Tied, diapered and blindfolded: Israeli whistleblowers detail abuse of Palestinians in obscure detention center

According to Israeli whistleblowers, a Shawish is typically a prisoner who has been cleared of suspected links to Hamas after an interrogation.

The Israeli military denied unnecessarily detaining them or using them for translation purposes. “If there is no reason to continue the detention, the detainees are released and returned to Gaza,” they said in a statement.

Our days were filled with prayers, tears and supplications. This eased our agony. Mohammed al-Ran, former detainee

However, reports from whistleblowers and detainees – particularly regarding Shawish – cast doubt on the IDF’s description of its cleaning process. Al-Ran claims he served as Shawish for several weeks after being cleared of links to Hamas. The complainants also said that the Shawish acquitted served as intermediary for some time.

According to eyewitnesses, they speak Hebrew, which allows them to communicate the guards’ orders to the remaining prisoners in Arabic.

For this, al-Ran said he was given a special privilege: they removed the blindfold from his eyes. He said this was another kind of hell.

“Part of my torture was being able to see how people were being tortured,” he said. “At first you couldn’t see it. You couldn’t see the torture, the revenge, the oppression.”

“When they took the blindfold off my eyes, I could see the extent of the humiliation and debasement… I could see to what extent they saw us not as human beings, but as animals.”

Al-Ran’s account of the forms of punishment he saw was corroborated by whistleblowers who spoke to CNN. A prisoner who committed an infraction, such as talking to another, was forced to raise his arms above his head for an hour. Sometimes the prisoner’s hands were tied to a fence to ensure that he did not move from the stress position.

For those who repeatedly violated the ban on speaking and moving, the punishment became more severe. Israeli guards would sometimes take a prisoner to an area outside the compound and beat him aggressively, according to two complainants and al-Ran. A whistleblower who worked as a guard said he saw a man emerge from a beating with his teeth and some bones apparently broken.

When they removed the blindfold from my eyes, I could see the extent of the humiliation and humiliation… I could see the extent to which they saw us not as human beings but as animals. Mohammed Al-Ran, former detainee

The whistleblower and al-Ran also described a routine search in which guards released large dogs on sleeping detainees, launching a sound grenade into the compound as troops entered. Al-Ran called this “the night torture”.

“While we were tied up, they released the dogs that moved between us and trampled us,” said al-Ran. “We were lying on our stomachs, with our faces pressed to the floor. We couldn’t move, and they moved on top of us.”

The same whistleblower recounted the search in the same harrowing detail. “It was a special military police unit that carried out the so-called search,” said the source. “But it was actually an excuse to hit them. It was a terrifying situation.”

“There was a lot of shouting and dogs barking.”

Trapped in beds in a field hospital

The whistleblowers’ accounts portray a different kind of horror at the Sde Teiman field hospital.

“What I felt when I was dealing with those patients was an idea of ​​complete vulnerability,” said a doctor who worked in Sde Teiman.

“If we imagine ourselves unable to move, unable to see what’s going on and completely naked, that leaves us completely exposed,” the source said. “I think it’s something that approaches psychological torture, if it doesn’t cross paths with it.”

Another informant said he was ordered to perform medical procedures on Palestinian detainees for which he was not qualified.

“I was asked to learn how to do things on patients, performing small medical procedures that were not part of my skills,” he said, adding that this was often done without anesthesia.

“If they complained of pain, they gave them paracetamol,” he said, using another name for acetaminophen.

“Just being there felt like being an accomplice to abuse.”

The same complainant also said that he had witnessed an amputation carried out on a man who had suffered injuries caused by the constant squeezing of his wrists with a zipper. The report matches details in a letter written by a doctor working at Sde Teiman and published by Ha’aretz in April.

“From the first days of the medical center’s operation until today, I have faced serious ethical dilemmas,” said the letter addressed to Israel’s Attorney General and the Ministries of Health and Defense, according to Ha’aretz. “More than that, I am writing (this letter) to warn you that the facility’s operations do not comply with a single health section of the Illegal Combatant Incarceration Act.”

An IDF spokesperson denied the allegations reported by Ha’aretz in a written statement to CNN at the time, saying the medical procedures were conducted with “extreme care” and in accordance with Israeli and international law.

The spokesperson added that the handcuffing of the detainees was carried out “in accordance with procedures, their state of health and the level of danger they represented” and that any allegation of violence would be examined.

They stripped us of everything that resembled human beings. Israeli whistleblower recalls his experience at Sde Teiman

The whistleblowers also stated that medical staff were instructed not to sign medical documents, which corroborates previous reports by human rights group Physicians for Human Rights in Israel (PHRI).

The PHRI report, released in April, warned of “the serious concern that anonymity was used to avoid the possibility of investigations or complaints regarding violations of medical ethics and professionalism.”

