Sexual assault against Palestinian prisoners is one of the most serious human rights violations that contravenes all international laws and human rights conventions, including the Geneva Conventions on the Protection of Prisoners.
Numerous human rights organisations have documented cases in which prisoners were subjected to various physical and psychological abuses, including sexual assault, which leaves profound repercussions on the victims, their families, and society as a whole.
Recently, accusations against Israel of committing sexual violence against Palestinians in prisons and detention centres have escalated. Experts and lawyers have testified before the United Nations about the "systematic" use of sexual violence against Palestinians in detention centres, as well as at barriers and other situations. They noted that these practices include sexual assault and threats of rape, which constitute a flagrant violation of international law and human rights.
The UN Secretary-General recently sent a warning letter regarding documented information about Israel committing "sexual violence" against Palestinian captives in Israeli prisons, detention centres, and military bases, prompting it to consider including Israel on the blacklist of countries in the upcoming UN report on sexual violence in conflict zones.
An unbearable hell
Journalist Sami al-Sa'i from Tulkarm was one of the prisoners who suffered sexual violence during his year and a half in detention in what he described as "the hell of Israeli prisons."
On 23 February 2024, an Israeli military force raided his home. The Israeli forces detained him in front of his family just after he underwent a kidney removal operation to donate it to his son, who was suffering from kidney failure.
"At first, their treatment was normal, and I thought they were taking my health into consideration. But when I entered prison, all that changed, and I saw the horrors," al-Sa'i told The New Arab.
As soon as he arrived at Megiddo Prison on 11 March, the guards gathered around him and began beating him severely, then stripping him of his clothes and sexually assaulting him using sticks and other sharp objects.
"They didn't provide me with any treatment, even though I suffered from severe rectal bleeding for 22 days. I treated myself using only tissues," al-Sa'i added.
He was physically assaulted several times in this prison, which he describes as "an unbearable hell." This experience was further compounded by the severe psychological effects of the violent sexual assault he endured.
He was then transferred to Rimon Prison and did his best to overcome what had happened psychologically. Still, the effects of the assault resurfaced after his release and continue to haunt him.
"Many other prisoners were subjected to the same sexual assault, but they didn't speak to the media for psychological and societal reasons. We were all subjected to torture, beatings, starvation, and medical neglect," al-Sa'i said.
Just two months before his release, al-Sa'i was given painkillers after months of suffering, while no one followed up on his health following the sexual assault. The site of his surgery after the kidney donation was damaged by the severe beating, and he suffered severe pain. He didn't receive any treatment, but he was able to recover on his own.
'Systematic incompetence' by international human rights systems
The Palestinian Prisoners' Club responded to the UN warning letter by saying: "The international human rights systems' continued warnings and expressions of concern and alarm regarding the crimes committed by Israel against prisoners are no longer sufficient. The human rights system must reclaim its essential role, which it has lost due to the systematic incompetence that has affected its role since the beginning of the genocide, in particular."
According to a statement issued last week, the association stated that the scale of the crimes and violations monitored by various specialised institutions against Palestinian prisoners has surpassed the ability to describe them. These crimes begin with systematic torture, which is no longer limited to the legally recognised concept of torture. Everything within the prison and camp structure has become a tool for torture. This is preceded by crimes and violations faced by detainees from the moment of their arrest.
"The testimonies obtained by the institutions, specifically from detainees from Gaza, constitute compelling evidence of the crimes they were subjected to, including sexual crimes. Here, we point to the leaked video, which includes a clip of Israeli soldiers raping a detainee from Gaza in the Sde Teiman camp, which was one of the most prominent camps and remains a symbol of torture crimes," the letter noted.
At least 76 Palestinian prisoners have been reportedly killed since the beginning of Israel's war on Gaza in October 2023. These are the only martyrs whose identities are known, while dozens of others remain subject to the crime of enforced disappearance.
Since the beginning of the war of extermination, Israel has imposed policies and committed horrific crimes against thousands of prisoners, and continues to do so. The most prominent crimes include torture, starvation, and denial of medical treatment, all of which aim to kill prisoners and deprive them of their humanity, according to the association.
Goals and methods
Thamer Sabaaneh, a researcher on Palestinian prisoner affairs, told TNA that the Israeli prison system constitutes one of the state's political mechanisms exploited by Israel to maintain "Jewish supremacy" in the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
According to various estimates, since 1967, Israel has imprisoned more than 800,000 Palestinians from the occupied West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip—roughly 20% of the total population and approximately 40% of Palestinian men.
In his opinion, torture, whether motivated by revenge, extracting confessions and information, or punishment, always aims to change the identity of the tortured from rebellious to submissive, at the very least. It causes the prisoner to be killed internally, without physically killing him.
"The issue begins with imposing one's will and exercising power over the tortured person, and then, through him, over others. In other words, what is required is to terrorise all prisoners and force them to abdicate their lives, intentions, and unwanted aspirations, so that they don't face the same fate," Sabaaneh added.
"Torture and brutal beatings have become a goal, a means, for Israeli jailers. Perhaps part of this is for revenge, and partly because of their perception of the other," according to him.
"Prisons are one of the most extreme and violent methods employed by the Israeli system of control against Palestinians, and it is one of the most obvious and brutal," Sabaaneh, who himself was arrested and tortured during this war, explained to TNA. "Against the backdrop of the political role played by the prison system and the accelerating process of dehumanising Palestinians by Israeli society—a far-right government, a weak and mobilised judiciary, and a responsible minister who boasts of violating human rights—this system has transformed into a widespread tool of oppression, operating systematically and arbitrarily against Palestinians, its ammunition being torture."