Israel releases soldier after rape allegations at Sde Teiman detention centre

One of the nine Israeli soldiers arrested for abusing Palestinian detainees in the notorious Sde Teiman detention facility has been released without charge, Haaretz has reported. Deliberations about the other eight are continuing.

The nine men were detained for their role in the alleged abuse, including rape, of Palestinian detainees held at the facility, which has been compared to Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.

At least 13 prisoners are said to have died in recent months from abuse in Israeli prisons. That figure could be much higher with Haaretz reporting that the number of Palestinians who died because of Israeli torture and abuse could be as high as 27 since 7 October last year.

Allegations of abuse by Israeli soldiers against Palestinian detainees at Sde Teiman were reported in May. An anonymous Israeli whistle-blower who worked at the facility in the Negev Desert reported gruesome details of abuse, torture and mistreatment of Palestinians. In June, a shocking three-month investigation by the New York Times uncovered harrowing details of the conditions endured by the roughly 4,000 Palestinian detainees. Horrific accounts of rape were covered by the NYT investigation.

Although Israel denied that sexual abuse was taking place, lawyer Khaled Mahajneh, who visited the site three weeks later, not only corroborated the NYT report uncovering rape, but also went on to state that the treatment of Palestinians by Israeli soldiers is more horrifying than Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.

Israel has not publicly acknowledged any investigation into the conduct of soldiers and guards working in its prisons, which has prompted speculation that the main motivation for the occupation state in detaining the soldiers is to thwart International Criminal Court arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant.

According to the principle of complementarity in international law, particularly in the context of the ICC, the court will only intervene when national legal systems are unwilling or unable to prosecute individuals for the most serious crimes of international concern, such as genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. This principle is grounded in the idea that states have the primary responsibility to exercise jurisdiction over these crimes.

One of the claims made in the filings by advocates for Israel who are arguing that that ICC has no jurisdiction is that the apartheid state has a sound legal system capable of prosecuting individuals for war crimes. Critics have said that the detention of the nine Israeli soldiers has, in light of its timing, more to do with stopping the ICC and less to do with the rule of law.

The sinister motive for the detention was echoed by an Israeli doctor who treated the Palestinian prisoners, who expressed his shock at one man’s condition. “If the state and Knesset members think there’s no limit to how much you can abuse prisoners, they should kill them themselves, like the Nazis did, or close the hospitals,” said Professor Yoel Donchin, a doctor at Sde Teiman. “If they maintain a hospital only for the sake of defending ourselves at [the International Criminal Court at] The Hague, that’s no good.”

On Monday, nine Israeli soldiers were initially detained for their part in the abuse, sparking violent protests against their arrest by far-right Israelis. Members of the Israeli Knesset joined in the protest. They appeared at the military court at the Beid Lid base for a bail hearing, at which one of the soldiers was released.

READ: Palestinian detainees subjected to arbitrary detention, torture, says UN