{"id":34508,"date":"2024-08-14T05:23:25","date_gmt":"2024-08-13T21:23:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/?p=34508"},"modified":"2025-01-19T06:30:22","modified_gmt":"2025-01-18T22:30:22","slug":"state-secrets-and-crimes-rape-at-israels-sde-teiman-prison-lisa-hajjar-basil-farraj","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/state-secrets-and-crimes-rape-at-israels-sde-teiman-prison-lisa-hajjar-basil-farraj\/","title":{"rendered":"State Secrets and Crimes – Rape at Israel\u2019s Sde Teiman Prison | Lisa Hajjar, Basil Farraj"},"content":{"rendered":"


\nThe recent reports of rapes of Palestinian prisoners at the Israeli detention camp, Sde Teiman, and elsewhere have caused widespread outrage, revealing the fault lines in Israel\u2019s political and military establishment amid the ongoing war on Gaza.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Knesset members Limor Son Har-Melech (right) and Yitzhak Kroizer (in white) from the far right-wing Otzma Yehudit\u00ed<\/span><\/span>
\nparty stand with armed and masked reservists from Force 100 – Matan Golan\/SOPA Images\/LightRocket via Getty Images
\n<\/span><\/p>\n


\nThese events are playing out as MERIP has been hard at work on our Fall Issue, \u2018Carceral Realities and Freedom Dreams.\u2019 Given MERIP\u2019s long history<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span> of documenting<\/span><\/span><\/a> grave abuses<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span> in the Israeli prison system and the work we\u2019re currently engaged in, we felt it appropriate to share a preview from the issue that addresses the Sde Teiman events head-on. The following is excerpted from an in-depth report by Lisa Hajjar and Basil Farraj on Israel\u2019s war on Palestinian prisoners that will be released in full as part of our Fall Issue. We\u2019re sharing this now to continue our mission of shining a light on these crimes against humanity in the region and highlighting defiance and dissent in the face of such crimes. This work is a powerful reminder that, as the authors put it, \u201cin this exceptionally violent present\u2026 defiance is above all a will to survive.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Yesterday, in the latest episode of unrest over sexual violence in Israel\u2019s prisons, a video<\/a> of nine soldiers raping a Palestinian detainee was broadcast<\/a> on Israel\u2019s Channel 12. Later in the day, a right-wing mob converged<\/a> on Israel\u2019s Supreme Court and disrupted a hearing about Sde Teiman.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sde Teiman is an Israeli military camp in the Negev desert that was partially converted into a detention center after the start of Israel\u2019s war on Gaza in October. It has been characterized as a black site because it is inaccessible to independent monitors and officials regard the identities and treatment of Palestinians held there a state secret.<\/span><\/p>\n

But the veil of secrecy shrouding Sde Teiman was lifted in April when Haaretz reported<\/a> on a letter sent to Israeli cabinet members by a doctor working at the facility. \u201cJust this week, two prisoners had their legs amputated due to handcuff injuries, which unfortunately is a routine event,\u2019 the physician said in the letter.\u201d He added, \u201cI am writing to warn you that the facilities\u2019 operations do not comply with a single section among those dealing with health in the Incarceration of Unlawful Combatants Law.\u201d [1]<\/sup><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

One month later, CNN published an explosive expos\u00e9<\/a> about Sde Teiman based on accounts by three whistleblowing soldiers and 12 Gazans who were recently released. According to the whistleblowers, one section of the detention facility contains a large barbed-wire pen where blindfolded Palestinians are shackled in stress positions for up to 16 hours a day with no shelter from the desert heat. Detainees who talk, fall asleep or even move can be cuffed to the fence in a standing position with hands above their heads. At night, dogs have been released into prisoners\u2019 cells while sound grenades are fired. The other section of the detention facility contains a field hospital where wounded Palestinians are shackled to beds, blindfolded, stripped of their clothes, and forced to defecate in diapers. CNN reported that \u201cdoctors sometimes amputated prisoners\u2019 limbs due to injuries sustained from constant handcuffing; of medical procedures sometimes performed by underqualified medics earning it a reputation for being \u2018a paradise for interns\u2019; and where the air is filled with the smell of neglected wounds left to rot.\u201d [2]<\/sup><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The decision by Israeli doctors to perform medical procedures on detainees without anesthesia is not due to shortages, as is the case for doctors in Gaza; it is a choice that comports with the retaliatory and illegal nature of the broader war<\/a>. One informant told CNN: \u201cI was asked to learn how to do things on the patients, performing minor medical procedures that are totally outside my expertise.\u201d [3]<\/sup><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Khaled Mahajneh was the first lawyer the military permitted to visit Sde Teiman. He went to the facility on June 19 to meet with Mohammad Arab, an Al Araby TV journalist who was taken into custody in March while covering the Israeli attack on al-Shifa Hospital. In an interview with +972<\/a>, Mahajneh said, \u201cThe situation there is more horrific than anything we\u2019ve heard about Abu Ghraib and Guant\u00e1namo.\u201d [4]<\/sup><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

