Surveillance footage newly aired by Israel’s Channel 12 showed what appeared to be Israeli soldiers sexually assaulting a Palestinian prisoner at the Sde Teiman detention facility in the south of the country.
Soldiers can be seen in the CCTV footage lifting up a blindfolded prisoner and taking him out of sight of the camera. They then covered themselves and the prisoner with their riot shields as they encircled him. This is when they are believed to have carried out the alleged abuses.
A spokesperson for the US state department said the reports were ‘horrific’ adding that they ought to be investigated by Israeli authorities. A spokesperson for Israel’s embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters.
The Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz spoke to Yoel Donchin, the doctor who treated the prisoner in the incident who said he suffered from “a ruptured bowel, a severe injury to his anus, lung damage and broken ribs”. Donchin said: “If the state and Knesset members think there’s no limit to how much you can abuse prisoners, they should kill them themselves, like the Nazis did, or close the hospitals.”
The incident took place in late July and led to the arrests of nine soldiers and an investigation into what Israel’s advocate general said was the “suspected substantial abuse of a detainee”. The arrest of the soldiers also sparked a protest by rightwing Israelis who eventually stormed the facility leading to a stand-off with security forces