Inside Israel's torture camp for Gaza detainees
www.972mag.com
Palestinians arrested in the northern Gaza Strip describe how Israeli soldiers systematically abused civilians and combatants alike, from severe deprivation to brutal physical violence.

In early December, images circulated worldwide showing dozens of Palestinian men in the city of Beit Lahiya, in the northern Gaza Strip, who were stripped to their underwear, kneeling or sitting hunched over, then blindfolded and put into the back of Israeli military trucks like cattle. The vast majority of these detainees were civilians with no affiliation to Hamas, Israeli security officials later confirmed, and the men were taken away by the army without notifying their families of the detainees’ whereabouts. Some of them never returned.

+972 Magazine and Local Call spoke with four Palestinian civilians who appeared in these photos, or were arrested near the scene and taken to Israeli military detention centers, where they were held for several days or even weeks before being released back to Gaza. Their testimonies — along with 49 video testimonies published by various Arabic media outlets of Palestinians arrested in similar circumstances in recent weeks in the northern districts of Zeitoun, Jabalia, and Shuja’iya — indicate systematic abuse and torture by Israeli soldiers against all of the detainees, civilians and combatants alike.

According to these testimonies, Israeli soldiers subjected Palestinian detainees to electric shocks, burned their skin with lighters, spat in their mouths, and deprived them of sleep, food, and access to bathrooms until they defecated on themselves. Many were tied to a fence for hours, handcuffed, and blindfolded for most of the day. Some testified to having been beaten all over their bodies and having cigarettes extinguished on their necks or backs. Several people are known to have died as a result of being held in these conditions.

    • @rez_doggieEnglish
      26•1 year ago

      It’s been at this level for decades.

    • bobalotEnglish
      17•1 year ago

      Serious question.

      Does an occupier have the “right” to defend itself from attacks from the occupied in occupied areas? For example, attacks on the IDF in the West Bank.

        • bobalotEnglish
          15•1 year ago

          The settlements only exist because the Palestinians have been violently ethnically cleansed from the land the settlements exist on.

          What you are arguing is effectively, it’s fine to ethnically cleanse as long you settle civilians there afterwards.

            • @[email protected]English
              13•1 year ago

              The IRA and ANC had great political outcomes through violence. Meanwhile the PLO laid down arms and Israel acts like the Oslo accords never happened.

                • @AceticonEnglish
                  12•1 year ago

                  In case you haven’t noticed, most of the Palestinians being killed are the ones that didn’t resort to violence, exactly the behaviour you claim above they should try.

                  Your entire “argumentation” line relies on the racist idea that all Palestinians are the same and hence they’re all responsible for the violence of Hamas.

                  It’s like justifying the Nazis going to villages in Occupied France and executing 10 random people for every German killed by the Résistance Française as if they’re all the same and hence all guilty of the violence, something which is so painfully close to what Israel has been doing (except Israel has already surpassed the Nazis, with a rate which is more than double that 10-to-1 and includes children) and the kind of justification the Iraeli Authorities and their fellow racist supremacists give.

                  That racist “they’re all the same hence all to blame (including children)” line has long ago stopped working, including your “Palestinians are violent” variant.

            • acargitzEnglish
              9•1 year ago

              Excellent point. There should also not be violence from Israel because it solves nothing. So end the fucking genocide, the occupation, the god damn apartheid.

            • bobalotEnglish
              3•1 year ago

              Neither does peaceful protest considering ethnic cleansing has continued unabated for decades.

        • acargitzEnglish
          6•1 year ago

          So basically you are saying the settlers are like Israel’s human shields for the occupation and the Palestinians should not attack them? Excellent point, which of course should be applied also to the Gazan civilian population.