LONDON: A disturbing video emerged on social media last week of a Palestinian man identified as 29-year-old Badr Dahlan.

Wide-eyed and rocking back and forth as he spoke, Dahlan appeared to be in a state of shock as he answered questions at Shuhada Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir Al-Balah, Gaza, shortly after his release from Israeli custody.

Dahlan, described by those who knew him as “a socially active and beloved young man,” appeared utterly transformed by the month he had spent in Israeli custody since he was seized in Khan Younis.

He described a pattern of beatings, torture and abuse that has become familiar to NGOs monitoring the dramatic increase in the number of Palestinians being incarcerated without charge or trial since the Gaza conflict began last October.

As the world’s attention continues to be focused on the remaining hostages taken by Hamas on Oct. 7, the plight of “the other hostages” — thousands of innocent Palestinian adults and children seized and held by Israel without charge — is largely ignored.

“There are currently about 9,200 prisoners in total from the West Bank and the Occupied Territories,” said Jenna Abu Hsana, international advocacy officer at Ramallah-based Palestinian NGO Addameer — the Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association.

“Of those, we believe about 3,200 are administrative detainees.”

Administrative detention “is basically a tool that is used by the occupation to indefinitely detain Palestinians for a prolonged period of time,” in prisons run by the Israel Prisons Service,” she said.

Detainees are charged and “tried” by military courts, but the process bypasses all norms of internationally accepted judicial procedure.

“There isn’t really a ‘charge’ because no evidence is presented against the detainee,” said Abu Hsana. “Any so-called evidence is kept in a secret file to which the detainee and their lawyer do not have access.”

Incarceration can last up to six months at a time and can then be extended for another six months at the discretion of the military.

Originally, the case against people held under this law had to be judicially reviewed within 14 days, but in December this was extended to 75 days. Simultaneously, the amount of time for which a prisoner could be denied a meeting with an attorney was raised from 10 days to 75 or, with the court’s approval, up to 180 days.

This is an invidious situation, says B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, which “leaves the detainees helpless — facing unknown allegations with no way to disprove them, not knowing when they will be released, and without being charged, tried or convicted.”

Israel “routinely uses administrative detention and has, over the years, placed thousands of Palestinians behind bars for periods ranging from several months to several years, without charging them, without telling them what they are accused of, and without disclosing the alleged evidence to them or to their lawyers.”

The situation in Gaza is slightly different, in that detainees held there since October have been arrested and held incommunicado in military camps under Israel’s Law on Incarceration of Unlawful Combatants, which was introduced in 2002.

But the effect is the same as for those being held under administrative detention. “Detainees can be held in these military camps for prolonged periods of time, with no charge and no evidence,” said Abu Hsana.

Before Oct. 7, Israel was holding about 5,000 Palestinians from the West Bank and the Occupied Territories in its prisons, of whom roughly 1,000 were being held under administrative detention.

Since Oct. 7, however, “the numbers have escalated,” said Abu Hsana. “There are currently over 9,200 detainees in the prisons, and of these 3,200 are being held under administrative detention.”

However, NGOs are struggling to determine exactly how many people have been taken in Gaza.

“We don’t have any accurate numbers because the occupation refuses to release any information, but we are told that it’s currently around 3,000 to 5,000 detainees.”

Most are held at one of two military sites — Camp Anatot, near Jerusalem, and Sde Teman, near Beersheba in the northern Negev.

Access to families and even lawyers is denied throughout a prisoner’s detention in these camps. But as some have been released over the past few months, shocking details have begun to emerge.

“For the detainees from Gaza, it’s especially difficult because they are handcuffed and blindfolded throughout their entire detention, from the moment of their arrest until they’re released, and the plastic zip ties being used are very tight and have caused many serious injuries,” said Abu Hsana.

In April, Israeli newspaper Haaretz obtained a copy of a letter sent to Israel’s attorney general and the ministers of defense and health by a distressed Israeli doctor at Sde Teman.

“Just this week,” the doctor wrote, “two prisoners had their legs amputated due to handcuff injuries, which unfortunately is a routine event.”

He added: “I have faced serious ethical dilemmas. More than that, I am writing to warn you that the facilities’ operations do not comply with a single section among those dealing with health in the Incarceration of Unlawful Combatants Law.”