A Right to Rape?<\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n

Amid plentiful accounts and abundant material evidence of systematic rape, torture and murder of Palestinian prisoners<\/a>, in July, Major General Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, the military advocate general, moved forward on an investigation of a gang rape by nine soldiers at Sde Teiman. A Palestinian from Gaza, who is accused of being a member of Hamas\u2019s Nukhba unit, was so badly brutalized in the course of being sodomized that he suffered a ruptured bowel, severe damage to his anus, broken ribs and lung damage. He was transferred in critical condition to a nearby hospital where he required surgery. <\/span><\/p>\n

Dr. Yoel Donchin, who treated him at Sde Teiman, told Haaretz<\/a> that he was shocked an Israeli guard could do such a thing. \u201cI was certain this was revenge by Nukhba against Nukhba.\u201d [5]<\/span><\/sup> He added, \u201cIf the state and Knesset members think there\u2019s no limit to how much you can abuse prisoners, they should kill them themselves, like the Nazis did, or close the hospitals\u2026If they maintain a hospital only for the sake of defending ourselves at the Hague, that\u2019s no good.\u201d [6]<\/sup><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Amid plentiful accounts and abundant material evidence of systematic rape, torture and murder of Palestinian prisoners, in July, Major General Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, the military advocate general, moved forward on an investigation of a gang rape by nine soldiers at Sde Teiman.<\/span><\/p>\n

On July 29, military police were dispatched to Sde Teiman<\/a> to take into custody the nine reservists accused of the gang rape; one of them is a major who commands Force 100, the unit that operates Sde Teiman (and other military detention facilities). Another reservist also wanted for multiple acts of aggravated abuse of prisoners was not on the base at the time. Soldiers from Force 100 resisted the military police<\/a> in an attempt to prevent the arrests. Following shouting and clashes, they barricaded themselves along with the wanted suspects in a show of solidarity. During this standoff, a mob of about 200 Israelis, including some members of the Knesset, stormed the base to support the soldiers. Police stationed nearby waited over an hour to enter the base and expel the rioters.<\/span><\/p>\n

As events at Sde Teiman were unfolding, there were debates in the Knesset<\/a> over the military advocate general\u2019s move to investigate soldiers for gang rape. Likud member Yuli Edelstein, who chairs the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, said, \u201cA situation where masked military police officers conduct a raid on an IDF base is not acceptable to me and I will not allow it to happen again. Our soldiers are not criminals and this disgraceful persecution of our soldiers is unacceptable to me.\u201d [7]<\/sup> <\/span>Ahmad Tibi, a member from Hadash Ta\u2019al who was outraged by comments of other members, asked: \u201cIs inserting an explosive into the rectum of a person legitimate?\u201d Likud member Hanoch Milvetsky retorted, \u201cIf he is a Nukhba, everything is legitimate.\u201d [8]<\/sup><\/span> Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir chimed in<\/a> that \u201cthe sight of military policemen arriving to arrest our best heroes in Sde Teiman is nothing short of shameful. I advise the Minister of Defense, the Chief of Staff and the army authorities to support the soldiers and to benefit from the Prison Service. The summer camp and tolerance for terrorists are over. Our soldiers must receive full support.\u201d [9]<\/sup><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

When the nine suspects finally were extricated from Sde Teiman, they were transferred to the base at Beit Lid for questioning. There, an even larger mob\u2014including members of Force 100\u2014stormed the base and rampaged to protest the arrest of soldiers accused of rape and aggravated abuse. On July 31, two of the suspects were released without charges<\/a>, three more were released<\/a> earlier this week. The other five remain under investigation. On August 1, it was reported that the gang-raped detainee was returned to Sde Teiman<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