“Nothing is signed and there is no verification of authority”, said the same complainant, who stated that he did not have adequate training for the treatment requested of him. “It’s a paradise for interns, because it’s like they can do whatever they want.”

CNN also asked the Israeli Ministry of Health for comment on the allegations in this report. The ministry referred CNN to the IDF.

Hidden from the outside world

Sde Teiman and other military detention camps have been shrouded in secrecy since their creation. Israel has repeatedly refused requests to release the number of detainees at the facility or to reveal the whereabouts of Gaza prisoners.

On Wednesday, Israel’s Supreme Court held a hearing in response to a petition filed by Israeli human rights group HaMoked to reveal the location of a Palestinian X-ray technician detained at Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza. in February. It was the first court session of its kind since October 7.

Israel’s highest court has previously rejected requests for habeas corpus presented on behalf of dozens of Palestinians from Gaza detained in unknown locations.

The disappearances “allow the atrocities we have heard about to happen,” said Tal Steiner, an Israeli human rights lawyer and executive director of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel.

“People who are completely disconnected from the outside world are the most vulnerable to torture and ill-treatment,” Steiner said in an interview with CNN.

Since October 7, more than 100 structures, including large tents and hangars, have appeared in these areas of the Sde Teiman desert camp. Planet Labs PBC

Satellite images provide further insight into activities at Sde Teiman, revealing that in the months following the start of the war between Israel and Hamas on October 7, more than 100 new structures were built, including large tents and hangars. , in the desert field. A comparison of aerial photographs from September 10, 2023 and March 1 of this year also showed a significant increase in the number of vehicles on the premises, indicating an increase in activity. Satellite images from two dates in early December showed construction work underway.

CNN also geographically located the two photographs released that show the room where the group of blindfolded men in gray tracksuits are located. The pattern of panels seen on the roof matches those of a large hangar visible in satellite images. The structure, which resembles an animal pen, is located in the central area of ​​the Sde Teiman complex. It is an older structure that sits among the new buildings that have appeared since the start of the war.

CNN analyzed satellite images of two other military detention camps – the Ofer and Anatot bases in the occupied West Bank – and did not detect any expansion on the grounds since October 7. Several human rights groups and legal experts say they believe that Sde Teiman, which is closest to Gaza, probably houses the largest number of detainees of the three military detention camps.

“I was there for 23 days. Twenty-three days that felt like 100 years,” said Ibrahim Yassine, 27, on the day of his release from a military detention camp.

He was lying in a room crowded with more than a dozen recently released men – still wearing their gray prison uniforms and tracksuits. Some had deep wounds where the handcuffs had been removed.

“We were handcuffed and blindfolded,” said another man, 43-year-old Sufyan Abu Salah. “Today is the first day I can see.”

Many had a glassy look and looked weak. An elderly man was breathing through an oxygen machine, lying on a stretcher. Outside the hospital, two men from the Palestinian Red Crescent Society hugged their colleagues.

For Al-Ran, reuniting with his friends was anything but joyful. The experience, he said, left him mute for a month as he struggled with “emotional death.”

“It was very painful. When I was released, people expected me to miss them, to hug them. But there was a void,” said al-Ran. “The people I was with in the detention center became my family. Those friendships were the only things that belonged to us.”

Shortly before he was released, a fellow prisoner called out to him, in a voice that was barely above a whisper, al-Ran said. He asked the doctor to find his wife and children in Gaza. “He asked me to tell them that it is better for them to be martyrs,” said al-Ran. “It’s better for them to die than to be captured and kept here.”

Credits

Executive producer: Barbara Arvanitidis
Senior investigations writer: Tamara Qiblawi
Chief Global Affairs Correspondent: Matthew Chance
OSINT Reporter: Allegra Goodwin
Photojournalist: Alex Platt
Reporters: Abeer Salman, Ami Kaufman, Kareem Khadder, Mohammad Al Sawalhi and Tareq Al Hilou
Visual and graphic editors: Carlotta Dotto, Lou Robinson and Mark Oliver
3D Designer: Tom James
Photo editor: Sarah Tilotta
Video editors: Mark Baron, Julie Zink and Augusta Anthony
Motion Designers: Patrick Gallagher and Yukari Schrickel
Digital publishers: Laura Smith-Spark and Eliza Mackintosh
Executive editors: Dan Wright and Matt Wells

Editor’s note: Tamara Qiblawi wrote and reported from London. Matthew Chance, Barbara Arvanitidis and Alex Platt reported from Sde Teiman; Ami Kaufman and Allegra Goodwin reported from London; Abeer Salman and Kareem Khadder reported from Jerusalem; and journalists Mohammad Al Sawalhi and Tareq Al Hilou reported from Gaza.