Women from Gaza take shelter in the courtyards of Al-Shifa Hospital (Al-Jazeera)
The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor said that it documented new testimonies about Palestinian female detainees from the Gaza Strip being subjected to sexual violence, torture, and inhumane treatment, through nudity, sexual harassment, and threats of rape, during their detention for varying periods by Israeli army forces.
The testimonies of female detainees who were recently released after spending various periods of detention included that they were subjected to harsh practices that amounted to torture, including being brutally beaten and threatened with rape if they did not comply with officers’ orders.
According to these testimonies, they were also forced to strip completely naked and be subjected to a strip search in front of male soldiers, to direct obscenities at them, to handcuff them and blindfold them for long periods, to detain them in open cages in extremely cold conditions, to deprive them of food, medicines, necessary treatment, and feminine supplies, and to constantly threaten them with deprivation of their rights. Seeing their children.
This is in addition to the Israeli army looting their money and property that they were in possession of when they were arrested.
The Observatory said in a statement that a team affiliated with it conducted personal field interviews with dozens of women who declared that they had been subjected to sexual and verbal harassment, but it believes that a larger number of female detainees were subjected to these violations and preferred not to reveal or talk about them because of social norms or as a result of their exposure to trauma or fear of being harmed. Retaliation, persecution or killing by the Israeli army.
Source: websites