There is a secretive detention camp at a military base called Sdi Teiman, in the Negev desert (18 miles from Gaza border) which was set up months ago to process Palestinian men and boys seized from the streets of Gaza and the West Bank since October 7^th. Here they are strapped down, blindfolded and held in diapers. They are kept in a state of severe sensory deprivation to break them, degraded and tortured. They are forced to sit outdoors on a thin mattress through the desert heat of the day, and sleep in the cold of the desert night. Continuously cuffed, they are forced to remain motionless and silent. At night, dogs are set on them. Anyone who speaks or moves risks being savagely beaten till bones are broken. People’s hands and legs are tightly zip-tied for so long that, according to the report, some have needed limbs amputated. 

There they lie day after day, night after night, in a state of utter sensory deprivation, with nothing to distract from their wounds and pain. In the midst of this, Israeli medical interns use their exposed, vulnerable flesh as a canvas for experimentation. Sodomy(rape) and the use of electric chairs have also been reported in the Washington Post. Israel wishes us to believe it is targeting Hamas and those it “arrests” – (the widely accepted euphemism for hostages) - are Palestinians suspected of ties to the militant group, which most often they are not.

Marwan Barghouti, from the Palestinian National Liberation has been locked up for the past 22 years. Sometimes referred to as the “Palestinian Mandela”, Barghouti is considered a potential future leader of the Palestinian people. According to fellow inmates and human rights groups, Barghouti is barely recognisable after a series of beatings; struggling to see out of his right eye, in constant pain with untreated injuries, underweight, and dragged across the floor handcuffed and naked in front of other inmates at Ayalon Prison. Barghouti has been subjected to “unprecedented” abuses. But such torture has become “standard” for the 8,750 Palestinians known to have been jailed since October.

The government minister overseeing Israel’s prison service, Itamar Ben Gvir, belongs to the avowedly fascist party Jewish Power, whose ideological roots in Kahanism explicitly regard Palestinians as little more than vermin. (As Israel’s Security Minister he has also demanded that no aid should enter Gaza at all.)

The message of these torture chambers is directed at all of us, not just Palestinians.

Sourced from: Middle East Eye.net