All forms of inhuman treatment, including torture and sexual violence, are war crimes,” said Sarah Hashash, the Deputy Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International. “The recent investigation conducted by Amnesty International documented torture and other inhumane treatment of Palestinian detainees in the Israeli Sde Teiman detention center and other detention centers,” Hashash added.

She explained, “The organization revealed how Israel uses the Unlawful Combatants Law as a tool to arbitrarily detain Palestinians indefinitely without charge or trial, in violation of international law.”

She pointed out that “the organization conducted interviews with 27 former detainees, all of whom were civilians, including 20 men, six women, and one child from the Gaza Strip, and everyone has reported that during periods of detention when it was impossible to communicate with them, they were all subjected to torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment by the occupation forces, its intelligence, and the occupation police.”

The organization stated: “The appalling reports of a Palestinian detainee who was gang-raped in the Sde Teiman facility provide new evidence of horrific torture and other ill-treatment of Palestinian detainees documented in recent investigations by Amnesty International.”

She stressed that “the sexual torture incident of the Palestinian detainee also signals that Israel has to allow immediate access to the places of detention by independent monitors. It called upon “the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to urgently investigate all allegations of torture, including sexual violence, against Palestinian detainees.” “The Israeli judiciary has an appalling record of failing to investigate allegations of torture against Palestinians credibly,” she said.

Since the 7th of October, the Israeli occupation army, with American and European support, has been continuing its aggression against the Gaza Strip. Its aircraft continue to bomb hospitals, buildings, towers, and homes of Palestinian civilians, destroy them over the heads of their residents, and prevent the entry of water, food, medicine, and fuel.

The UN reports that this round of the occupation’s aggression against Gaza has seen the martyrdom of 39,623 martyrs, the injury of 91,469 others, and the displacement of 90 percent of the population of the Strip.

“Amnesty International is calling on the ICC’s Prosecutor’s office to urgently investigate all allegations of torture, including sexual violence, against Palestinian detainees. The Israeli judiciary has a terrible record of failing to investigate torture allegations by Palestinians credibly,” she added.

The international community should also call for Israeli authorities to grant “immediate and unfettered access” for independent monitors to all places of detention, she said, so that they can examine the conditions there.

An Israeli military court decided Sunday to prolong the detention of five soldiers suspected of sexually assaulting a Palestinian detainee from Gaza at Sde Teiman Prison in the Negev desert in southern Israel, local media reported.

On July 29, Israel’s official broadcasting authority, KAN, reported that 10 Israeli soldiers were detained for causing severe injuries to a Palestinian detainee, but five of them were released afterward.

Reports from the Palestinians and Israeli and international human rights have highlighted that the prison has been torturing prisoners from the Gaza Strip to death, which has claimed the lives of dozens of the former. 

The local health authorities of Palestine have reported nearly 39,600 killed, mainly women and children, and about 91,400 injured. Almost ten months into the Israeli war, vast portions of Gaza lie in ruins amidst a crippling blockade of food, clean water, and medicine.