A video documenting the gang-rape of a Palestinian by Israeli soldiers in an Israeli prison is shocking part of Israeli society, with another part defending the soldiers.
Footage captured by security cameras and broadcast by Israeli television channel Channel 12 shows Israeli soldiers gang-raping a Palestinian detainee at the Sde Teiman detention center in the southern part of the country.
The incident in late July, which led to the arrest of nine soldiers and an investigation by Israeli authorities, has divided the country, with many Israelis expressing shock at the images in the video and others, including members of the Israeli government, denounce the arrests of soldiers, downplaying the significance of the alleged incident.
The incident reportedly took place at the Sde Teiman detention center in the Negev desert in southern Israel.
The video, which has been verified by Al Jazeera and the Guardian, shows the prisoner being picked off by a larger group of prisoners chained to the floor. The victim is then driven into a wall. There the guards raise their shields to hide their faces from the camera and proceed to rape the prisoner.
Israeli TV channel (12) exposed how Israeli soldiers in Sdi Timan prison collectively and repeatedly raped a Palestinian prisoner. pic.twitter.com/UJwmOyV6hN
— Mustafa Barghouti @Mustafa_Barghouti (@MustafaBarghou1) August 7, 2024
The attack is believed to have been so brutal that, after he was taken to hospital, Israeli media reported that the victim was unable to walk. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz spoke to Yoel Donsin, the prisoner’s attending physician, who said the latter suffered “a ruptured intestine, a serious injury to the anus, lung damage and broken ribs.”
Ten soldiers were eventually arrested for the rape that occurred on July 29. The soldiers belong to a unit known as Force 100, which is tasked with guarding the Sde Teiman facility, according to Haaretz.
Military prosecutors released three of the arrested soldiers on August 4, in addition to the two previously released by investigators after a hearing at the military court in Kfar Yona on July 30, during which protesters gathered in support of the arrested soldiers.
Torture of prisoners
The video shocked many in Israeli society. Human rights organizations and the UN have expressed concerns about the treatment of Palestinian prisoners. B’Tselem, an Israeli non-governmental human rights organization, reported yesterday that thousands of Palestinians have been “mistreated and tortured” in a “systematic” manner in Israeli prisons since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7. According to the NGO, more than ten detention centers have been turned into “de facto torture camps”.
The release of B’Tselem’s findings comes a week after a United Nations report found that Palestinian prisoners were being subjected to treatment that could amount to torture.
The video of the alleged gang-rape is the latest in a growing body of evidence of abuse, sexual assault and systematic deprivation of food and medical care suffered by Palestinians in the Israeli prison system, according to B’Tselem.
“The conditions at St Tejman are not unique. It’s just the tip of the iceberg,” the organization’s spokesman, Sai Parnes, told Al Jazeera.
The Israeli military says that “any act of ill-treatment of detainees, whether during their arrest or interrogation, is illegal, against regulations and strictly prohibited.”
Gang rapes for… state security
But for some, including Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, the outrage should be focused on the “crime” of filming the gang-rape rather than the alleged rape itself.
Last night in a post on X, Smotrich called for an immediate criminal investigation to identify those who leaked the video. According to the minister, they were intended to “harm the reservists, cause enormous damage to Israel’s image in the world, and impose the heaviest punishments on the soldiers.”
Others rushed to support the arrested soldiers, including National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gir who said that any action – even gang rape – is permissible if it is done for the security of the state.
Far-right mob in favor of rapists
After the arrest of the reservists on July 29, far-right mobs, including some government ministers, stormed the facility in Sde Teiman in southern Israel later that day.
Unable to find and release the captured soldiers, they then went to the base in Beit Lind, 60 kilometers away, where the soldiers were being held for questioning, to demand their release.
The unrest continued during a court hearing convened on Wednesday to hear reports from Sde Tejman detainees who have allegedly been tortured. Court proceedings were interrupted by protesters, including victims of the October 7 Hamas attack, who chanted “Shame”.
Hundreds of Israeli settlers have surrounded the home of the head military prosecutor to protest his investigation of Israeli soldiers for raping a Palestinian detainee and to condemn Channel 12 reporter Guy Peleg, who exposed the assault by publishing the video. pic.twitter.com/NVgVhIdxe0
— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) August 8, 2024
Israeli politicians, including cabinet members, also defended the accused. Ben-Gvir, who is in charge of the prison service, told Israeli media on the day the reservists were arrested that it was a “shame” for Israel to arrest “our best heroes”. That same day, Smotrich, who was among the far-right mob that stormed the prison, posted a video saying that “IDF soldiers deserve respect” and should not be treated as “criminals.”
When Ahmad Tibi, an Arab lawmaker, asked in a Knesset session last week whether it was legal to “stick a stick up a man’s anus,” Hanos Milwinski, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party, replied: “If he is a fighter of Hamas, anything legal, everything is allowed! All!”
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