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New testimonies from four Palestinians released from Israeli prisons reveal an “organized and systematic practice of sexual torture,” according to a new report by the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR).
The four prisoners from Gaza, whose graphic and harrowing testimonies were published on Nov. 10, were among dozens interviewed by PCHR who were abducted and detained during the last two years of the genocide.
In one testimony published by PCHR, a 42-year-old mother described being gang raped by Israeli soldiers over the course of three days. She said they filmed her and beat her when she resisted.
“I wished for death every moment. After they raped me, I was left alone in the same room, hands still cuffed to the bed, and without clothes for many hours. I could hear the soldiers outside speaking Hebrew and laughing.”
The woman said the soldiers threatened to post photos of her on social media.
Another testimony was that of a 35-year-old father who was abducted from Al-Shifa Hospital in March 2024 and held in prison for 19 months. He described horrific conditions at the notorious Sde Teiman detention camp, including being raped by a trained dog.
Rana Sharif, postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Berkeley and a member of the Palestinian Feminist Collective, said that she felt suffocated when she read the testimonies.
“I was enraged, horrified,” she told Prism. “We are acutely aware that these testimonies are just four of the dozens that have come out since October 2023. We’re also aware, and want to acknowledge, that there are perhaps even more that we will never know about in the context of genocide.”
She emphasized that these acts of sexual violence are not an anomaly.
“Sexual violence, rape, and gendered violence are foundational to the genocidal logic of the settler state,” Sharif said. “[They] are utilities to exact power, debilitate Palestinians, and strip them—literally and metaphorically—of their dignity and integrity.”
These testimonies have garnered little international attention, with only a handful of alternative media outlets reporting on them. What dominated the media sphere, however, was when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the “most serious PR attack” on Israel, referencing a leaked video showing Israeli soldiers sodomizing a Palestinian prisoner at Sde Teiman last year.
Riots after rape case revelation
On July 29, 2024, nine Israeli soldiers were apprehended by investigators on allegations of abuse at Sde Teiman. The soldiers attempted to barricade themselves to avoid arrest. Israeli protesters quickly gathered at the Sde Teiman base and the base of the military court in their defense. Israeli officials and Knesset members advocated for the release of the perpetrators, justifying their actions.
The soldiers were accused of, and later admitted to, raping a Palestinian at Sde Teiman, in the Naqab (or Negev in Hebrew). The prisoner suffered from a ruptured bowel, an injury to his anus, lung damage, and broken ribs. Four soldiers were released while five were placed under temporary house arrest. This came weeks after reports by CNN and The New York Times on the harrowing conditions that Palestinian prisoners endured and a petition filed by civil society organizations—which the Israeli Supreme Court rejected—to shut down the detention center.
On Aug. 7, 2024, video footage depicting Israeli soldiers sodomizing the Palestinian prisoner was leaked to Israeli media. Subsequently, protests in defense of the detained reservists broke out and were backed by high-level Israeli politicians, in what was dubbed by observers and some media as the “right to rape” riots.
“The lack of accountability, the perverse celebration of those rapists in the leaked video, [and] the outrage over a ‘public relations attack’ demonstrate the level of depravity of an entity where such violence is not only normalized and deemed necessary, but is intrinsic to the fabric of the society,” Sharif lamented.
Last month, the Israeli military’s advocate general, Maj. Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi revealed in a resignation letter that she had authorized the leak of the video. Her admission followed a criminal probe by Israel’s attorney general into the leak. A witch hunt ensued for her arrest as reports of her brief disappearance and a suicide note were reported by Israeli media. She was later found and detained on the same day. Her admission sparked an outpour of criticism, including from officials and protesters, who defended the soldiers.
Basil Farraj, an assistant professor at Birzeit University, oversees a database at the Institute for Palestine Studies that documents the condition of prisoners after Operation Al-Aqsa Flood. He told Prism that what transpired from the leak and actions at Sde Teiman speaks to how the Israeli carceral regime functions “to cover up” violence and torture.
“It shows that there’s an utter disregard for Palestinian lives and for the violence and torture that’s being practiced and continues to be practiced against Palestinian prisoners,” Farraj said.
Farraj added that the Israeli carceral project has been longstanding and is systemic, noting that it exists not only to detain Palestinians but to strip them of their political consciousness.
“There’s this broader kind of political function to the Israeli prison, which is to create a docile, depoliticized population,” Farraj said.
On Nov. 16, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Media Office said that Israel delivered a list of 1,468 Palestinian prisoners who were abducted from Gaza since October 2023. The number of Palestinians detained is likely much higher, as thousands remain missing.
Roughly 4,000 Palestinians have been held at Sde Teiman between October 2023 and May 2024. No data is available after this date. Last month, the director general of the Gaza Health Ministry, Dr. Muneer Alboursh, revealed that 135 mutilated bodies—returned as part of the terms of the ceasefire—were accompanied by a document in each body bag, indicating that the bodies came from Sde Teiman.
Israel is currently holding 9,250 political prisoners, according to Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association. More than half of those are injured or ill, and 3,368 are held without trial or charge, while 350 are children.
Ninety-eight Palestinian prisoners have been killed in Israeli detention since the genocide began.
Abuse of Palestinian children in prison
On Nov. 13, Defense of Children International-Palestine also published the testimonies of three Palestinian boys from Gaza who were released from Sde Teiman during the ceasefire agreement last month. The three teenagers were abducted while seeking aid from sites of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, whose contractors are known for shooting at and disappearing Palestinians.
The boys described being severely beaten, stripped naked, and subjected to torture, electric shocks, and obscene insults. Faris Abu Jabal, 16, said he was shown a doctored image of his mother lying next to a soldier. He was told that the soldier raped and killed her and his sisters. Abu Jabal described being overwhelmed and cursing his jailer, who punished him by tying him up and suspending him midair in a stress position for a week. He was also beaten by his jailers.
Lara Sheehi, a clinical psychologist and a research fellow at the University of South Africa, told Prism that Israel’s carceral torture is nothing new.
“Settler colonialism—as an eliminationist ideology of Indigenous people—is going to include all modes of violence that wear down and psychologically try to infiltrate people’s minds and break them down and distort the way they think about themselves,” Sheehi said.
She explained that the testimonies of Palestinian political prisoners reveal that humiliation is central to their torture. And while the violence of the acts themselves can be recognized, it cannot be erased.
“What we can do is make certain that we constantly hold a space for these political prisoners, particularly when they’re liberated,” Sheehi added. “So that their reentering to the collective is not predicated on them being invincible heroes.”
Editorial Team:
Sahar Fatima, Lead Editor
Carolyn Copeland, Top Editor
Stephanie Harris, Copy Editor
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