Israel's Horrifying Mass Rape And Torture Campaign Against Palestinians
Written by Robert Inlakesh
While the fate of around 100 remaining Israelis, taken captive by Hamas on October 7, have dominated the discourse in Western politics and mainstream media, some 21,000 Palestinian captives held by Israel have been completely ignored. Despite there being no evidence for the wild claims of mass rape campaigns and torture of Israelis, there are mountains of proof that these war crimes are being committed against Palestinians on an industrial scale.
"Free the hostages" cry Western leaders and pro-Israel commentators, who attempt to build a moral case for Israel's genocide on the back of some 230 Israelis who were taken captive by Palestinian fighters on October 7. However, this narrative, which attempts to pull on the heart strings of Western audiences and provides a humanitarian argument to the Israeli government, depends entirely on ignoring the facts and only focusing on a small group of Israelis while dismissing Palestinians entirely.
Stories told by Israelis who were freed from Hamas detention are also telling. For instance, the account given by 85-year-old Yocheved Lifshitz, who was released by for humanitarian reasons, indicated that despite being subjected to a hellish capture, once she and the others were taken to Gaza, she stated that "they treated us very well". All the stories of those released appear to be very similar, that during the process of being captured and hurled off into Gaza, it was a nightmare and they witnessed physical assaults, but once they were taken into custody they were treated well, despite the gradual decline of available food. Multiple accounts also indicate that the Israeli captives were more afraid of Israeli fighter jets bombing them than they were of Palestinian fighters harming them. In one case, a former Israeli captive even stated that he was baked a cake for his birthday, despite describing the act as "cynical" in nature.
Welcome To Hell
In contrast to the "cynical birthday cake" and accounts from Israeli doctors -- about how now freed Israeli child hostages would wait for the younger ones to finish their food before eating -- being comparable to the Auschwitz Death Camp, Palestinians are being raped and beaten to death as part of a systematic campaign of sexual violence and torture by the Israeli government.
According to Ronen Bar, the head of Israel’s Shin Bet security agency, he wrote a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in June urging him to intervene in order to stop the "ticking time bomb" inside Israeli detention and prison facilities. While the official figure for Palestinians held in Israeli captivity sits around 10,000, the Shin Bet leader stated that some 21,000 Palestinians were actually detained. Even if we take the smaller 10,000 Palestinian hostage figure, the total number of children who are being held by Israel is more than the entire amount of Israeli captives taken on October 7.
So how are tens of thousands of Palestinian hostages being treated? Well, let's start with Israel's own top human rights group B'Tselem and their recent report entitled "Welcome to Hell: The Israeli Prison System as a Network of Torture Camps". The 118 page report details the following kinds of abuses of Palestinians held in Israeli detention:
-Over populating and crowding in cells
-Oxygen and sunlight deprivation
-Violent cell intrusions
-Denying access to contact with the outside world
-Restrictions on religious worship
-Confiscation of personal items
-Subjecting prisoners to complete darkness for long periods of time, such as solitary confinement
-Physical violence and intimidation
-Sleep deprivation
-Violence during transfers
-Sexual violence
-Denial of medical treatment
-Food deprivation and starvation
-Poor hygiene conditions
-Cutting water supply
-Subjecting prisoners to the cold
The B'Tselem report states that the Palestinian prison conditions that Israel has created and fostered is an, "institutionalized, efficient, systematic mechanism that has made violence, humiliation and degradation integral to the routine imposed upon all Palestinians classified as "security prisoners", in 17 different civilian and military prison facilities", since the beginning of the war in Gaza.
The report also asserted the following:
"Given the severity of the acts, the extent to which the provisions of international law are being violated, and the fact that these violations are directed at the entire population of Palestinian prisoners daily and over time – the only possible conclusion is that in carrying out these acts, Israel is committing torture that amounts to a war crime and even a crime against humanity."
On top of the B'Tselem report, we have detailed reports from the likes of The New York Times (NYT) and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), that specifically cover some of the horrifying abuses that have taken place in the infamous Sde Teiman detention center. In the NYT piece, which was an investigative article that took over three months to write, three specific cases of electrocution were confirmed, as well as cases of anal rape and the breaking of inmates ribs through severe beatings.
