Israel’s military has charged a reservist with aggravated abuse of Palestinian prisoners, a spokesperson said on Tuesday, as nine other soldiers appeared in military court for an initial hearing over allegations they had sexually abused a detainee from Gaza.
The new indictment alleges that the unnamed soldier, assigned to escort handcuffed and blindfolded Palestinians, used a baton and his assault rifle to attack prisoners on multiple occasions.
He did this even though their restraints meant they posed no threat, and he made videos of the violence. “The accused used severe violence against the detainees he was entrusted with guarding,” the IDF spokesperson said.
The other soldiers detained on Monday are accused of raping and attacking a Palestinian prisoner at the Sde Teiman detention centre so violently that he was taken to hospital in critical condition, Israeli media reported.
His injuries included a ruptured intestine, severe injury to the anus and lungs, and broken ribs, the Israel daily Haaretz reported. A doctor who treated the man told the paper that when he saw the horrific extent of the injuries, he initially assumed they were caused by other inmates.
“I didn’t believe that an Israeli jailer would do such a thing,” said Yoel Donchin, who is also a professor at the Hadassah university hospital.
Haaretz quoted him saying: “If the state and the members of the Knesset think there is no limit to the abuse of prisoners – let them come and kill them themselves like the Nazis, or close the hospital.”
When nine soldiers were arrested on Monday, it prompted an invasion of two military bases by politicians and demonstrators, mostly representing far right parties, who were furious about the arrests and described the men as heroes.
The group surged past police, and the IDF had to call in extra units from other areas to restore order. An increase in threats against the Military Advocate Gen Brig Gen Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi prompted the military to step up her security.
At the closed hearing on Tuesday, military prosecutors requested an extension of the men’s detention to Sunday. One man was released without further charges, a Haaretz reporter said, but deliberations about the other eight continued into the night.
Protesters outside the court objected to the arrest and chanted against the police. The accused soldiers have been granted anonymity for at least two weeks.
Nati Rom, a lawyer representing three of them, did not elaborate on the nature of the alleged sexual abuse and told the Associated Press the men were innocent. The military says it is investigating “substantial abuse” but gave no further details.
The detentions are the first time Israel has charged soldiers with abuse of Palestinian detainees, but they come after months of reporting by the UN and multiple media organisations into widespread abuse of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
Many have centred on Sde Teiman, which was set up as a temporary holding centre for detainees to be processed when taken out of Gaza but became an overcrowded prison. Israel has refused to allow the International Committee of the Red Cross access to Palestinian prisoners, and human rights activists have described it as “the Israeli Guantánamo”.
The Association of Civil Rights in Israel has taken the government to court over the treatment of prisoners at Sde Teiman, filing an appeal asking for the centre to be closed over abuse. The Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in June that “all efforts” would be made to transfer prisoners out, but it is still in operation.
Tal Steiner, executive director of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, wrote in the daily Haaretz on Tuesday: “Sde Teiman was a place where the most horrible torture we had ever seen was occurring.”
The New York Times documented an allegation of rape from a senior nurse who said two soldiers lifted him up and pressed his rectum against a metal stick fixed to the ground. A report by the UN’s Palestinian relief agency Unrwa into abuse allegations at Sde Teiman provided a similar account of a detainee forced to “sit on something like a hot metal stick”, who said another detainee died after anal rape with an “electric stick”.
Israel’s military denies “systematic abuse” has taken place at Sde Teiman. Announcing the new charges on Tuesday, a spokesperson said: “The IDF operates and will continue to operate out of a deep commitment to the rule of law, and complies with its obligations according to the rules of Israeli and international law.”
