The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor called for an impartial international investigation into the liquidation of Palestinian civilians by the Israeli occupation army after their arrest from various areas of the Gaza Strip.
The Observatory indicated that the testimonies it collected were consistent with what was revealed by the Hebrew newspaper Haaretz regarding field execution crimes carried out against detainees, while others died as a result of severe torture and ill-treatment during their detention in an army camp known as “Sde Teman”, located between the cities of Beersheba and the Gaza Strip.
The Observatory described the Israeli detention camp as a new “Guantanamo” in which detainees are held in very harsh conditions, inside places resembling chicken cages in the open and without food or drink for a long period of time.
The age groups of detainees in the aforementioned camp range from minors to the elderly, and they are interrogated while blindfolded and with their hands tied for most of the day in fenced compounds.
According to testimonies, during the night hours, the lights are on and shining brightly on them with the aim of exhausting and torturing them.
Torture and murder
In testimonies collected by the Observatory, former detainees said that they were subjected to multiple types of torture and ill-treatment, were prevented from using phones, and did not have the opportunity to meet with lawyers or visits from the International Committee of the Red Cross.
They confirmed the presence of elderly detainees who were subjected to severe beatings and humiliating treatment, in addition to the handcuffing of the hands and feet of the detainees on the bus during their transfer and their detention without water or food while they were shackled and blindfolded, while anyone who tried to ask for something was met with violence and insults.
One of the released detainees (who requested that his name not be mentioned for fear of retaliation) said that he witnessed Israeli soldiers directly shooting five detainees and killing them in separate cases.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that a number of prisoners died in the detention camp as a result of the harsh conditions of their detention, without mentioning their number.
According to the newspaper, the condition of one of the detainees required medical attention. It said that he worked as a driver in the Gaza Strip and did not receive the necessary medical care, which led to his death.
Haaretz indicated that the Israeli army presented only 71 out of more than 500 detainees before the Israeli courts, and some of them were transferred to prisons affiliated with the Israeli Prison Service or to interrogation centers of the Israeli Internal Security Service (Shin Bet).
On November 3, the Observatory documented the death of Mansour Nabhan Muhammad Warsh, after his detention for 24 days. It was found that his body was full of bruises and traces of handcuffing, which led to his death from a heart attack.
On the 7th of the same month, it was also documented that Majed Ahmed Zaqul (32 years old) died after being detained in the Israeli Ofer Prison and subjected to severe torture.
Civilians
The Euro-Mediterranean Observatory said that it was unable to confirm cases of arrest of Palestinian militants, either because the occupation army did not announce the identities of the detainees or because none of them were captured, or as a result of the people’s unwillingness to report such cases.
He explained that 1,200 Palestinian civilians were arrested in the Gaza Strip following the storming of residential homes and schools, which were turned into shelter centers for thousands of displaced people.
The occupation strips detainees of their clothes, handcuffs them, and forces them to sit on their knees in open areas, while various forms of beating, harassment, and deprivation of basic needs are practiced against them, according to the Observatory’s report.
The human rights report confirmed that released detainees said that the occupation forces forced some detainees to carry weapons for the purpose of taking pictures of them and marketing a justification for the arrest campaign and the torture, severe beatings and ill-treatment it included.
He pointed out that the random arrest campaigns launched by the Israeli army targeted doctors, nurses, and journalists, as well as dozens of women, including Hadeel Youssef Issa Al-Dahdouh, who appeared in a photo in which she was taken inside a truck with a group of naked men in an inhumane scene.