The War on Prisoners<\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n

Israel\u2019s treatment of Palestinians is an evolving story, but one never free of dehumanization and discrimination<\/a>. Endemic torture and abuse of prisoners is only one dimension of the violent and degrading practices present in all spheres of Israeli control that affect Palestinians. Israel\u2019s carceral project<\/a> has been designed and developed to eliminate Palestinians\u2019 national-collective existence, to re-engineer the population through fragmentation and repression and to deter people from engaging in resistance or even aspiring to liberation. Indeed, as Walid Daqqa\u2014a long-serving prisoner who died in Israeli custody in April\u2014explained, there are the \u201csmall prisons,\u201d where at least 800,000 Palestinians<\/a> have been incarcerated over the decades, and the \u201clarge prison\u201d of Palestinian society which, despite geographic and political fragmentation, remains unified by experiences of occupation and apartheid. [10]<\/sup><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In the current moment\u2014as Israel\u2019s genocidal war on Gaza has killed tens of thousands and military assaults and state-supported settler pogroms are rampant across the West Bank\u2014the level and scope of violence and dehumanization perpetrated against Palestinian prisoners by Israeli soldiers, security agents and prison staff has extended the hot war into the prisons. What the Israeli government consistently fails to appreciate, however, is the resilience of Palestinian defiance against erasure. In this exceptionally violent present, this defiance is above all a will to survive.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Source: <\/span>State Secrets and Crimes – Rape at Israel\u2019s Sde Teiman Prison<\/a> | Lisa Hajjar, Basil Farraj | Middle East Research and Information Project<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

[Lisa Hajjar<\/strong> is chair of the sociology department at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Basil Farraj<\/strong> is an assistant professor at the Department of Philosophy and Cultural studies, Birzeit University.] 14 August 2024
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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Endnotes<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

[1]<\/span><\/a> Hagar Shezaf and Michael Hauser Tov, \u201c<\/span>Doctor at Israeli Field Hospital for Detained Gazans: \u2018We Are All Complicit in Breaking the Law\u2019<\/a>,\u201d Haaretz<\/em>, April 4, 2024.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> \u201c<\/span>Strapped down, blindfolded, held in diapers: Israeli whistleblowers detail abuse of Palestinians in shadowy detention center<\/a>,\u201d CNN, May 11, 2024.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Ibid.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Baker Zoubi, \u201c\u2018<\/span>More horrific than Abu Ghraib\u2019: Lawyer recounts visit to Israeli detention center<\/a>,\u201d +972 Magazine, June 27, 2024.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Hagar Shezaf, Bar Peleg and Ran Shimoni, \u201c<\/span>Sde Teiman Doctor Who Saw Abused Gazan Detainee: \u2018I Couldn\u2019t Believe an Israeli Prison Guard Could Do Such a Thing\u2019<\/a>,\u201d Haaretz<\/em>, July 30, 2024<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Ibid.<\/span><\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> Eliav Breuer, Ministers, \u201c<\/span>MKs criticize arrests of soldiers suspected of terrorist prisoner abuse<\/a>,\u201d The Jerusalem Post<\/em>, July 29, 2024.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> Ibid.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

[9]<\/a> Ibid.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

[10]<\/a> Basil Farraj and Hashem Abushama, \u201c<\/span>\u2018Parallel Time\u2019: Cultural Productions from the Small Prison to the Large Prison<\/a>,\u201d Jadaliyya, March 24, 2022.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Related<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Constant Handcuffs and No Showers: Gazans Detail Abuse in Israeli Detention<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Inside Sde Teiman, the Base Where Israel Detains Gazans by Patrick Kingsley & Bilal Shbair<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Limbs of Palestinians detained by Israel amputated because of injuries caused by shackles, doctor says<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

We Served on Israel’s Sde Teiman Base. Here’s What We Did to Gazans Detained There<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Raped by female soldiers\u2019: Palestinian in leaked Sde Teiman photo speaks out<\/a><\/span>
\n <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The recent reports of rapes of Palestinian prisoners at the Israeli detention camp, Sde Teiman, and elsewhere have caused widespread outrage, revealing the fault lines in Israel\u2019s political and military establishment amid the ongoing war on Gaza.   Knesset members Limor Son Har-Melech (right) and Yitzhak Kroizer (in white) from the far right-wing Otzma Yehudit\u00ed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":34527,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[113,645,3,392],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-foreign-policy","category-gaza-genocide","category-political-issues","category-racism"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34508\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}