The Palestinian Prisoners’ Affairs Commission has released a new report detailing the horrific conditions in the Israeli torture prison in the Negev desert.
The testimonies of the eight detainees included details of the crimes of torture, abuse, and horrific attacks to which they were subjected, specifically during the first period of their detention, before they were transferred to the Negev prison.
The horrific details they were subjected to were mainly linked to the first period of their detention, but this does not mean that the torture crimes against them stopped after they were transferred from the camp they referred to as being in the (Gaza Envelope) to the prisons. Rather, all the detainees are still subjected to difficult and tragic conditions that language, according to their description, is unable to convey the reality of what is happening to them in an instant inside the prison, especially at the current stage due to the spread of skin diseases among their ranks, specifically scabies, which has become a tool of torture and abuse.
According to the available data from the Gaza detainees in the Negev prison, there are about 1,200 detainees from Gaza in the Negev prison, distributed across eight sections, each section containing 150 detainees.
The Prisoners’ Authority and the Prisoners’ Club reviewed in a report a central testimony from one of the detainees, in addition to other testimonies that included details about the crimes they were subjected to, as well as the current prison conditions. It is worth noting that these visits are part of a series of visits conducted by human rights organizations, which are limited visits that were mainly made to detainees in the “Ofer” camp and the “Negev” prison, in addition to a number of visits to detainees in the “Sde Teiman” camp, which was the most prominent station for torture crimes against Gaza detainees, in addition to a group of camps in which the level of torture crimes is no less than the level of crimes that detainees were subjected to in the (Sde Teiman) camp.
Testimony of the detainee (S.D.) (37 years old), who has been detained since November 2023 and is currently in the Negev prison:
“I was arrested in November, through the so-called ‘safe passage’, during my displacement from the north to the south. I was severely beaten after my arrest, focusing on my sensitive areas, until they deliberately pulled my hair in a harmful and humiliating way, while I was tied up and blindfolded. After I was transferred to one of the camps in the Gaza Strip, along with many other detainees, we were subjected to torture around the clock. One of the guards tied me up from behind for eight days, and I was beaten on my back until my body bled. This was in addition to the systematic insults and humiliation in all ways and methods. In the first stage, the detainees were forced to relieve themselves in their clothes, and we faced thirst and hunger. At that stage, the food consisted of three pieces of bread, and all the detainees in the first stage suffered fractures and severe wounds, and we did not receive any treatment.”
“I stayed for eight months wearing the same clothes, and we were deprived of showering for 18 days. The actual goal of the beatings in the first stage was to execute us and cause permanent disabilities for us. However, we are still subjected to very harsh detention conditions. We are detained in the tent section, and we all suffer from diseases and fractures, specifically skin diseases, which have spread among us as a result of the lack of cleanliness and health conditions inside the prison. I and the majority of the detainees suffer from the spread of pimples and boils all over our bodies, which have caused us severe infections. What has exacerbated their spread are the sponge mattresses, which are mattresses without covers, and our bodies rub against them due to the lack of cleanliness, which has exacerbated our suffering from severe itching and infections. Inside the section where 150 detainees are being held today, we have been using one bathroom over the past period, and the covers are never washed. During periods of extreme heat, snakes and insects have spread, and since February the food bowls have not been changed,” the detainee (S.D.) added. Which has become a major source of disease spread, and in April we faced a real famine, as we were deprived of food. Today only, what has been added is a bathroom for the 150 detainees, with specific hours set for its use, from eight in the morning until one in the afternoon.
Another statement from the detainee (F.Y.) (35 years old), who was arrested in November 2023 and is being held in the Negev prison:
“In addition to the torture crimes he was subjected to, he spoke at length about the spread of scabies, where he confirmed that the majority of detainees suffer from the spread of boils on their bodies, and severe infections as a result of the intense itching they suffer from all the time, and they face all of this without the slightest form of treatment, and the detention conditions are still very harsh and difficult, with a lack of cleanliness, as worms come out of the bathrooms we use, and since our arrest we have not been given nail clippers, so we are forced to file our nails against the wall, as the lack of cleanliness has turned the section into an infected place.” This was confirmed by the rest of the detainees who were visited.
Three other detainees, two of whom were arrested from schools that housed displaced persons, and another who was arrested with dozens from Al-Shifa Hospital, reported that “the occupation soldiers deliberately stripped them of their clothes after arresting them, and severely beat them before transferring them to one of the camps in the Gaza envelope, during which they were subjected to the worst types of torture, insults, dragging, hair pulling, and deprivation of using the toilet. Since their transfer to the Negev prison after several transfers they were subjected to, all the detainees, according to their description, sleep “hungry, and feel the cold,” in addition to the scabies disease that has turned into a form of physical and psychological torture.”
The Prisoners’ Authority and the Prisoners’ Club confirmed that after about a year of the ongoing war of extermination against our people, the occupation continues to use all possible policies and tools to torture detainees in its prisons and camps, which have turned into an arena for torture operations, which take place on an instant basis.
They pointed out that what is happening to the detainees today constitutes one aspect of the war of extermination, and this is reflected in the horrific and cruel testimonies of the detainees that do not stop. Indeed, the factor of time and the passage of more time on the detainees in light of these crimes, multiplies the threats that affect their fate, as the prison system works to invent more tools to deprive them of their humanity.
They renewed their demand for the international human rights system to restore its necessary role, and put an end to the state of helplessness in the face of the systematic crimes of the occupation, in light of the ongoing war of extermination, as well as the crimes committed against detainees, and to bring the leaders of the occupation to international courts to hold them accountable for the war of extermination and the operations of theft and erasure that are being carried out systematically against everything Palestinian.
It is worth mentioning that the Israeli occupation authorities imposed the crime of enforced disappearance on thousands of detainees in Gaza. Several months ago, in light of some legal amendments that were made, human rights organizations were able to make limited visits to detainees in Gaza. However, many of them are still subject to enforced disappearance, in addition to thousands of missing persons. The Israeli occupation also refuses to this day to allow the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit them or to know any information related to them. This is in addition to the set of major obstacles that legal teams have faced since the beginning of the war in following up on them and visiting them.
