In early August, a soldier with a balaclava on his face appeared on Israeli television and defended the abuses committed against Palestinian prisoners at the Sde Teiman detention center. He was one of five accused of raping an Arab female prisoner at the center, known as Israel’s Guantanamo for its abuse and mistreatment of detainees. A few days later, the soldier revealed his identity on social media and introduced himself as “Meir, from Unit 100.”
The response of a part of Israeli society and some media to the rape scandal led Meir Ben-Shitrit to believe that he did not need to hide his face or name and that he felt proud. On August 26, he was the featured guest on a satirical show on Israeli Channel 14, in which he was interviewed for more than ten minutes by two well-known presenters who showed their sympathy and understanding for the accused.
Ben-Shitrit once again defended the actions of himself and his comrades, denying rape and saying that the military prosecutor’s office and the entire country should “kiss the hands” of the soldiers who are doing “sacred work.” Host Shai Goldshtein not only supported him, but said he would do the same, from the translation of the media Mondoweiss: “I put myself in your shoes, in your situation. You are standing in front of these people, the most despicable people you can imagine, who have done the most horrible things to our people, to our brothers and sisters. I think if I were there and I had the opportunity, I would go after these people.
The soldier accused of raping the Palestinian prisoner then goes further: “We could have loaded our weapons and killed them all on the ground. “They want to kill this person with a machete… I am ready until my hand gets tired,” he says proudly before explaining the reasons for his alleged restraint: “But we are a state of law and this is the armed army forces. There is international law.
The presenters also asked him if he felt betrayed by the state, and Ben-Shitrit replied that yes, the treatment he receives is “very offensive.” However, he said that people on the street give him “a lot of hugs” and “a lot of love and warmth.” “In Tel Aviv, I received two testimonies of rape, but most people in Israel give me hugs, a lot of love, gifts…” The TV show showed a link on the screen to raise funds to pay for Unit 100’s legal defense and concluded by calling Ben-Shitrit “a hero, a hero of Unit 100!”
A case in the image of a country
Since mid-August, the five men in uniform accused of raping a Palestinian prisoner have been under house arrest, but the only one who has become famous is Ben-Shitrit. The five men are awaiting formal charges to be filed against them, while the military court in charge of the case has said there was “reasonable suspicion that the acts were committed.” A total of ten soldiers were arrested in late July on charges of “aggravated sodomy,” but half of them were later released.
The case has sparked controversy in Israeli society, more because of the investigation and trial of the soldiers than the alleged rape of a Palestinian prisoner identified as a police officer of the Palestinian group Hamas, held in the Gaza Strip. Israeli army ground operations. The Israeli NGO Physicians for Human Rights revealed that the prisoner “arrived at the hospital in a life-threatening condition, with injuries to the upper body and a serious injury to the rectum.”
In a video broadcast by Channel 12, obtained through Sde Teiman security cameras, dozens of prisoners can be seen lying face down on the ground with their hands behind their heads. Israeli soldiers pick up one of them and take him to a corner. A group of them cover with their shields the abuse to which the Palestinian prisoner is allegedly subjected. According to the military prosecution, three soldiers approached the prisoner, lifted him off the ground and pinned him against a wall. After the victim fell to the ground, one of the suspects and other soldiers beat him with a baton for 15 minutes, according to the Israeli newspaper’s account. Haaretz. They then dragged him on the ground and electrocuted him; finally, one of the soldiers inserted an object into the prisoner’s rectum. Later, the uniformed police officers warned him not to complain or say anything about what had happened.
Although Ben-Shitrit stated in his interviews that the detainee was a terrorist from Hamas’ “nukhba” (elite), there is no evidence of this. Hundreds of men have been arrested in Gaza and taken to detention centers in Israel on unfounded suspicions of their ties to the Islamist group since the beginning of the Israeli offensive against the Gaza Strip. According to reports and complaints from NGOs and international organizations, the abuse and mistreatment of these detainees is systematic and widespread, not only in Sde Teiman but in all detention centers in Israel.
In early August, the Israeli NGO B’Tselem published the report “Welcome to Hell: The Israeli Prison System as a Network of Torture Camps,” in which it documents torture and arbitrary ill-treatment in prisons, including due to the Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023 (during which they killed more than a thousand people and kidnapped around 250).
Prominent journalist and writer Gideon Levy wrote in a Haaretz column that the B’Tselem document is not just “a report on what is happening in Israeli prisons; it is a report on Israel.” “Even the documentation of a gang rape reported by Channel 12 this week does not just show the Sde Teiman detention center. It shows the face of this country,” he said. According to Levy, the images of the inmate’s body shaking in pain, while the rapists hid, “should have tortured every conscience,” “but not that of the majority of Israelis.”
Levy believes that these acts “define” Israel, as do the demonstrations and the storming of two military bases by several extremist protesters and MKs against the detention of soldiers suspected of torture and rape. The military prosecutor’s office says the case against Ben-Shitrit and his colleagues is based on the testimonies of 100 different people.
In a recent survey by the Israeli Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), one of the questions referred to the military trial of the five “serious abuse suspects.” 65% of the Jews surveyed believe that they should be disciplined by their commanders in the army, while only 21% support criminal prosecution (compared to 54.5% of the Israeli Arabs surveyed).
Impunity for “decades”
The latest international organization to report on the abuse, torture, and degrading treatment of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli detention centers is Human Rights Watch. The NGO has collected testimonies from health workers, from doctors to nurses, who were detained in Gaza by Israeli troops and mistreated during their detention: they were beaten, humiliated, tied up for long periods and blindfolded, tortured and sexually abused, and denied medical assistance.
Following this conclusion, Human Rights Watch again denounced the fact that “for decades, Israeli authorities have not been credibly held accountable for acts of torture and other abuses against Palestinian detainees.” According to official data cited by the NGO, between 2019 and 2022, 1,830 complaints of abuse were filed against Israeli prison service officials and none resulted in a criminal conviction.
In the case of the Sde Teiman prisoner rape, Israeli authorities were forced to investigate and prosecute the alleged rapists after video of the events was released and sparked international unrest, including in Washington, where criticism of the Israeli government is not common. US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said at the time that “reports of sexual abuse of detainees are horrific” and called for Israel to have “zero tolerance” for abuse.
In Spain, Amnesty International’s Middle East spokesperson, Carlos de las Heras, told elDiario.es that “this whole climate of impunity in the situation of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails is fostered by the Illegitimate Combatants Law, promulgated in 2002 and reformed in December 2023 following the October 7 attack.
De las Heras explains that this law allows the Israeli army to arrest “any person suspected of participating in hostilities against Israel or who represents a threat to the security of the state.” In addition, it allows these people to remain detained “for indefinite and renewable periods without the need to present evidence, which is quite worrying,” says the NGO spokesperson. For example, a Palestinian can be detained for 45 days without any charge or arrest warrant, without being brought before a judge within 75 days, and even without access to a lawyer for three months. “The consequence of all this is that torture is facilitated because all supervision is removed,” he laments.
Since October last year, Amnesty International has documented the deaths of 36 people in Sde Teiman, but “no indictments have yet been filed” against those responsible.
