Nine arrests

Israel: Soldiers allegedly abused prisoner

Several members of the army are currently being questioned at the Sde Teiman military base.

(Bild: AP)

Israel has begun an investigation into possible mistreatment of Palestinian prisoners from the Gaza war. The military declared on Monday that this action had been ordered due to the suspected mistreatment of a detainee. Nine soldiers were arrested.

According to Israeli media, the detainee is a Palestinian who was allegedly mistreated by the soldiers. The Palestinian Prisoners Club, a prison monitoring organization, accused the camp guards of sexually abusing the Palestinian prisoner. "This is a new rape crime committed by a group of prison guards against a detainee in Sde Teiman camp," the head of the organization, Abdullah Al-Zaghari, told AFP.

Right-wing Israelis want to obstruct investigations
Supporters of nationalist-religious parties, whose goals include the expansion of Israeli territory, attempted to obstruct the investigation. Military radio reported that the military police had appeared at the Sde Teiman prison camp. Ten soldiers there are accused of mistreating a prisoner of an elite group of the extremist organization Hamas. Human rights groups have long accused Israel of torturing prisoners in the camp in the Negev desert.

Ultra-right-wing Israelis attempted to obstruct the investigation with demonstrations outside the military base.

(Bild: AFP)

(Bild: AFP)

When the military police drove up to the camp, demonstrators including members of parliament from far-right parties gathered there. They protested against the investigation, claiming that the soldiers were only doing their duty. Some tried to break into the camp.

"Such actions endanger the security of the state"
Lieutenant General Herz Halevi condemned the demonstration and justified the investigation. "We are in the middle of a war and such actions jeopardize the security of the state," he said. "It is precisely these investigations that protect our soldiers in Israel and the world and protect the army's values."

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a leader of the nationalist-religious bloc in the government, on the other hand, said in a video uploaded to "X" that the accused soldiers should be treated as heroes and not as criminals.

NGOs denounce prison conditions
The Sde Teiman detention center was set up to detain Palestinians arrested in the Gaza Strip after the start of the war between Israel and Hamas on October 7. Since then, both the United Nations and human rights lawyers as well as Hamas-controlled authorities and former prisoners have denounced abuses during detention.

This month, the human rights organization Amnesty International called on Israel to end the indefinite detention of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip and the "rampant torture" in Israeli prisons. According to the Israeli army, the conditions of detention are in line with international law.