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sde teiman
Israel Blocks UN Probe of Alleged Hamas Sex Crimes During October 7 Attack
Israeli officials reportedly did not want U.N. investigators to have access to prisons where Palestinian detainees have allegedly been subjected to rape and other sexual violence.
Jan 08, 2025
Israel has blocked a request from United Nations sex crimes experts to probe alleged sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas fighters during the October 7, 2023 attack, reportedly to avoid attendant scrutiny of rapes and other abuses allegedly committed by Israeli forces against imprisoned Palestinians.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretzreported Wednesday that Pramila Patten, the U.N.'s special representative on sexual violence in conflict, sought Israeli authorization to investigate alleged sex crimes committed by Hamas during the massive attack it led on Israel.
While some allegations of Hamas sex crimes have lacked evidence or have been outright debunked, Patten concluded last year that "there are reasonable grounds to believe that conflict-related sexual violence—including rape and gang-rape—occurred across multiple locations of Israel and the Gaza periphery during the attacks on October 7, 2023."
Patten's office "also found convincing information that sexual violence was committed against hostages" that were kidnapped from Israel "and has reasonable grounds to believe that such violence may still be ongoing against those in captivity."
Former hostages have said they were physically, sexually, and psychologically abused by their Palestinian captors.
In addition to investigating alleged Hamas sexual violence, Patten demanded—and was denied—access to Israeli prisons to investigate sex crimes allegations against Israel Defense Forces personnel. U.N. agencies and international human rights groups have published accounts by former Palestinian prisoners and other witnesses describing rape and sexual torture by male and female IDF soldiers and, in one case, by a dog.
Among the at least 36 detainee deaths at Israel's notorious Sde Teiman torture prison under IDF investigation is one man who died after allegedly being sodomized with an electric baton.
Last July, video emerged of IDF troops allegedly gang-raping a Sde Teiman detainee. After several IDF soldiers were arrested in connection with the attack, a mob of far-right Israelis stormed Sde Teiman in a bid to free the defendants, and Israeli leaders including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich demanded a probe—not to seek justice for the victim, but rather to find and punish whoever leaked the video.
Patten's office told Haaretz that it "is exploring a future mission to the region after receiving an invitation from the Palestinian Authority regarding reports of conflict-related sexual violence against Palestinians as well as outreach by the government of Israel for a follow-up visit on the October 7 attacks and their aftermath."
The office also warned that Israel's refusal to cooperate with its probe could backfire and end up with the country included on the U.N'.s sex crimes blacklist and Hamas left off the list.
Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, a professor at Israel's Bar-Ilan University, told Haaretz that Israel's rejection of the U.N. probe represents "a missed opportunity for a definitive international record and recognition for the victims—not to mention the obligation to thoroughly investigate the new evidence to uncover the truth."
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Allies Demand Release of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya From Notorious Israeli Prison
"Bombing of hospitals and kidnapping, torturing, and killing doctors and healthcare workers is illegal and immoral and a crime according to the Genocide Convention," asserted Doctors for Humanity.
Dec 30, 2024
Human rights defenders in the global medical community and beyond are demanding Israel immediately release Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of Gaza's obliterated Kamal Adwan Hospital, who was seized by Israeli troops on Saturday and is believed to be imprisoned at a notorious detention center where dozens of detainees have died and where torture, rape, and other abuses have been reported.
"We appeal to world leaders, to the global medical community, and to all who value humanity: Help us save our friend, our colleague, and a true healer," Dr. Karameh Kuemmerle, a Boston-based pediatric neurologist and co-founder of Doctors Against Genocide, told Common Dreams on Monday.
"Put all kinds of pressure to ensure his release so he can return to his patients, who need him desperately, and to his family, who cannot endure this pain," Kuemmerle added. "We demand a reality that respects life, respects human rights, and respects every man, woman, and child for humanity's sake."
Doctors for Humanity—a coalition of groups including Global Health Coalition, Doctors Against Genocide, and Union of Medical Care and Relief Organizations—said in a statement Monday, "We the medical community demand the immediate release of Dr. Abu Safiya and an immediate end to the bombing of hospitals and targeted kidnapping and killing of healthcare workers in Gaza."
"Bombing of hospitals and kidnapping, torturing and killing doctors and healthcare workers is illegal and immoral and a crime according to the Genocide Convention," Doctors for Humanity added.
Dr. Zaher Sahloul, president and co-founder the Illinois-based NGO MedGlobal, for whom Safiya works as lead Gaza physician, said over the weekend that "Dr. Abu Safiya has dedicated his life to protecting the health and lives of children in Gaza, providing care under conditions no medical professional should have to endure."
"His arrest is not only unjust—it is a violation of international humanitarian law, which upholds the protection of medical personnel in conflict zones," the group added. "We urgently call for the immediate and unconditional release of Dr. Abu Safiya."
