Haaretz reported that the detainees are held in fenced compounds, blindfolded and handcuffed for most of the day.
Hundreds of Palestinians who were detained in Gaza during the ongoing Israel’s invasion of the besieged Strip have been held for weeks at a detention facility in southern Israel, where several of them have died under unclear circumstances, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on Monday.
“The detainees are blindfolded and handcuffed for most of the day, and the lights are on at the facility throughout the night,” the report stated.
According to the Israeli newspaper, citing Israeli army officials, the prisoners are held in the Sde Teiman military base, near Bir al Saba (Beersheba), in southern Israel.
Haaretz reported that the detainees are held in fenced compounds, blindfolded and handcuffed for most of the day.
Hundreds of Gazans arrested during war held blindfolded and handcuffed at Israeli base https://t.co/g2Q65x0o71 #palestine #freepalestine #gaza
— Palestine.News (@Palestine972) December 18, 2023
Among the prisoners, there are also children, according to Haaretz. “The detainees at Sde Teiman are all male and range in age between those under 18 to those who are elderly,” the Israeli newspaper said.
According to the report, the prisoners are held in accordance with Israel’s Unlawful Combatants Law of 2002.
The Israeli human rights group B’tselem has repeatedly called on Israel to “cease use of the Incarceration of Unlawful Combatants Law,” which releases “the state from the need to provide evidence justifying the internment and its continuation, thus switching the burden of proof onto the shoulders of the internee, who can never refute the allegations.”
The human rights organization Euro-Med Monitor called on Monday for “an international investigation into Israel’s liquidation and torture of detainees from Gaza,” referring to Israel’s actions as a “New Guantanamo”.
"غوانتنامو جديد": الأورومتوسطي يدعو لتحقيق دولي بتصفية وتعذيب إسرائيل معتقلين من غزة https://t.co/kglie7Ly9v
— المرصد الأورومتوسطي (@EuroMedHRAr) December 18, 2023
In a statement, the Geneva-based group said that the testimonies it collected are consistent with the reports by Haaretz of field executions, torture, and ill-treatment of Palestinan prisoners.
The “detainees are held in very harsh conditions, inside places resembling chicken cages, in the open, and left without food or war for long periods”.
Euro-Med Monitor also stated that the prisoners are prevented from meeting with their lawyers or representatives of the Red Cross International Committee.
The group also cited the Hebrew version of Haaretz report as saying that one of the prisoners, a Palestinian from Gaza who used to work inside Israel, requested medical attention but the Israeli army ignored it.
Haaretz also reported that “the Israeli army presented only 71 out of more than 500 detainees before the Israeli courts”.
Euro-Med Monitor urged the Red Cross International Committee and the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention to “pressure the Israeli authorities to reveal the fate of detainees from the Gaza Strip, release them, and investigate the grave violations they were subjected to.”
(The Palestine Chronicle)
