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Palestinians Describe Beatings, Stress Positions, Other Alleged Abuses in Israeli Detention Former Gazan detainees said they were physically assaulted, forced to kneel for up to 20 hours a day, sometimes with hands tied above their heads By Fatima AbdulKarim, Sune Engel Rasmussen and Anat Peled/Wall Street Journal/March 13, 2024 RAMALLAH, West Bank—When Israeli soldiers released Baha Abu Rukba near a Gaza border crossing after holding him for nearly three weeks, the 24-year-old Palestinian said he was in pain and struggling to walk after being hit repeatedly with rifle butts and kicked in the groin. Since Israel’s armed forces pushed into Gaza in response to the Hamas Oct. 7 attacks on southern Israel that left 1,200 people dead, according to Israeli authorities, the United Nations estimates they have detained thousands of young Palestinians <https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/israel-hamas-war-gaza-strip-2023-11-21/card/winning-release-of-palestinian-prisoners-is-one-of-hamas-leader-s-top-goals-N1w48HYCXn0wJEZJPak9> in operations the Israeli military has said are aimed at identifying militants. The Wall Street Journal has spoken with more than a dozen former detainees who described being subjected to various forms of psychological and physical abuse, including being beaten during interrogations and placed in stress positions for prolonged periods. “I was praying just to survive,” said Rukba, who works as a paramedic with the Palestine Red Crescent Society. Some days, he said, he was forced to kneel for up to 20 hours, his hands tied to a rod above his head. Twenty-seven Palestinians from Gaza have died in Israeli detention since Oct. 7, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported earlier this month. The Israeli military told The Wall Street Journal that it was aware of 27 deaths among detainees in its custody. Former detainees interviewed by the Journal were eventually released without being charged by Israeli authorities. They described a range of mistreatment, with some saying they suffered physical assaults during their detentions, including being hit and kicked. Some described being forced to kneel for much of the day or sometimes hold their hands above their heads for hours. Others said they weren’t beaten but were insulted repeatedly and subjected to other verbal abuse. Some said they were intentionally kept awake and allowed to sleep for only four hours a day. When they were allowed to sleep, they weren’t provided beds or blankets. Many described poor conditions in the detention facilities, including overcrowding and a lack of sanitation and food. The Israeli military said “violent and antagonistic treatment” toward detainees is prohibited and contrary to its beliefs and values. It said detainees are treated in accordance with international law. It said all are provided with food and medical care and given opportunities to pray and sleep. Israel’s top military lawyer, Maj. Gen. Yifat Tomer Yerushalmi, said last month <https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/israel-military-investigates-soldiers-for-criminal-offenses-in-gaza-war-8fe2d947> that some troops were under review for criminal offenses and other misconduct, including abuse of prisoners and excessive use of force. “They are being held in incommunicado detention, with no right to counsel, no communications with their family,” said Tal Steiner, executive director of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, an organization that monitors the treatment of Palestinians in Israeli prisons. Steiner alleged that Israel has long used torture in interrogations. “All this raises a very, very dark picture,” she said. In the weeks after Israel invaded Gaza, videos and photographs of Palestinian detainees sparked condemnation from rights groups. Scores of men were stripped to their underwear, with some kneeling in the street or hugging their legs against the cold. The U.S. State Department called the photos “deeply disturbing.” Many of the Palestinians who spoke to the Journal said they were detained in November and December, during the initial phase of Israel’s offensive into Gaza, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians moved to the south of the enclave as Israel called for evacuations. They described being rounded up in large groups, stripped and sometimes blindfolded before they were transported to detention sites in Gaza and Israel. The Israeli military said it orders detainees to undress to ensure they aren’t carrying explosives or other weapons, and that it allows them to put their clothes back on as soon as authorities deem it safe to do so. However, former detainees told the Journal that they had been undressed for long periods, including during