Dr. Yipeng Ge—who in November 2023 was suspended from his medical residency at the University of Ottawa for social media posts critical of Israel's "settler-colonialism" and "apartheid upon Palestinian people"—called for Abu Safiya's "immediate release," as well as "protection of hospitals and medical workers in Gaza" and "an end to the genocide" there.
My name is Dr. Yipeng Ge. I am a family doctor. I am calling for the immediate release of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya. He was abducted by the Israeli forces. I am calling for protection of hospitals and medical workers in Gaza. And an end to the genocide. #FreeDrHussamAbuSafiya
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— yipeng ge (@yipengge.bsky.social) December 30, 2024 at 7:21 AM
Amnesty International secretary-general Agnès Callamard hailed Abu Safiya as "the voice of Gaza's decimated health sector," who pleaded "for the protection of his hospital" while "working under inhumane conditions, including following the killing of his son" by an Israeli drone strike at the hospital gates earlier this year.
"We at Amnesty are extremely concerned over the fate and well-being of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya," Callamard said. "He must be released immediately and unconditionally."
Recently released former detainees at the Sde Teiman prison in Israel's Negev Desert said Abu Safiya is being held there, and that the Israeli security forces working there—some of whom stand accused of gang-raping a prisoner—are treating captured Palestinian doctors "really badly."
Idrees Abu Safiya, Abu Safiya's son, toldThe Guardian on Monday that his father's leg was badly injured during the Israeli raid on the hospital.
"We are so worried, we haven't been able to sleep for three days because we didn't know until today where he is," Idrees told the British newspaper.
Relatives of Abu Safiya toldCNN that "Sde Teiman is known for brutality and torture, we can't imagine what our father is going through in that place and if he is well or not, warm or cold… hungry or in pain."
The last photo of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, detained after refusing to abandon his colleagues and patients. In just one image, we see both the power of Palestinian humanity and the moral weakness of all those complicit in genocide. End all arms sales to Israel, now.
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— Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn.bsky.social) December 29, 2024 at 3:53 AM
Kuemmerle told Common Dreams: "What is striking about Dr. Abu Safiya is his extraordinary composure, kindness, and unwavering dedication, even in the face of unimaginable hardships. We have come to know his bravery, dedication, humane professionalism, and gentle manners. We are terrified for his fate, knowing all too well as Palestinians the horrors that await our doctors in these torture camps."
Israel claims that Abu Safiya—who, despite the killing of his son and an injury caused by shrapnel from a November 23 Israeli attack on Kamal Adwan, refused to stop working at the hospital—is a suspected Hamas terrorist. That's a common allegation made by Israeli officials, who also often claim that hospitals are used as Hamas command-and-control centers. These officials usually offer very little if any evidence to support their assertions.
"The lies that are being spread right now that [Abu Safiya] is really a Hamas colonel are lies to prevent what is happening right now, which is a global wave of outrage, and that global wave of outrage must grow so we, the global medical community, can stop the relentless attacks on healthcare workers and healthcare infrastructure," Dr. Rupa Marya, a University of California, San Francisco professor of medicine who's currently on paid suspension after questioning whether an Israeli student and likely Israel Defense Forces (IDF) veteran may have committed war crimes, told Common Dreams.
According to the Gaza Health Ministry, hundreds of healthcare workers have been detained and more than 1,000 have been killed since the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel. Critics accuse Israel of deliberately killing and wounding health workers.
The Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor on Saturday published the testimonies of witnesses to alleged IDF war crimes during the Kamal Adwan raid, including "deliberate killings, field executions, as well as sexual and physical assaults on women and girls from medical teams and displaced women in the area."
Responding to Israeli attacks on hospitals and Abu Safiya's detention, Rohan Talbot, director of advocacy and campaigns at London-based Medical Aid for Palestinians, said on the Bluesky social media platform Saturday that "our leaders must demand the immediate and safe release of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya and all detained Gaza health workers."
"Health workers are not a target," he added, "and impunity for Israel's destruction of Palestinian healthcare must end."
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ICC Urged to Probe Israel's Alleged Torture of Gaza Medical Workers
"The torture of Palestinian healthcare workers is a window into the much larger issue of the Israeli government's treatment of detainees generally," said one Human Rights Watch expert.
Aug 26, 2024
Palestinian medical workers' harrowing accounts of arbitrary detention and torture by Israeli occupation forces in Gaza prompted calls on Monday for a war crimes investigation by the International Criminal Court, whose chief prosecutor is already seeking to arrest Israeli and Hamas leaders for atrocities committed on and after last October 7.
Eight doctors, nurses, and paramedics formerly held by Israeltold Human Rights Watch (HRW) that they suffered "torture—including rape and sexual abuse by Israeli forces—denial of medical care, and poor detention conditions," as well as "humiliation, beatings, forced stress positions, prolonged cuffing, and blindfolding."
