[Salon] Rape in Israel’s detention centres and hell in Gaza - ArabDigest.org guest post

Rape in Israel’s detention centres and hell in Gaza Summary: as Israel’s war crimes pick up pace, the wheels of justice are slowly turning. On Monday Israeli-Palestinian NGO B'Tselem published a new report revealing dozens of testimonies from Palestinians detained by Israel since the Gaza war began detailing routine abuse, starvation, humiliation, sleep deprivation, and denial of medical treatment. Overall the picture is clear: systematic torture carried out under orders, in utter defiance of Israel’s obligations both under domestic law and under international law. The report notes: The abuse consistently described in the testimonies of dozens of individuals held in different facilities was so systematic, that there is no room to doubt an organized, declared policy of the Israeli prison authorities. This policy is implemented under the direction of the Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir, whose office oversees the Israel Prison Service (IPS), with the full support of the Israeli government and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu B'Tselem’s report follows an incident at the end of last month when military police raided the Sde Teiman detention centre where Palestinian prisoners are being held, detaining nine Israel soldiers suspected of gang raping and severely sexually torturing detainees. A right wing mob including members of the Knesset from Likud and the Religious Zionist and Jewish Power blocs then held what can only be described as a pro-rape riot, storming through the gates of the facility and attacking military policemen before reaching the area where Palestinians are held. The crowd chanted support for torture, rape and even the summary execution of the Palestinian prisoners. A group of independent UN human rights experts subsequently condemned the alleged sexual violence as grossly illegal and revolting and said that what is known so far only represents the tip of the iceberg. “Torture practices are irredeemably unlawful and constitute international crimes, yet form part of the modus operandi of Israel’s notorious detention and torture system,” they warned. “Most Palestinian detainees are de facto hostages of an unlawful occupation,” the experts wrote, referring to the July 2024 Advisory Opinion from the International Court of Justice on the legal consequences of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory. Leaked video from inside the Sde Teiman detention centre showed Israeli soldiers raping Palestinian prisoners [photo credit: Keshet 12] Israeli Channel 12 then released leaked footage of soldiers raping a Palestinian prisoner behind their shields at Sde Teiman. The prisoner was said to have been hospitalised with injuries, including a torn rectum, broken ribs and ruptured bowels. In stark contrast to the blanket coverage given to the rape allegations against Hamas which played such a pivotal role in justifying the genocide after October 7 - and have since been debunked - this actual documented story of Israeli soldiers raping a Palestinian has largely been ignored by Western media. In Israel, however, where the army’s Chief Military Rabbi had at one time declared it permissible for Jewish soldiers to rape non-Jewish women during wartime, a lively debate has been taking place about whether raping Palestinian detainees should or should not now be official state policy. “The only thing that is a problem for me here is that it's not a regulated policy of the state to abuse the detainees, because, first of all, they deserve it, and it's great revenge" said Yehuda Schlesinger from Israel Hayom newspaper on Channel 12's morning show. Meanwhile the war crimes have kept coming thick and fast. On Sunday an Israeli airstrike on a school functioning as a shelter in Gaza City killed at least 30 people and injured dozens, one of seven strikes on schools in the last seven days. The next day Netanyahu's far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, who has been pumping out genocidal statements since long before October 7, explicitly argued that the extermination of two million Palestinian civilians - roughly half of whom are children - would be justified. Netanyahu's new official spokesman, Dr. Omer Dostri, also began his post by openly advocating war crimes in Gaza - the "voluntary" deportation of Palestinians and the settlement of the occupied territory by Israelis. "As great and significant as the risk to the lives of IDF soldiers may be, it is no longer possible to avoid the need to decisively defeat Hamas and occupy the Gaza Strip," Dr Dostri wrote in the conservative Israeli newspaper Makor Rishon. He added: "More than killing terrorist operatives and senior leaders, more than destroying buildings and infrastructure, more than capturing prisoners – the extremist Islamic enemy will be struck down and fall to the ground when Israeli settlements are built on the ruins of its territory.” Israel’s justification for its crimes is always the same, that they are targeting Hamas. When two Al Jazeera journalists were killed last week in the Shati refugee camp Israel declared they were Hamas operatives. When 30 people were killed in the school in Gaza City on Sunday Israel said it was a Hamas command and control centre. But no evidence is normally ever brought forward to support these claims and even when it is, such as when Israel attacked the Al Shifa Hospital, the proof that is offered is decisively unconvincing. And even if such claims were true, under international humanitarian law Israel would still be obliged to take all feasible precautions to spare civilians. Bombing a civilian target when 80% of the victims are children still constitutes a war crime. By continuing to send offensive weapons to Israel the US and UK governments continue to aid and abet these crimes. Pressure has been mounting on the British government to suspend arms sales to Israel and on Friday the Daily Mail reported that UK civil servants had frozen all applications for new arms export licences to Israel, pending a review ordered by Foreign Secretary David Lammy. Then on Monday Middle East Eye quoted UK officials as saying there has been "no change" in the British approach to export licences. “It’s political smoke and mirrors. They’re trying to give the impression they’re going to halt weapons sales, but they actually have little or no intention of doing it,” said Andrew Feinstein, a London-based activist who specialises in the investigation of the arms trade. Israel’s key armourer remains the United States where Biden continues to gaslight the public by professing his ‘concern’ and ‘frustration’ about Israel’s conduct while at the same time pretending there is no genocide, that Israel has agreed a ceasefire, that it is not blocking aid and that it has the legal right to bomb civilians in self defence. But slowly the wheels of justice are turning. Two separate tribunals continue to wind their way through the Hague: South Africa's genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice and the case at the International Criminal Court which in May saw applications issued for arrest warrants for war crimes and crimes against humanity against Netanyahu, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as three Hamas leaders, two of whom are now believed dead. The critical element in the ICJ case is to prove intent to eradicate, at least in part, the Palestinian civilian population of Gaza. As examples pile up of Israel attacking ostensible Hamas targets while paying little, if any, attention to citizen casualties, this is looking increasingly likely. The ICC case is even more worrying for Netanyahu and Gallant as it looks to be only a matter of time before ICC prosecutor Karim Khan brings new charges for the indiscriminate bombardments that have decimated so many neighbourhoods in Gaza, as well as the kind of disproportionate strikes like those on the three schools where even though Hamas fighters may have been present, the means used and the location targeted resulted in a wholly disproportionate cost to Palestinian civilians. There is a clear legal precedent for what should happen next. Former Liberian President Charles Taylor is currently serving a 50 year sentence in Frankland maximum security prison near Durham for sending arms to the Revolutionary United Front rebels in Sierra Leone during the 1991-2002 civil war in which some 50,000 people died. For supplying offensive weapons to Israel to commit systematic war crimes in Gaza, should Western leaders, chief among them Joe Biden and Sir Keir Starmer, not deserve to face justice in exactly the same way? The AD newsletter will take a short break and be back on 27 August. We will continue our All New AD Podcast Countdown through August with our #1 announced on 4 September. Members can leave comments about this newsletter on the Arab Digest website