interrogations. Mohammad Obaid, a 20-year-old journalist, said he was detained in October while following orders by Israel to evacuate his neighborhood in Gaza City. Israeli soldiers pulled him aside and ordered him at gunpoint to strip to his underwear, he said. They then cuffed his hands and feet with zip ties. Obaid said the soldiers loaded him onto a truck and then a bus with other detainees. They were taken to an open field with a few makeshift buildings, he said. He said he was interrogated for six hours with his hands shackled to the ceiling. Obaid said the next day interrogators took him to a room and asked him about his whereabouts on Oct. 7 and the locations of Israeli hostages, Hamas tunnels and rocket positions, while they took turns punching him in the face. After the interrogation, he said he was dragged outside, told to wipe the blood off his face and pose in front of an Israeli flag for a photo. He said he was released without being charged after 40 days in detention. Ayman Lubbad, 34, said he was in his family home in northern Gaza when Israeli forces came on Dec. 7 and ordered the neighborhood to evacuate, according to a written account he shared with the Journal. When residents left their homes, he said, women and the elderly were ordered to go to a local hospital, and males 14 years and older were forced to remove their clothes and kneel in the street. Lubbad, who has a wife and three children, said he was blindfolded, bound with zip ties and taken to a series of detention sites in the subsequent days. “I was repeatedly beaten by Israeli soldiers for no reason,” he said. “They constantly beat me on my rib cage. I could not sleep for two nights due to the severity of the pain.” He said he was eventually released on Dec. 14. Palestinians in Gaza are generally held under a 2002 law that allows Israel to detain “unlawful combatants.” <https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/hamas-sees-surge-of-support-as-palestinian-prisoners-are-released-c1b3e927> Following the Oct. 7 attacks, Israel introduced an emergency amendment to that law, which allows people to be held without seeing a lawyer for up to six months, if authorized by a judge. Maurice Hirsch, a former head Israeli military prosecutor in the West Bank, said Israel has been trying to obtain information about Israeli hostages being held in Gaza <https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/hamas-hostages-israel-gaza-41432124> and Hamas infrastructure. More than 240 hostages were taken to Gaza in the Oct. 7 attacks. While he said Israel doesn’t condone the physical mistreatment of prisoners, he acknowledged that some abuse does occur in the process of trying to get information urgently. “Lifesaving information sometimes also does require the use of force, without question,” he said. Hirsch said other countries such as the U.S. have been in emergencies that have led to abuses. “We saw what happened in Abu Ghraib,” he said, referring to abuses committed by American forces at a prison in Iraq. “Does this happen? Yes. Is it good? No. Is it official policy? No.” Many of the women who were interviewed by the Journal said they had been taken to regular prison facilities in Israel. Hiba Ghaben, 40, said she was arrested in early December while evacuating along a corridor leading to southern Gaza, and held for nearly two months in Damon Prison, located near Haifa in northern Israel. During interrogations, she was asked about the residents of her neighborhood and the whereabouts of Hamas leaders and Israeli hostages. “They threatened to electrocute me,” she said. “When they returned us to the cell, they would tie our hands and feet.” Rukba, the paramedic, was detained on Dec. 21 at the headquarters of the Palestine Red Crescent Society in northern Gaza, where he works. He was held and then released without being charged nearly three weeks later at a border crossing in southern Israel. Authorities confiscated his phone when they ordered him to strip to his underwear. He had no idea whether his family members had survived. He was eventually able to reach them by phone and learned that they were living in a tent city in northern Gaza housing people displaced by the fighting. Regular communication has been difficult, however, because of frequent telecommunications blackouts. He hasn’t been able to go north to see his family because getting there is unsafe. “It kills me to think of them under such circumstances,” Rukba said. “I wish I could reach them, or they were closer to me.” Jared Malsin contributed to this article. Full at: https://www.wsj.com/world/palestinians-describe-beatings-stress-positions-other-alleged-abuses-in-israeli-detention-1129b86f -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. 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