Welcome to Hell: Israeli Human Rights Watch Group Exposes Israeli Prisons as Torture Camps
A Report by B'tselem Documents the Horrifying Abuse Prisoners Have Endured
The Israeli Human Watch Group B’tselem Has produced a report with major accusations against the Israel prison network. The Word “B’tselem” is Hebrew for “in the image of”. It is a reference to Genesis, “And God created humankind in His image. In the image of God did He create them.” It is a call to Jews to uphold and respect the rights of all people. It is a premise of Judaism. As a (non-practicing) Jewish person, I am sad to say that Zionism has violated and continues to violate this edict.
It reminds me of the “Passover Sedar on the street” that was held in Brooklyn in April. Naomi Klein, writer and activist gave a moving speech, about how Zionism has gone against so many of the principles of what Judaism is supposed to stand for. As Klein eloquently puts it:
“What I want to say to you tonight at this revolutionary and historic Seder in the Streets is that too many of our people are worshipping a false idol once again. They are enraptured by it. Drunk on it. Profaned by it.
That false idol is called Zionism.
It is a false idol that takes our most profound biblical stories of justice and emancipation from slavery – the story of Passover itself – and turns them into brutalist weapons of colonial land theft, roadmaps for ethnic cleansing and genocide.
It is a false idol that has taken the transcendent idea of the promised land – a metaphor for human liberation that has traveled across multiple faiths to every corner of this globe – and dared to turn it into a deed of sale for a militaristic ethnostate.”
This is exactly how I feel, watching the violence escalate over the decades. Watching a wing of the religious right support Israel as part of their apocalyptic vision; watching the US set policies not in its own best interest (or in Israel’s interests) because of the Israeli lobby; watching virtually all US politicians mouth the exact same unconditional, unwavering support for Israel; watching those with a dissenting narrative speak, but only after it was too late, and the damage was done; watching Israel use advanced US supplied weapons on citizens.
The report by B’tselem is called “Welcome to Hell”. It derives its name from a prisoner who managed to leave a torture camp alive. When he first arrived at the prison, he was greeted by an IDF soldier with the phrase "Welcome to hell." Judging by the way the prisoners are treated, he wasn’t joking. Despite denials of these acts by the Israeli government, and the rosy words spoken by Netanyahu about the special care the IDF has taken to avoid mistreatment and death, the report tells a vastly different story.
Though many of us have lived through the revelation of abuse at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, the facts of what you will read now about Israeli prisons are carefully documented and provide a level of detail beyond what was documented for Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo Bay. The “Welcome to Hell” documentation is based on the testimony of 55 prisoners who were released from custody.
The testimony shows abuse in almost every type of way imaginable: deprivation of food, physical violence, humiliation, denying medical treatments and crammed like sardines into cells. The report summarizes the sordid behavior as:
Their testimonies uncover a systemic, institutional policy focused on the continual abuse and torture of all Palestinian prisoners. This includes frequent acts of severe, arbitrary violence; sexual assault; humiliation and degradation; deliberate starvation; forced unhygienic conditions; sleep deprivation; prohibition on, and punitive measures for, religious worship; confiscation of all communal and personal belongings; and denial of adequate medical treatment. These descriptions appear time and again in the testimonies, in horrifying detail and with chilling similarities.
It goes without saying how utterly dehumanizing and sadistic this has been. At least 60 prisoners have died in custody. Many thousand have been “disappeared” as well. Families have tried to find the whereabouts of their missing relatives but have gotten nowhere. Families have described their relatives as “falling off of the edge of the earth”.
A recent video has surfaced showing an Israeli soldier raping a prisoner at the Sde Tieman Prison. There have already been calls to shut down this facility down due to extensive violence. It can be seen below taking a prisoner behind an array of shields so that the cameras don’t pick up the violence.
This prisoner suffered a torn anus, broken ribs, among other injuries.
Closing this facility will not end the violence. It’s not the facility that is the problem. It’s the mindset of the Israeli government and the soldiers that cause this demonic treatment of prisoners. They are supposedly building new units next to Sde Tieman, but unless the Israeli military changes its ways, new facilities won’t help. It might give prisoners a more slightly more humane facility but with the same sadistic treatment. It’s the old analogy of “the bad apple or the bad barrel”. This is not a case of a single bad apple. It’s the barrel that has been tainted with cruelty and iniquity. Opening a new facility will only bring the rotten barrel with it.
It’s not just Sde Tieman. It’s a network of prisons. As Haaretz reported, Sde Tieman is just the “tip of the iceberg. The article talks about a protective system in place to shield soldiers who commit crimes. Israel claims to investigate these offenses, but the real purpose is to protect the soldiers, so they know they won’t get into legal trouble and are willing to continue their actions. How do they protect the soldiers? They “bluff”:
“The bluff is the operating system that has worked so well until now. Masses of complaints are received from anyone who bothers to complain. Palestinians, human rights organizations, UN agencies – please, just complain. Paperwork is generated, but nothing is seriously investigated.
