Video has emerged of a gang rape of a Palestinian prisoner by guards at the Sde Teiman detention facility in the Negev desert, southern Israel. The video, which has been verified by Al Jazeera, shows the prisoner being selected from a larger group lying bound on the floor. The victim is then escorted to a wall, where guards, using their shields to hide their identity from the camera, proceed to rape him.
The attack is believed to have been so brutal that, after he was transferred to hospital, Israeli media reported that the victim was unable to walk. Ten soldiers were ultimately arrested for the rape on July 29, in a case that has rocked Israeli society. The soldiers belong to a unit known as Force , which is tasked with guarding the Sde Teiman facility, according to Haaretz.
Military prosecutors released three of the arrested soldiers on August 4, adding to the two previously released by investigators following a military court hearing in Kfar Yona on July 30, at which protesters gathered in support of the soldiers under arrest. The video has shocked many within Israeli society. Some observers, including a local rights group and two UN agencies, have voiced concerns about the treatment of Palestinian prisoners.
Others, including the hard right and ultranationalist politicians, such as National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, within Israel, have argued that any action β even gang rape β is permissible if it is undertaken for the security of the state. Following the arrest of the reservists on July 29, far-right mobs, some of which included government ministers, stormed the facility at Sde Teiman in southern Israel later the same day. That unrest continued during a high court hearing, convened on Wednesday to hear the petitions of Sde Teiman prisoners who are alleged to have been tortured.
Israeli politicians, including cabinet members, have also defended the accused. The video of the alleged gang rape at Sde Teiman is the latest piece in a growing body of evidence of abuse, sexual assault and the systematic withholding of food and medical care that Palestinians endure within the Israeli prison system. In firsthand accounts, the prisoners, the majority of whom were later released without charge at locations across the occupied Palestinian territory, Gaza and within Israel, recount being assaulted, insulted and sexually abused by guards.
