‘More horrific than Abu Ghraib’: Lawyer recounts visit to Israeli detention center
At Sde Teiman, Khaled Mahajneh found a detained journalist unrecognizable as he described the facility’s violent and inhumane conditions.

Baker Zoubi, June 27, 2024

“The situation there is more horrific than anything we’ve heard about Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.” This is how Khaled Mahajneh describes the Sde Teiman detention center as the first lawyer to visit the facility. More than 4,000 Palestinians whom Israel arrested in Gaza have been held at the military base in the Naqab/Negev since October 7; some of them have subsequently been released, but most remain in Israeli detention.

Mahajneh, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, was initially approached by Al Araby TV, which was seeking information about Muhammad Arab, a reporter for the network who was arrested in March while covering the Israeli siege of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. “I contacted the Israeli army’s control center, and after providing them with a photo and an ID card of the detainee, as well as my official power of attorney document, I was informed that [Arab] was being held at Sde Teiman and that he could be visited.”

When Mahajneh arrived at the base on June 19, he was required to leave his car far away from the site, where an army jeep was waiting to transport him inside. This was “something I had never encountered on any previous visit to any prison,” he told +972. They drove for about 10 minutes through the facility — a sprawling network of trailers — before arriving at a large warehouse, which contained a trailer guarded by masked soldiers.

“They repeated that the visit would be limited to 45 minutes, and any action that may harm the security of the state, the camp, or the soldiers will lead to the immediate cessation of the visit. I still don’t understand what they meant,” Mahajneh said.

Soldiers dragged out the detained journalist with his arms and legs tied, while Mahajneh remained behind a barrier. After soldiers removed his blindfold, Arab rubbed his eyes for five minutes, unaccustomed to the bright light. “Where am I?” was the first question he asked Mahajneh. Most Palestinians at Sde Teiman do not even know where they are being held; with at least 35 detainees having died in unknown circumstances since the war began, many simply call it “the death camp.”

“I have been visiting political and security detainees and prisoners in Israeli jails for years, including since October 7,” Mahajneh noted. “I know that the conditions of detention have become much harsher, and that the prisoners are abused on a daily basis. But Sde Teiman was unlike anything I’ve seen or heard before.”

‘Even the courts are rife with hatred’
Mahajneh told +972 that Arab was nearly unrecognizable after 100 days in the detention facility; his face, hair, and skin color had changed, and he was covered with dirt and pigeon droppings. The journalist had not been given new clothes for nearly two months, and was only allowed to change his pants for the first time that day because of the lawyer’s visit.

According to Arab, detainees are continually blindfolded and tied up with their hands behind their backs, forced to sleep hunched over on the floor without any bedding. Their iron handcuffs are removed only during a weekly, minute-long shower. “But the prisoners began refusing to shower because they don’t have watches, and going beyond the allotted minute exposes prisoners to severe punishments, including hours outside in the heat or rain,” Mahajneh said.

All detainees, Mahajneh noted, face deteriorating health conditions due to the poor quality of the daily prison diet: a small amount of labaneh and a piece of cucumber or tomato. They also suffer from severe constipation, and for every 100 prisoners, only one roll of toilet paper is provided per day.

“The prisoners are prevented from talking to each other, even though more than 100 people are kept to a warehouse, some of them elderly and minors,” Mahajneh told +972. “They are not allowed to pray or even read the Qur’an.”

Arab also testified to his lawyer that Israeli guards sexually assaulted six prisoners with a stick in front of the other detainees after they had violated prison orders. “When he talked about rapes, I asked him, ‘Muhammad, you’re a journalist, are you sure about this?’” Mahajneh recounted. “But he said he saw it with his own eyes, and that what he was telling me was only a small part of what was happening there.”

Multiple media outlets, including CNN and the New York Times, have reported on instances of rape and sexual assault at Sde Teiman. In a video circulating on social media earlier this week, a Palestinian prisoner recently released from the detention camp said that he had personally witnessed multiple rapes, and cases in which Israeli soldiers made dogs sexually assault prisoners. ...

This is disgusting.

Where is the united nations!?!

the Messenger of Allah said:

"it is not lawful to lie except in three cases: Something the man tells his wife to please her, to lie during war, and to lie in order to bring peace between the people."

https://sunnah.com/tirmidhi:1939