Torture camps, dogs and iron handcuffs – Israeli jails are a living hell for Palestinians, who are allegedly being subjected to rape and sexual abuse continuously. Prisoners are reportedly being allotted numbers to replace their names and are being thrashed and raped by guards for simply refusing to address themselves as such.
According to a detailed investigation by Al Jazeera, prisoners taken into custody by Israel in the aftermath of the October 2023 Hamas attack have been subjected to immense cruelty in the name to interrogation ever since.
Some of the former prisoners who were sexually tortured despite claiming to have no knowledge of the Hamas-led attack gave their testimonies to the publication.
Note: The following details can be disturbing. Readers’ discretion advised.
‘We shouted, but they kept laughing’
One of the former prisoners told Al Jazeera that in April 2024, just as Ramadan was coming to a close, about 12 soldiers and their guard dogs surrounded him and seven other prisoners he was locked up with. “We were raped after being stripped of our clothes,” the former prisoner recalled, adding that dogs were “used” during the process and followed the officers’ orders. “We were shouting, ‘Oh Lord, oh God’, but they were just laughing and filming us,” the Gaza resident added.
The former prisoner said his name was replaced with a number and he was forced to identify himself as such. As prisoners lay on their stomach with their hands and feet cuffed up, dogs were made to walk all over them, the Gazan said.
Another man, a labourer, from Gaza, detailed similar incidents in his ordeal. He was also allgedly tortured and raped with help from guard dogs. He also spoke about being sexually assaulted by female officers using artificial objects: “They put iron handcuffs on my hands behind me. They untied the handcuffs from my legs and put on more handcuffs. Then they stripped me of my clothes.”
As the labourer was pinned down with boots on his back and neck, soldiers around applauded and filmed the assault.
The former prisoner said he told officers many times he was not aware what went behind the Hamas attack from October 2023, but was repeatedly tortured and trampled despite that. “You entered our lands, the Israeli lands, and invaded them. You raped and you did this and you did that,” the prisoner claimed to have been told by the Israeli guards.
When Netanyahu’s party member defended rape
Back in 2024, a purported video of a prisoner being raped at a detention facility in southern Israel had emerged, according to an Al Jazeera report. The clip, that sparked immense outrage, had reportedly left the victim unable to walk despite treatment.
As the clip leak led to the arrest of some IDF members, several right-wing nationalists, including ministers, defended them. A lawmaker Hanoch Milwidsky, belonging to Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s party, was asked if it was legitimate to insert an object into a person’s rectum, to which he replied: “If he is a Nukhba [Hamas militant], everything is legitimate to do! Everything!”
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir had also come out in support of the soldiers. “As in the Israel Prison Service so in the IDF. Our fighters deserve full backing,” he had said, according to a Times of Israel report.
