DOZENS of Israeli protesters, including right-wing Knesset members, clashed with military police after nine soldiers suspected of torturing Palestinian prisoners were detained for questioning at the Sde Teiman detention facility in southern Israel.
Protesters waving Israeli flags and storming the gates of the facility on Monday, trying to prevent the soldiers from being detained, chanting “shame.” They defended the soldiers, saying they were doing their job. Some Israelis were also quick to show support for the soldiers, according to media reports.
Several people tried to break into the facility but were unsuccessful. A soldier was quoted by the Haaretz newspaper as saying some military personnel aimed pepper spray at military police who came to detain the soldiers.
Protesters also tried to break into the Beit Lid military base, where the soldiers were being transferred, according to local media.
The Israel Defense Forces said Monday it was holding nine soldiers for questioning after allegations of “substantial torture” of a detainee at the Sde Teiman facility, which was set up to hold Palestinians captured in Gaza after Israel launched a war on the enclave on Oct. 7.
The military did not provide additional details about the alleged torture, saying only that its top legal officer had opened an investigation. However, Israeli media reported that a Palestinian detainee was taken to hospital with serious injuries and was unable to walk.
Read also: UN Condemns Israel’s Mistreatment of Palestinian Prisoners
The detentions were ordered after Maj. Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, Israel’s military prosecutor, opened a military police investigation into the incident, according to The Times of Israel.
The detained soldiers were members of a unit known as Force 100, which was tasked with guarding the Sde Teiman facility, according to Haaretz.
The head of the Israeli Armed Forces condemned the protests.
Read also: Palestinians Tell of Torture in Israeli Army Custody
“Breaking into a military base and disrupting order there is a serious act that is completely unacceptable,” Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi said in a statement on Monday.
“We are in a war situation and such actions endanger the security of the country. I strongly condemn this incident, and we are working to restore order at the base,” he added.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for “immediate calm” and “strongly condemned” the storming of the facility, while Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said, “We must let the authorities conduct the necessary investigation.”
Also read: Palestinians Who Died in Israeli Prisons Due to Torture
However, right-wing politicians, including ministers, were quick to defend the soldiers and called on the military to drop investigations into them.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich published a video message on X asking military prosecutors to stay away from Israel’s “heroic soldiers.”
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and members of his right-wing Otzma Yehudit party announced they were on their way to Sde Teiman to demand the release of the soldiers.
Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman Yuli Edelstein announced he would hold a session Tuesday to discuss the arrests, saying: “Our soldiers are not criminals, and the despicable pursuit of our soldiers is unacceptable.”
Justice Minister Yariv Levin said he was “shocked to see the violent images of the captured soldiers,” according to Haaretz.
Israeli NGO Breaking the Silence said, however, the protesters were “essentially giving their full support to the unimaginable brutal torture of Palestinians”.
In a statement to X, the NGO, which consists of military veterans, also described the poor conditions in prisons for Palestinian detainees.
“Dozens of prisoners died; indefinite confinement resulting in amputations; medical procedures without anesthesia; sleep deprivation; brutal beatings; sexual torture,” he said.
Extensive Torture
Palestinians and human rights groups have documented widespread torture inside Israeli prisons even before Israel launched its military offensive in Gaza nearly 10 months ago.
This month, a Palestinian lawyer shared a harrowing account of rape and torture of detainees in prison.
Khaled Mahajna, a lawyer with the Commission for Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs, shared accounts of torture by two Palestinian detainees. One, a journalist, described witnessing the rape of detainees from Gaza inside the Sde Teiman facility, which has been compared to Guantanamo Bay.
Other detainees were stripped naked, electrocuted and subjected to sexual torture, Mahajna said.
A report by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, this year said detainees were subjected to ill-treatment and torture while in Israeli detention without specifying the facilities.
The Washington Post newspaper has reported on rampant violence and deficiencies in Israel’s prison system after speaking to former Palestinian prisoners and lawyers and reviewing autopsy reports.
At least 12 Palestinians from the occupied West Bank and Israel have died as a result of torture in Israeli prisons since October 7, according to doctors from Physicians for Human Rights Israel quoted by the newspaper.
The report also includes testimony about the suffering of three of the 12 detainees.
“One Palestinian prisoner died with a ruptured spleen and broken ribs after being beaten by Israeli prison guards. Another suffered a very painful end due to an untreated chronic condition. A third screamed for help for hours before dying,” the newspaper said.
Reports of ill-treatment of prisoners in Israeli jails have added to international pressure on Israel over its conduct of the Gaza war.
More than 39,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, have been killed by Israeli forces, prompting international condemnation and calls to hold Israel accountable for its disproportionate use of force against civilians.
In May, the US State Department said it was investigating allegations of Israeli torture of Palestinian prisoners.
Human rights groups, including the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, have alleged serious abuse of detainees at the Sde Teiman facility, a former military base in the Negev desert, which Israel has announced it will gradually phase out.
Amnesty International this month called on Israel to end the indefinite detention of Palestinians from Gaza and what it called “rampant torture” in its prisons.
Amnesty said it had documented 27 cases of Palestinians, including five women and a 14-year-old boy, who were held “for up to four and a half months” without being able to contact their families.
More than 9,000 Palestinians have been detained since Israel launched its war on Gaza. (Al Jazeera/Z-3)
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