Israeli Police Detain Soldiers Suspected Of Raping A Palestinian, Sparking Protests

On Monday, Israeli military police detained Israeli soldiers who were suspected of raping a Palestinian prisoner at the notorious Sde Teiman prison in southern Israel. Israeli media reported that the Palestinian prisoner was transferred from Sde Teiman to a hospital with an injury to his anus that was so severe he could not walk.

When the Israeli military police went to Sde Teiman to detain soldiers suspected of forcibly sodomizing the Palestinian man, they were met with resistance. A security source told Haaretz that Israeli soldiers at the facility refused to leave and barricaded themselves in. They also reportedly used pepper spray on the military police.

The police ended up detaining nine out of 10 of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers suspected of abusing the Palestinian detainee. The arrest of the suspected rapists sparked protests from far-right Israeli activists.

Members of the Israeli Knesset joined protesters as they stormed Sde Teiman, including Zvi Sukkot of the Religious Zionism party. At least one member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition was spotted among the protesters, Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu, a member of the Jewish Power party. Later in the day, protesters stormed Beit Lid, the base where the Israeli soldiers are being held.

Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir, leader of the Jewish Power party, praised the detained Israeli soldiers, calling them the “best heroes” and denouncing their arrest as “shameful.”

According to The Telegraph, Ben Gvir said the Israeli security establishment should support the soldiers and “learn from the prison service: light treatment of terrorists is over. Soldiers need to have our full support.” According to CBS News:

Lawmaker Hanoch Milwidsky was asked as he defended the alleged abuse whether it was legitimate, "to insert a stick into a person's rectum?"

"Yes!" he shouted in reply to his fellow parliamentarian. "If he is a Nukhba [Hamas militant], everything is legitimate to do! Everything!"

Israel's far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who's drawn U.S. reprimands with his provocative actions since the war started, wrote in a post on social media: "Take your hands off the reservists."

Israeli whistleblowers have detailed widespread abuse and torture at the Sde Teiman prison, which holds Palestinians detained from Gaza. The New York Times reported last month that Palestinians who made it out of the facility said they were subject to sexual torture.

Younis al-Hamlawi, a senior nurse who was detained by Israeli forces in Gaza after he left Al-Shifa Hospital over allegations that he was tied to Hamas, told the Times that Israeli soldiers penetrated his rectum with a metal stick, causing him to bleed and leaving him in "unbearable pain."

All of this was sparked due to an internal Israeli military investigation, after pressure from US officials...

The Times report said a leaked report from the UN "cited a 41-year-old detainee who said that interrogators ‘made me sit on something like a hot metal stick and it felt like fire,’ and also said that another detainee ‘died after they put the electric stick up’ his anus."