Israeli rights group says Palestinian prisoners subject to systematic abuse
PHOTO CAPTION: Israeli soldiers stand by a truck packed with shirtless Palestinian detainees, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in the Gaza Strip December 8, 2023. REUTERS/Yossi Zeliger
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel has conducted a systematic policy of prisoner abuse and torture since the start of the war in Gaza, subjecting Palestinian detainees to acts ranging from arbitrary violence to sexual abuse, a report from Israeli rights group B'Tselem said on Monday.
The group said the report was based on interviews with 55 Palestinians from Gaza, the West Bank and Israel, who were detained in Israeli prisons since the Oct. 7 attack on Israel that set off the war, most of them without being tried.
"The testimonies clearly indicate a systematic, institutional policy focused on the continual abuse and torture of all Palestinian prisoners held by Israel," the report said.
The report was issued days after the Israeli military detained nine soldiers accused of severe abuse of a prisoner in a military facility in the Negev desert. According to Israeli press reports, the soldiers are accused of sexually abusing a member of an elite Hamas unit.
A spokesperson for the Israel Prison Service said that all prisoners were treated according to the law and all basic rights were fully applied by professionally trained guards.
"We are not aware of the claims you described and as far as we know, no such events have occurred under IPS responsibility," the spokesperson said, adding that detainees had the right to file complaints that would be fully examined and investigated.
B'Tselem detailed allegations that Palestinian prisoners were subjected to arbitrary beatings, degrading and humiliating treatment and sleep deprivation, as well as "the repeated use of sexual violence, in varying degrees of severity".
"The overall picture indicates abuse and torture carried out under orders, in utter defiance of Israel's obligations both under domestic law and international law," the report said.
Allegations of prisoner abuse have surfaced repeatedly during the war in Gaza, adding to mounting international pressure on Israel over its conduct of the 10 month-old war.
The report from B'Tselem, a group that documents human rights violations by Israel in the occupied West Bank and other areas, said the treatment accorded to prisoners was a deliberate policy implemented under the direction of the hardline National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
The prison service spokesperson said that since the Oct. 7 attack, Ben-Gvir had ordered that prison conditions be made more strict to reverse an improvement in conditions allowed previously.
Qadura Fares, head of the Palestine Liberation Organization's Commission for Prisoners and Ex-Detainees Affairs, reiterated a call for an international commission of inquiry into the treatment of prisoners to hold Israel accountable.
"We have documentation of the crimes committed by Israel against Palestinian detainees in its prisons and we have horrific testimonies of what detainees are subjected to, whether related to torture, rape and other crimes," he said.
(Reporting by James Mackenzie, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)
