Satellite images showed an unprecedented expansion in the Sde Timan camp (Al Jazeera)
Newly captured satellite images showed an unprecedented expansion of the "Sde Teman" camp of the Israeli army's Southern Command, which is an air base located between the Beersheva settlement (Beersheba) and the Gaza Strip.
Satellite footage reveals the appearance of a number of new buildings, in addition to what look like huge tents (hangars) in various places in the Israeli military base, which changed its shape and turned from a camp and an air base into what human rights organizations described as “Israel’s Guantanamo.”
A report by the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor stated that it had received new testimonies about Palestinian detainees from the Gaza Strip - including women and children - being subjected to severe torture and treatment degrading to human dignity, inside the prison, which included nudity, sexual harassment and threats, in addition to being imprisoned in iron cages that resemble the cages in which animals are kept. They are tied up and forced to sit on the ground in a cruel and humiliating position.
The report, published on February 5, explained the increasing severity of torture, such as beating Palestinian detainees in a “brutal and retaliatory” manner, unleashing dogs on them, keeping them ghosted for long hours, completely stripping them of their clothes, and depriving them of food and access to the bathroom.
A report published by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz stated that 27 Palestinian detainees were killed in Gaza while being held in Israeli military facilities at Sde Teman. The Israeli army did not provide details about the circumstances of the deaths.
According to Haaretz, detainees died in Sde Teman and Anatot prisons during interrogation in Israeli territory, and the Israeli army spokesman’s office reported that the military investigation police opened an investigation into the deaths.
The report stated that the detainees in Sde Teman were detained with plastic ties and blindfolded throughout the day, and that the soldiers there punished the Palestinians if they moved or spoke, and that the detainees were kept for long periods with their hands handcuffed above the head and behind the back, or they were tied to the fence in the open and without appropriate clothing.
According to Haaretz, the number of Gazans jumped by 150% during December of last year.
During the war, Israel introduced legal amendments to the conditions of detention.
The new amendment allows detainees to be held for up to 75 days without seeing a judge, and a local court judge can prevent them from seeing a lawyer for up to 180 days.
After 160 days of war in the Gaza Strip, and according to the latest challenges of the “Commission for Prisoners’ and Ex-Prisoners’ Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club” published two days ago, the number of Palestinians who were arrested after the events of October 7 reached about 7,585 detainees, and the occupation refuses to provide human rights institutions with Including the international and Palestinian ones responsible for any information regarding their fate and places of detention.
Source: Al Jazeera