Each incident is treated as if were at most a violation by the lower ranks. The policy and the senior ranks are never investigated. And the whole process proceeds very slowly.
It gets dragged out for so long that in the meantime, everyone forgets. Attention moves on, and years go by. And by then, who cares about some Palestinian teen whom soldiers shot in the back and killed somewhere near the separation barrier many years ago? But nevertheless, we can say, "We investigated."
As of August 2024 (the writing of the report), there are 9000 “security” prisoners being held in these prisons. Some have been held for posts the IDF found offensive on Facebook, following a post on Instagram, attending protests and “looking like the age of a potential fighter”. Some of the people in jail are actually Palestinians with Israeli citizenship.
Testimony
55 People have testified to B’tselem. They have a common theme of beatings and deprivation. Two examples below provide some insight into what has happened in these prisons:
From the testimony of Ashraf al-Muhtase
On 18 November 2023, during roll call, five IRF members and a lot of guards led by an officer came into the cell and attacked us, claiming they were looking for a radio. They beat us with batons, punched us and kicked us all over our bodies. They brought a dog into the cell, which attacked a young detainee and scratched his back badly. We were all badly injured in that attack. When it was over, we lay on the floor. I leaned against a wall. I had broken ribs and was injured in my right shoulder, my right thumb, and a finger on my left hand. I couldn’t move or breathe for half an hour. Everyone around me was screaming in pain, and some inmates were crying. Most were bleeding. It was a nightmare beyond words. The officer told us he’d be back in the evening. We lay there and waited, scared to death, but we weren’t attacked again that night. IRF people attacked inmates in other cells that night. It was so violent that their screams filled the prison. The next day we learned that IRF people had killed a detainee named Thaer Abu ‘Asab. That night, the guards held a party on wing 21. They played loud music, danced with female soldiers and cursed Hamas and Sinwar.
Testimony of Adv. Sari Huriyyah, 53, from Shfaram, who was arrested over a Facebook post":
For the first three days I was very frustrated. I hardly talked to anyone and didn’t eat at all. The food was truly awful and they gave us tiny amounts. We got one plate of rice a day for the whole cell. Just rice, some white cheese, and slices of bread and cucumber. We weren’t given any cutlery, so we had to eat with our hands. I felt disgusted, helpless, frustrated and humiliated. I didn’t understand how this was happening to me at my age, and it was very difficult to see the degradation of those around me. I couldn’t grasp it. We didn’t sleep at all the first night. There was a window in the cell, through which we heard detainees crying and shouting while guards beat them. The guards yelled out demands that they bark like dogs. We heard some of the detainees actually bark after they were hit. The guards laughed, of course. It was really hard to hear and see.
These are crimes against humanity. The International Criminal Court ICC) has already recommended charges against Israel for other crimes. At his address at congress, Netanyahu vehemently denied the veracity of these charges. He feigned bewilderment at why the ICC would concoct such stories. Now a 118-page report by a respected human rights watch group has been published for the world to see. Let’s hope the ICC can investigate further based on this report and file more charges. I’d like to believe that Netanyahu might have a harder time wiggling out of this one, but people believe what they want to believe. He can’t call the Israeli based B’tselem antisemitic, but he can scream “Russian agents” or ‘Iranian agents’, to an applauding US Congress.
It's horrible that western leaders believe everything that comes out of Netanyahu's mouth, even with his record of endless lies. All the standing ovations in the USA. And the western press won't call it a genocide.
I hope he can't squirm out of this latest report, but I know western leaders will do their best to downplay it and will continue to support him.
Thanks for speaking out about this, Michael. Making people aware of these atrocities through our writing is one of the best things we can do.
it is obvious that these abject behaviors are part of the forensic psychiatry. These are acts that should generate unanimous condemnation, and that cannot be tolerated even in relation to animals. These acts, and their cover-up and even approval by civil and religious authorities as well as members of civil society, demonstrate the gravity and depth of the evil that affects this entity, this evil which is called Zionism.
And, whatever some say, all, I mean All! justified the explosion and the revolt of October 7, it was even highly predictable, and, despite the narrative lies and multiple distortions of the Zionist hasbara, this eruption appeared as blessed bread for the far right Israeli eager to settle, in its own way, the fate of the human zoo in Gaza while waiting to do the same with the rest of Palestine.
Finally, these outrageous abuses did not start after October 7! They are part of the daily life, the experience of the Palestinian populations since the implantation of this evil entity...
Finally, it is necessary to point out the courage and moral rigor of a certain Israeli press that dares to report these horrors, and, as a corollary, the abjection of the MSM press that does not mention them!
Greatness and decadence! Decline and graveyard of moral values and good western civilized conscience, These tragic events, at least, have served to measure the depth of the abyss into which humanity has plunged and the hideous face of the monster that the West helped create and worked so hard to maintain.... shame on us!