tselem Israeli human rights group confirming torture and physical and sexual abuse at the notorious detention center and other detention facilities.

In recent months, numerous reports have emerged of mass abuse of Palestinian prisoners from Gaza at the Sde Teiman prison in the Naqab desert, in southern Israel. Israeli authorities often claim to investigate the incidents, but tangible results are rarely seen.

(Anadolu, PC)

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