Call for an international investigation into violations at SDE Tayman Prison
GAZA (AA) – Hamas and Palestinian entities have called on an international commission to investigate cases of sexual abuse and torture of Palestinians at the Sde Teyman military base in southern Israel, where Palestinians detained from Gaza are being held.
Hamas issued a written statement regarding sexual abuse and torture at the Sdeh Teyman military base in the south, where Palestinians are being held.
“The brutal human rights violations and systematic torture of thousands of people detained from the Gaza Strip at Sde Teyman military base by sadistic Zionist officers and occupation soldiers confirm Israel’s aberration of human values,” the statement said.
The attention of the world, the United Nations and human rights agencies has been drawn to the Israeli camps and the missing there. It has been noted that their situation and unknown fate should be traced.
Hamas called for the establishment of an international commission of inquiry to investigate these horrific and brutal crimes committed against those held in Israeli prisons.
It was stressed that international intervention is urgently needed to stop these horrific crimes against the Palestinian people and to bring Tel Aviv on the list of war crimes and genocide targets at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court (ICC).
It called for serious steps to be taken to prosecute and hold accountable perpetrators of crimes against prisoners and serious violations of international law.
Palestinian institutions call for international investigation
Kaddoula Faris, head of the Palestinian Prisoner Delegation from the Palestine Liberation Organization, called on the international community to urgently intervene to stop the crimes committed against Palestinian prisoners over the course of nearly 10 months and to hold Israel in custody.
Faris said a UN commission should be established to investigate the horrific crimes suffered by prisoners at Sde Teyman military base, where crimes of torture and sexual abuse have come to light.
Referring to the arrest of nine soldiers on suspicion of sexually abusing and torturing a Palestinian at the Sde Teyman military base, Faris said this was “nothing but a play aimed at misleading world opinion by investigating a single rape case while ignoring thousands of other rape cases. “Other things he cited show that Israel is a state of law,” he said.
“If Israel is a state of laws, then Defense Minister Yoav Galant and far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir should have been arrested for encouraging the killing of prisoners,” he said.
Faris noted that Israeli crimes against Palestinian captives and prisoners know no limits and are another facet of the ongoing genocide, and reiterated his call for the International Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants for Israeli officials.
UN convenes emergency meeting to discuss torture of Palestinians in Israeli prisons
In a statement, Palestinian National Council Chairman Ruhi Hutu called for the establishment of an international commission of inquiry to look into the inhuman conditions imposed on Palestinian prisoners by the Israeli prison administration.
Futou noted that Ben Gvir had taken advantage of the massacres and ethnic cleansing that had been going on in Gaza for about 10 months to order his soldiers to commit further crimes of torture and murder against prisoners, and called on the international community to take action to stop these heinous crimes.
Abdullah Ez Zegari, president of the Palestinian Prisoners Association, also said the violation was just one of thousands of crimes committed against prisoners since the start of the Gaza war, and that similar crimes were being committed in other prisons.
Zegari noted that most of the prisoners in Gaza are accused of enforced disappearance and called on the UN to convene an urgent meeting to discuss crimes such as torture, murder, sexual abuse, starvation and humiliation inflicted on prisoners in Israeli prisons.
Torture is a frequent topic in Sde Teyman Detention Centre, in southern Israel, where Gazans are held.
In a story published in the New York Times last month, Gazans held at Sde Teima detention centre said they were made to sit silently on the ground, blindfolded and handcuffed, outside for up to 18 hours a day.
According to news reports, Palestinian detainees brought to the detention centres were kept there for up to three months, with many being subjected to inhuman treatment and torture during interrogation.
Some Gazans who were held there and later released have described the torture they suffered in Sde Teima.