A leaked photograph of the detention facility at the Sde Teiman desert camp, which holds Palestinians detained during Israel’s invasion of Gaza, shows a blindfolded man with his arms above his head. (Obtained by CNN)
Atlanta, May 11 (RHC)-- Israeli whistleblowers have exposed appalling and inhumane conditions at the Sde Teiman military base that also serves as a detention center in the Negev desert in the southern part of the occupied territories.
According to a CNN report, three Israeli individuals who worked at the base, in which Palestinians are detained amid the genocidal war on besieged Gaza, said doctors at the facility have occasionally amputated prisoners’ limbs and performed medical procedures they were not qualified to conduct. Doctors carrried out amputations due to injuries from consistent handcuffing.
The facility is made up of two parts — one has enclosures where about 70 Palestinian detainees are put into intense physical restraint. The other is a field hospital, where injured detainees are strapped to beds, wearing diapers, and are fed via straws, according to the report.
The whistleblowers, who risk legal repercussions and reprisals from groups supportive of the Tel Aviv regime’s onslaught on Gaza, described detainees held under extreme physical restraint.
“Rows of men in gray tracksuits are seen sitting on paper-thin mattresses, ringfenced by barbed wire. All appear blindfolded, their heads hanging heavy under the glare of floodlights,” said the report, citing whistleblowers.
“We were told they were not allowed to move. They should sit upright. They’re not allowed to talk. Not allowed to peek under their blindfold.”
The report said detainees are “placed under extreme physical restraint and a field hospital where wounded detainees are strapped to their beds, wearing diapers and fed through straws.”
One whistleblower, who works as a medic at the facility’s field hospital, said, “They stripped them down of anything that resembles human beings.”
It noted that guards were instructed to silence detainees and to single out “problematic” individuals for punishment. Another whistleblower said beatings were administered “not for intelligence gathering,” but out of “revenge.”
“It was punishment for what they (the Palestinians) did on October 7 and punishment for behavior in the camp.” Israel launched the war on Gaza on October 7 after Palestinian resistance groups carried out a surprise retaliatory operation into the occupied territories.
Concomitantly with the war, the regime has been enforcing a near-total siege on the coastal territory, which has reduced the flow of foodstuffs, medicine, electricity, and water into the Palestinian territory into a trickle.
So far during the military onslaught, the regime has killed at least 34,943 Gazans, most of them women, children, and adolescents. Another 78,572 Palestinians have sustained injuries as well.
