An investigation by the Israeli military into the alleged abuse of a Palestinian detainee at a notorious military detention camp for prisoners captured in Gaza has sparked protests from members of Israel’s far right.
The Israeli military said on Monday the office of its advocate general ordered an inquiry “following suspected substantial abuse of a detainee” at the Sde Teiman facility, which holds Palestinian detainees, including alleged members of Hamas’s elite Nukhba forces involved in the 7 October attack.
Israel’s army radio said military police arrived at Sde Teiman as part of their investigation of 10 reserve IDF soldiers who were suspected of abusing the prisoner, a member of the Nukhba forces who has been classed as an “illegal combatant”.
The alleged abuse took place three weeks ago, they added. The detainee was found “in a very serious condition”, requiring his evacuation to a nearby hospital where he underwent surgery.
Nine soldiers were detained, accused of “serious abuse of a detainee”, according to Israel’s army radio, while the 10th was expected to be arrested later as he was not at the base when the police arrived.
But the operation triggered an angry confrontation between the military police and IDF soldiers at Sde Teiman, captured on video by a reporter from Israel’s public broadcaster Kann News.
The detentions also prompted outcry from members of Israel’s far right, including a coalition of extreme-right members of parliament and their supporters who attempted to storm the military base in protest. Late on Monday, protesters also targeted a second base where the soldiers were being questioned, with violent confrontations continuing into the evening.
Natan Sachs, head of the centre for Middle East policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington, called the protests “a sign of a very, very troubled time”.
“I am very worried about the tensions that this reflects in society,” he said.
Officials from Israel’s military and political establishment were quick to condemn the intrusion on to the military base, but some limited their comments on the alleged abuse – and its potential impact on Israel’s assault on Gaza.
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who has pledged “total victory” in Gaza, “strongly condemned” the attempted break-in at Sde Teiman, but made no comment on the allegations.
The defence minister, Yoav Gallant, said that “even in difficult times, the law applies to everyone – nobody may trespass into IDF bases or violate the laws of the state of Israel”.
The Israeli president, Isaac Herzog, called for calm, but said that hatred towards some of those accused of terrorist acts “is surely understandable and justified”.
The IDF’s chief of staff, Lt Gen Herzi Halevi, defended the investigation, and said: “The incident of breaking into the Sde Teiman base is extremely serious and against the law … we are at war, and actions of this kind endanger the security of the country.”
But Yariv Levin, Israel’s minister of justice and a member of Netanyahu’s political party, said he was “shocked” to see the images of soldiers arrested at Sde Teiman, “in a way suitable for arresting dangerous criminals”.
He added: “It is impossible to accept this, even if there is no debate regarding the obligation to observe the law and the orders of the army.”
A recent report by the UN Palestinian affairs agency, Unrwa, detailed extensive abuse at Sde Teiman, where detainees were “subjected to beatings while made to lie on a thin mattress on top of rubble for hours without food, water or access to a toilet, with their legs and hands bound with plastic ties”.
Detainees including children “reported being forced into cages and attacked by dogs”, they said, while others had lasting wounds from their beatings, including with metal bars.
Detainees also described abuse that included “insults and humiliation such as being made to act like animals or getting urinated on, use of loud music and noise, deprivation of water, food, sleep and toilets, denial of the right to pray and prolonged use of tightly locked handcuffs causing open wounds and friction injuries”, the report said.
The UN said in June that an estimated 27 detainees have died in custody on Israeli military bases, including Sde Teiman, while at least four more have died in the Israeli prison system due to beatings or denial of medical treatment.
Rights groups including the Association for Civil Rights in Israel have petitioned Israel’s high court to close Sde Teiman due to widespread reports of abuse.
While officials have pledged to remove most of the detainees from the facility and transfer them into the Israeli prison system, which has also been accused of abusing detained Palestinians, the nature of any closure or transfers at Sde Teiman remains opaque.
The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel said “since the beginning of the war, we claimed that the Sde Teiman was operating as an ‘ex-territory’, and the soldiers stationed there were acting outside any law – first in their treatment of detainees, and now towards military law enforcement agents.”
They added: “Instead of absolute condemnation, some Israeli far-right leaders have rallied to support the suspects of abuse, which is emblematic of the root causes that enable such abuse to happen in the first place.”