Torture of Palestinians – testimony from Israelis who “served” at Sde Teiman

JVL Introduction

The UN Declaration on Torture (and other inhuman treatment or punishment).  There are 12 clauses and Clause 3 says:  “No State may permit or tolerate torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Exceptional circumstances such as a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency may not be invoked as a justification of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” (My emphasis)

That this declaration is being ignored is also shown by this testimony from Israelis who worked at Sde Teiman. This provides further proof – if more were needed  – of the validity of the B’Tselem report on Israel’s torture of Israeli prisoners from earlier this month, which shows that torture is widely used on Palestinian prisoners.  The failure to see Palestinians as human beings, let alone equal human beings, even from those willing to speak of what they witnessed is disturbing: one medic who worked there in the recent period said: “…when I was there, I didn’t see anything, and if I had, I probably would have passed that on to those above me. Because I wouldn’t have been able to bear it. Not because of them: They are terrorists and I have no pity for them. Because of us, because when we behave like that, it hurts us. We must think about ourselves, only about ourselves.”

(All photos below are from the original Ha’aretz publication)

LL

This article was originally published by Ha'aretz on Fri 16 Aug 2024. Read the original here.