Tel Aviv, August 21 (RHC)-- A new survey has revealed that 65 percent of Israelis believe that soldiers who have sexually assaulted Palestinian detainees at the Sde Teiman detention facility should not face criminal charges.
The poll published by Israel’s so-called Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), asks, among else, how people would want to handle the soldiers who gang-raped Palestinian detainees at the Sde Teiman in southern Israel’s Negev desert.
It turned out that almost two out of three settlers opposed criminal prosecution, and would prefer them to be “handled in a disciplinary manner, by the commanding level only.” Only 28 percent of the respondents answered that “they should stand criminal trial”; while 14 percent didn’t know.
The same poll also showed that 47 percent of the settlers believe that the occupying Israeli regime should not abide by international law and moral values during its ground and air strikes against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Located in the southern sector of the 1948 occupied territories, the Sde Teiman was used by the Israeli military as a camp for holding Palestinians captured during its bloody onslaught against the Gaza Strip.
A leaked video, aired by Israel’s Channel 12, has recently emerged of a gang rape of a Palestinian prisoner by guards at the Sde Teiman. Israeli public broadcaster KAN, citing a security source, said the Palestinian man was taken to a hospital with severe injuries to an intimate body part and unable to walk due to his medical condition.
On July 29, nine Israeli soldiers were arrested for questioning as part of an investigation into the incident.
A Palestinian rights group has condemned the rape of the Palestinian inmate by Israeli soldiers, calling on the United Nations to launch a probe.
The incident created a backlash in the Israeli-occupied territories, with a far-right mob, that included a lawmaker and minister, storming the detention center and a military court in protest against the arrests.
Five of those detained were released to house arrest on August 13, pending a potential decision by the army to file indictments. The Israeli army is believed to have detained thousands of Palestinians, including women, children, and medics since the outbreak of war on October 7, 2023, against the Gaza Strip, where more than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed.
Testimonies gathered by rights groups and media reports quoting formerly detained Palestinians and Israeli whistleblowers point to a dramatic worsening of conditions inside prisons since the start of the Gaza war 10 months ago.
Violence, extreme hunger, humiliation, and other abuse of Palestinian prisoners have been normalized across Israel’s jail system, reports indicated.
Israeli rights group B’tselem’s report entitled “Welcome to Hell”, which contains testimony from 55 recently released Palestinian detainees, concluded that Israel’s prisons should now be labeled “torture camps.”