"The Israeli government's mistreatment of Palestinian healthcare workers has continued in the shadows and needs to immediately stop," HRW acting Middle East director Balkees Jarrah said in a statement. "The torture and other ill-treatment of doctors, nurses, and paramedics should be thoroughly investigated and appropriately punished, including by the International Criminal Court (ICC)."
"The torture of Palestinian healthcare workers is a window into the much larger issue of the Israeli government's treatment of detainees generally," Jarrah added. "Governments should publicly call on the Israeli authorities to release unlawfully detained healthcare workers and end the cruel mistreatment and nightmarish conditions for all detained Palestinians."
The medical workers interviewed by HRW provided similar accounts of being detained in Gaza before being sent to detention facilities in Israel, including the notorious Sde Teiman prison, where former prisoners and Israeli whistleblowers have described torture and other abuse including amputations due to extreme shackling. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is investigating the deaths of at least 36 Sde Teiman detainees, including one man who died after allegedly being sodomized with an electric baton.
A group of Sde Teiman guards has also been arrested in connection with an alleged gang-rape of a detainee that was caught on video. The IDF reservists' arrests sparked a violent attempt to free the suspects by a far-right mob whose members included senior Israeli government officials. Meanwhile, many Israeli leaders, media personalities, and celebrities have publicly defended the rape and torture of Palestinian prisoners.
One paramedic who was imprisoned at Sde Teiman and featured in the new HRW report said he was "suspended from a chain attached to handcuffs, electroshocked, denied medical care for broken ribs caused by beatings, and administered what he believed was a psychoactive drug before interrogations."
"It was so degrading, it was unbelievable," he said. "I was helping people as a paramedic, I never expected something like this."
Another paramedic imprisoned at Sde Teiman, 36-year-old Walid Khalili, said that when his captors removed his blindfold, he saw "dozens of detainees in diapers... suspended from the ceiling."
"He said that personnel at the facility then suspended him from a chain, so his feet were not touching the ground, dressed him in a garment and a headband that were attached to wires, and shocked him with electricity," the report states.
An ambulance driver told HRW that he saw Israeli guards beat two men to death with metal pipes while he and other Palestinians were being held in a large metal cage near the Israel-Gaza border fence.
Eyad Abed, a 50-year-old surgeon at the Indonesian Hospital, was seized by Israeli forces during the November siege and invasion of the facility. Abed said Israeli soldiers broke his ribs and tailbone during torture sessions.
"Every minute we were beaten," Abed told HRW. "I mean all over the body, on sensitive areas between the legs, the chest, the back. We were kicked all over the body and the face. They used the front of their boots which had a metal tip, then their weapons. They had lighters: One soldier tried to burn me but burned the person next to me. I told them I'm a doctor, but they didn't care."
In addition to torture, the medical workers interviewed by HRW described hellish living conditions in Israeli custody.
According to the report:
Abed, the surgeon, said the food was "horrible" and inadequate, and that he lost 22 kilograms (49 pounds) during a month and a half in detention. The bathrooms were "not even fit for animals." The mattresses and blankets were thin, and the cold nights were "unbearable." In the cells, water for toilets and for drinking was only available for one hour a day, with a "disgusting" stench emanating from the nonflushable toilets. "They gave us a bag for the garbage. We used to fill it with water and drink from it later. It smelled horrible but we had no choice," Abed said.
The new HRW report is the latest evidence of Israeli torture of Palestinian medical workers, more than 500 of whom have been killed by Israeli bombs and bullets since October, according to United Nations agencies. There have been numerous reports of Israeli forces deliberately targeting medical workers.
Healthcare professionals living and working—often without pay for months—under such conditions are experiencing severe trauma.
"Several staff members told us they were simply waiting to die, and that they hoped Israel would get it over with sooner rather than later," a pair of U.S. surgeons who volunteered at Gaza European Hospital wrote earlier this month for Politico.
Israel is currently on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands. Israeli forces have killed more than 40,400 Palestinians—mostly women and children—in Gaza since October, while wounding at least 93,500 others. At least 10,000 more Gazans are missing and believed dead and buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of buildings in the obliterated strip.
Most of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been forcibly displaced by Israel's bombardment and invasion. Israel's "
complete siege" of Gaza has pushed hundreds of thousands of Palestinians over the brink of starvation; dozens of children have died due to malnutrition, dehydration, and lack of adequate medical care. Preventable diseases including measles, hepatitis, and polio are spreading, threatening not only Gazans but people in nearby countries including Israel and Egypt.
Meanwhile at the ICC—which is also located in The Hague—Prosecutor Karim Khan is
pushing the tribunal to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders, at least one of whom, former political chief Ismail Haniyeh, has been assassinated by Israel.
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