Headline Roundup • August 29th, 2024
Palestinians Allegedly Abused at Israel's Sde Teiman Prison
Summary from the AllSides News Team
Over the past few months, reports have emerged of alleged physical and sexual abuse of Palestinian prisoners at a detention facility in Israel.
The Details: Sde Teiman is a military base in southern Israel which serves as a detention camp for Palestinians arrested in the course of the Israel-Hamas war. In May, an investigation from CNN (Lean Left bias) revealed that prisoners were subjected to physical and sexual abuse, kept in squalid conditions, and lacked adequate medical care. The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) arrested 10 Sde Teiman guards in late July; five were freed soon after, while the other five remain under house arrest. Following the arrests, right-wing Israelis protested at the camp in support of the guards.
A Personal Account: On Sunday, CNN released an interview with a former Sde Teiman detainee who described guards penetrating his rectum with batons during interrogations.
How Israeli Media Covered It: Opinions were split among Israel's media. An op-ed in Jerusalem Post (Center) criticized the public nature of the arrests for embarrassing the accused, calling them "heroic soldiers" and the accusations "blood libels." Conversely, an op-ed in Haaretz (Lean Left) said that Israel "must decide whether it's a country where the rule of law remains, or a country controlled by armed gangs of right-wing settlers who come to the defense of soldiers even when they're suspected of shocking crimes with no justification for the country's security."
How Western Media Covered It: Left and lean-left media strongly criticized the IDF, and sometimes the U.S. government, for not taking action sooner. Right media sometimes mentioned Sde Teiman in stories about the Israel-Hamas war; AllSides could not find a story from the right mainly featuring Sde Teiman, though ZeroHedge (Lean Right bias) mentioned The Times of Israel's report on August 13.
Featured Coverage of this Story
Obtained by CNN
Ibrahim Salem, 34, said he felt a deep sense of dread when a soldier ordered him to undress during his captivity in Israel’s notorious Sde Teiman prison.
“They told me to strip,” the Palestinian said, reflecting on the torment he endured during his eight months in Israeli detention. “That’s when I knew I was beginning my journey to hell.”
An Israeli airstrike hit Salem’s home in the Jabalya refugee camp in northern Gaza on December 8, killing eight of his relatives and injuring his wife and two of his three...
Dudu Greenspan/Flash90
The state tells the High Court of Justice that it has greatly improved conditions at the now notorious Sde Teiman detention facility, and that standards of medical care and the provision of food comport with relevant government regulations.
According to the latest submission to the court in response to a petition from human rights groups calling for the facility to be shuttered due to the allegations of severe abuse against Sde Teiman inmates, there are now 24 detainees being held at the detention center, down from 28 at the beginning of August.
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Screenshot: Channel 12
As early as the first month of Israel’s war on Gaza, Sde Teiman, a secretive Israeli military prison in the Negev desert, had been raising alarm bells for Israeli human rights attorney Roni Pelli and other rights advocates. Pelli and her colleagues started to hear reports from whistleblowers about poor conditions for Palestinians imprisoned inside Sde Teiman. They heard of instances of violence committed by soldiers against detained Palestinians, and, in one case, a Palestinian who died there. Since then, media reports about the prison have mounted, quoting formerly detained...
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