Dozens of Israeli protesters, including far-right Knesset members, clashed with military police after at least nine soldiers suspected of abusing a Palestinian prisoner were detained for questioning at the Sde Teiman detention center in southern Israel.
Protesters waved Israeli flags and stormed the center’s gate Monday in an attempt to prevent the soldiers’ arrest, chanting “shame.” They defended the soldiers, saying they were doing their duty. Several Israeli civilians rushed to support the soldiers, according to media reports.
Some tried to enter the premises, but without success. According to the Haaretz newspaper, a soldier said that some members of the army had directed tear gas at the military police who had come to arrest the soldiers.
Protesters also attempted to enter the Beit Lid military base, where the soldiers were being transported, according to local media.
The Israeli military announced Monday that it was detaining nine soldiers for questioning over allegations of “substantial mistreatment” of a detainee at the Sde Teiman detention center, set up to hold Palestinians arrested in Gaza after Israel launched its war on the enclave on October 7.
The army did not provide further details on the alleged abuses, saying only that its top legal official had launched an investigation. But Israeli media reported that a Palestinian prisoner was taken to hospital after suffering serious injuries, adding that he was unable to walk.
The detention was ordered after Maj. Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, Israel’s military advocate general, opened a military police investigation into the incident, according to The Times of Israel.
The detained soldiers belong to a unit known as Force 100, which is tasked with guarding the Sde Teiman facility, according to Haaretz.
The Israeli army chief condemned the protests.
“Breaking into a military base and disrupting the order there is serious behavior that is not acceptable under any circumstances,” Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said in a statement Monday.
“We are in the middle of a war and such actions endanger the security of the state. I strongly condemn this incident and we are working to restore order on the base,” he said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for an “immediate calming of passions” and “strongly condemned” the assault on the facility, while Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said: “We must allow the authorized parties to conduct the necessary investigations.”
“Soldiers are not criminals”
But far-right politicians, including ministers, rushed to defend the soldiers and called on the military to stop investigating them.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich released a video message on X calling on the military attorney general to no longer touch Israel’s “heroic warriors.”
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and other members of his far-right Otzma Yehudit party announced that they were heading to Sde Teiman to demand the soldiers’ release.
Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman Yuli Edelstein announced that he would hold a hearing Tuesday to discuss the arrests, saying: “Our soldiers are not criminals, and this despicable pursuit of our soldiers is unacceptable to me.”
Justice Minister Yariv Levin said he was “shocked to see violent images of soldiers being arrested,” according to Haaretz.
Israeli NGO Breaking the Silence, however, said the protesters “unconditionally endorsed the unimaginably brutal abuses against Palestinians.”
In a statement on X, the NGO composed of army veterans also described the dire conditions in the prison for Palestinian prisoners.
“Dozens of dead detainees; unlimited restraints resulting in amputations; medical procedures without anesthesia; sleep deprivation; brutal beatings; sexual torture,” he added.
Widespread abuse
Palestinians and human rights groups have documented widespread abuses in Israeli prisons even before Israel launched its military offensive in Gaza nearly a decade ago.
This month, a Palestinian lawyer shared harrowing accounts of rape and torture of detainees in prisons.
Khaled Mahajna, a lawyer at the Commission for Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs, recounted abuses reported by two Palestinian detainees. One of them, a journalist, described witnessing rapes of Gaza detainees in the Sde Teiman detention center, which has been compared to Guantanamo Bay.
Another detainee was stripped naked, electrocuted and subjected to sexual abuse, Mahajna said.
An investigation by the Associated Press news agency and reports from human rights groups have revealed deplorable conditions in the Sde Teiman detention center, the largest in the country.
A report this year by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said detainees were subjected to mistreatment and abuse while in Israeli custody, without specifying the facility.
The Washington Post newspaper reported on rampant violence and deprivation in the Israeli prison system after speaking to former Palestinian prisoners and lawyers and reviewing autopsy reports.
At least 12 Palestinians from the occupied West Bank and Israel have died as a result of mistreatment in Israeli prisons since October 7, according to doctors from Physicians for Human Rights Israel quoted by the newspaper.
The report also includes witness testimony about the suffering of three of the 12 detainees.
“A Palestinian detainee died of a ruptured spleen and broken ribs after being beaten by Israeli prison guards. Another met a gruesome end because a chronic illness went untreated. A third cried for help for hours before dying,” the newspaper said.
Numerous reports of mistreatment of detainees in Israeli prisons have increased international pressure on Israel over its conduct of the war in Gaza.
More than 39,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, have been killed by Israeli forces, sparking international condemnation and calls for Israel to be held accountable for its disproportionate use of force against civilians.
In May, the U.S. State Department said it was investigating allegations of Israeli abuse of Palestinian detainees.
Human rights groups, including the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, have denounced serious abuses against detainees at the Sde Teiman base, a former military base in the Negev desert that Israel has announced will be gradually closed.
This month, Amnesty International called on Israel to end the indefinite detention of Palestinians in Gaza and what it calls “widespread torture” in its prisons.
Amnesty said it had documented 27 cases of Palestinians, including five women and a 14-year-old boy, who were detained “for up to four and a half months” without being able to contact their families.
More than 9,000 Palestinians have been arrested since Israel launched its war on Gaza.