None of the detainees, he added, were receiving appropriate medical care.

All this, he concluded, “makes all of us — the medical teams and you, those in charge of us in the health and defense ministries — complicit in the violation of Israeli law, and perhaps worse for me as a doctor, in the violation of my basic commitment to patients, wherever they are, as I swore when I graduated 20 years ago.”

UNRWA, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, recently published a scathing report condemning the treatment of Palestinians who had been held, without charge or trial, and later released.

The report was based on information obtained through UNRWA’s role in coordinating humanitarian aid at the Karem Abu Salem crossing point between Gaza and Israel, where Israeli security forces have been regularly releasing detainees since early November 2023.

By April 4, UNRWA had documented the release of 1,506 detainees, including 43 children and 84 women. Detainees reported having been sent multiple times for interrogations and enduring extensive ill-treatment.

This included “being subjected to beatings while made to lie on a thin mattress on top of rubble for hours without food, water or access to a toilet, with their legs and hands bound with plastic ties.”

Several detainees, said UNRWA, “reported being forced into cages and attacked by dogs. Some released detainees, including a child, had dog bite wounds on their body.”

Other methods of ill-treatment reported included “physical beatings, threats of physical harm, insults and humiliation such as being made to act like animals or getting urinated on, use of loud music and noise, deprivation of water, food, sleep and toilets, denial of the right to pray and prolonged use of tightly locked handcuffs causing open wounds and friction injuries.”

In a statement provided to the BBC in response to UNRWA’s findings, the Israel Defense Forces said: “The mistreatment of detainees during their time in detention or whilst under interrogation violates IDF values and contravenes IDF and is therefore absolutely prohibited.”

It rejected specific allegations including the denial of access to water, medical care and bedding. The IDF also said that claims regarding sexual abuse were “another cynical attempt to create false equivalency with the systematic use of rape as a weapon of war by Hamas.”

Israeli peace activists have protested outside the camp, holding banners reading “Sde Teman torture camp” and “Israel makes people disappear.” In an apparent attempt to dampen growing unease about its treatment of detainees, earlier this month (June) Israel invited The New York Times “to briefly see part of” the facility.

If the authorities were hoping for a stamp of approval, they were to be disappointed.

On June 6, the paper described “the scene one afternoon in late May at a military hangar inside Sde Teman.” In barbed-wire cages, the paper reported, “men sat in rows, handcuffed and blindfolded … barred from talking more loudly than a murmur, and forbidden to stand or sleep except when authorized.”

All were “cut off from the outside world, prevented for weeks from contacting lawyers or relatives.”

By late May, the NYT was told, about 4,000 Gazan detainees had spent up to three months in limbo at Sde Teman, including “several dozen” people captured during the Hamas-led attack of Oct. 7.

After interrogation, “around 70 percent of detainees had been sent to purpose-built prisons for further investigation and prosecution.

“The rest, at least 1,200 people, had been found to be civilians and returned to Gaza, without charge, apology or compensation.”

On May 23, a group of Israeli human rights organizations petitioned the Supreme Court calling for the camp’s closure. The government has agreed to scale back activities there and the court has ordered the state to report back on conditions at the facility by June 30.

But protesters and NGOs say the scandal of Sde Teman is just the tip of the iceberg.

“Scores of testimonies reveal pervasive torture and ill-treatment of Palestinian detainees, with numerous reports of deaths in Israeli prisons and military camps, blatantly violating the absolute prohibition of torture under international law,” said Miriam Azem, international advocacy and communications associate with Adalah — the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel.

“Thousands of Palestinians are held under administrative detention without charge or trial, based on secret evidence, in deplorable and life-threatening conditions.

“Hundreds of Palestinians from Gaza remain held incommunicado, without access to lawyers or family, their whereabouts unknown, under a legal framework that permits enforced disappearances, constituting a grave violation of international law.

“The urgency of the current moment demands immediate and resolute intervention from the international community. Failure to act poses a threat to Palestinian lives.”

The children in Israel’s prisons

Ongoing hostage-for-prisoners exchange opens the world’s eyes to arrests, interrogations, and even abuse of Palestinian children by Israeli authorities

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