According to a testimony collected by UNRWA, a 41-year-old former Sde Teiman detainee said:
"They made me sit on something like a hot metal stick, and it felt like fire – I have burns [in the anus]. The soldiers hit me with their shoes on my chest and used something like a metal stick that had a small nail on the side ... They asked us to drink from the toilet and made the dogs attack us … There were people who were detained and killed – maybe nine of them. One of them died after they put the electric stick up his [anus]. He got so sick; we saw worms coming out of his body, and then he died."
The initial UNRWA report on the issue also included testimonies from women who testified to being threatened with having pepper rubbed on their genitals and who were sexually assaulted. Although reports of rape, sexual assault and sexualized torture have been reported since December, by eyewitnesses to the crimes, a United Nations report released on June 12 revealed that Israeli forces “systematically targeted and subjected Palestinians to SGBV [Sexual and Gender-Based Violence] online and in person since October 7, including through forced public nudity, forced public stripping, sexualized torture and abuse, and sexual humiliation and harassment.” The report detailed how Palestinians who were detained inside Gaza were stripped, sexually assaulted, and paraded around naked in front of their community.
The Sde Teiman facility was described by lawyer Khaled Mahajneh, who managed to pay a visit to the facility, by stating that “the treatment is more horrifying than anything we have heard about Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.” However, it is not just Sde Teiman where such abuses are taking place. During a press conference held in mid-July, Khaled Mahajneh revealed that during a visit to the Ofer detention center he learned that a 27-year-old Palestinian inmate was brutally raped, stating that "a pipe from a fire extinguisher was used on a handcuffed prisoner. Forcing him to lie on his stomach, stripping him of all his clothes, and inserting the pipe of the fire extinguisher into the prisoner’s rectum. Then, activating the extinguisher … in front of the eyes of the other prisoners."
It suffices to say that the ongoing mass torture campaign that is being carried out against Palestinian captives -- held as political prisoners or without a charge at all -- cannot be put down to isolated incidents, and is indeed systematic. Knowing this information, the recent controversy over an incident of 10 Israeli soldiers gang-raping a Palestinian detainee makes complete sense.
After months of mounting evidence regarding the conditions faced at the Sde Teiman concentration camp, 10 Israeli reservist soldiers were accused of gang-raping a Palestinian prisoner with a stick. Nine of the accused were arrested, one of whom would be released the next day and go on to brag about his actions on Israeli television. The arrests, however, triggered the invasion of military facilities by thousands of Israeli protesters, backed by Israel’s Security Minister who called the rapists “heroes”. A debate even took place in the Israeli Knesset, where Likud Party MK Hanoch Milwidsky argued in favor of the gang-rape. Since then, a video of the gang-rape has surfaced, as Israel’s Honenu legal aid organization, representing four of the rapists, has claimed that their clients were acting in self-defense.
Israeli Likud Party MK Hanoch Milwidsky defends raping Palestinian prisoners with a stick if accused of being Hamas’ Nukhba fighters.
A shocking admission came from a Knesset Member from Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party that raping Palestinian prisoners, accused of being members… pic.twitter.com/4f3q7XI214
— MintPress News (@MintPressNews) July 29, 2024
Although it was originally argued that Israel had arrested the nine soldiers due to US pressure, it now appears that this may more likely have occurred due to the fact that the incident was filmed. The mere fact that Israeli elected officials supported the gang-rapists, who so badly sodomised their victim that he died of his wounds, tells you everything you need to know about Israel's government. On every level of Israeli society, whether the military, political, social, or media, there were expressions of support for the Israeli gang-rapists.
🇮🇱🇵🇸 ZIONIST JOURNALIST JUSTIFIES INSTITUTIONALIZED RAPE AS A TOOL OF WAR ON ISRAELI TV⁉️
Following the release of IDF rapists found guilty of raping male and female Palestinian prisoners because of mass Israeli protests in their favor, a Zionist journalist shared his thoughts:… pic.twitter.com/RTHuLakOog
— Jay Scott (@JSAscension) August 12, 2024
The situation is currently so bad for the Palestinian hostages that it is difficult to find a modern example of such barbarism to detainees who are largely held without any charge. The dehumanisation of Palestinians is so horrifying that it begs the question as to how a regime and its society can possibly get to this point, where gang-rape becomes heroism. It suffices to say that despite all the evidence we currently have access to, it is only the tip of the iceberg, and because of Israel's notorious military censor, it may be some time before we get access to the true extent of the horrors.