The Israel Prison Service (IPS) has begun relocating 140 Palestinian prisoners from Gaza who were held at the Sde Teiman detention facility, near Be’er Sheva, following a government directive issued last week. According to the Times of Israel, 50 prisoners were relocated to a “tent wing” in Ketziot Prison on Thursday, another 50 on Sunday, and the remaining 40 are scheduled to be moved today.
The IPS emphasised that it would maintain emergency operations to manage the incarceration and detention of security prisoners, claiming to prioritise public peace and safety.
The decision to transfer the prisoners came after a petition to the High Court of Justice by the Association of Civil Rights in Israel, which called for the closure of the facility due to credible reports of abuse. Haaretz reported earlier this year that Palestinian detainees are subjected to beatings, being handcuffed to walls and forced to stand with their hands bound above their heads.
Moreover, basic hygiene is denied, with prisoners beginning to refuse showers due to the risk of punishment for exceeding the allotted time. Medical care is also reported to be severely lacking, with a lawyer describing instances of detainees being treated for injuries without anaesthesia by nursing students rather than qualified doctors.
Perhaps most disturbingly, of the 4,000 detainees held at Sde Teiman since October, 35 have died either at the site or after being taken to nearby civilian hospitals.
The Israeli military has denied allegations of “systematic abuse” at the facility, claiming that any abuse of detainees is strictly prohibited and thoroughly investigated. However, the sheer number of consistent accounts from former detainees, coupled with the testimony of Israeli personnel at the site, suggests a disturbing pattern of mistreatment and torture.
The revelations of the Sde Teiman detention facility have attracted growing scrutiny from the media. In May, CNN exposed gruesome details of abuse, torture and mistreatment of Palestinians there. Israel’s Supreme Court has also begun hearing a petition from rights groups to close the site immediately.
In response to these accounts and the ACRI’s petition to the High Court, the state declared that the IDF would gradually close Sde Teiman, leading to the immediate transfer of Palestinian prisoners to military-run prisons in the occupied West Bank.
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