Palestinian prisoners reported being tortured, raped and sexually abused in Israeli prisons after they were arrested following the October 2023 Hamas attack.
The disturbing details of the Israeli military’s use of sexual assault, rape, and inhumane treatment to torture Palestinian prisoners were revealed in a new documentary by Al Jazeera.
One former prisoner, a Gaza government employee, Muhammad al-Bakri, told Al Jazeera that in April 2024, during the Eid al-Fitr holiday, he was surrounded by six soldiers and their dogs. He, along with seven other prisoners, was stripped, blindfolded and handcuffed before they were raped in turns by the soldiers.
When the prisoners shouted for God, they laughed and filmed them. “We were shouting, ‘Oh Lord, oh God’, but they were just laughing and filming us," he said. “The dogs were following commands from the officers to (attack) us.”
The guards also reportedly used the dogs by giving them commands during the sexual abuse.
They were subject to the sexual abuse and beatings for 20 to half an hour before they were told to get dressed and taken back to prison.
Another man, a labourer from Gaza, said that he was allegedly raped and tortured with the help of guard dogs.
He also said that female officers used artificial objects to rape the prisoners while other soldiers stood and filmed.
The victims said that they were subjected to the torture under the pretext of questioning them about Hamas's attack on Israel.
Francesca Albanese, one of the Judges of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the United Nations, and the UN Special Rapporteur for the Palestinian Territories, confirmed that rape and sexual torture were used as a weapon by the Israeli army against detained Palestinian.
Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) and Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor have also collected evidence for the rape of detainees using dogs in the prisons.
Despite the serious accusations, there have been no investigations or emergence of evidence against any Israeli guard or soldier, with no one being punished to date.
Last month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he plans to sue the New York Times and one of its journalists for defamation after they released articles that said Israeli guards, soldiers and settlers used widespread violence against Palestinian prisoners.
"They defamed the soldiers of Israel and perpetuated a blood libel about rape, trying to create a false symmetry between the genocidal terrorists of Hamas and Israel's valiant soldiers," Netanyahu said in a statement.
"We will fight these lies in the court of public opinion and in the court of law. Truth will prevail," he added.
In July 2021, ten Israeli officers were arrested after a video of a Palestinian prisoner being gang raped at the Sde Teiman detention camp in the Negev desert was released.
However, right-wing protesters and lawmakers protest the arrest and raid the detention centre. Israel eventually dropped all of the charges against the men.
They also arrested the woman who leaked the video, Israeli Major General Yifat Tomer Yerushalmi.
The Israeli Prime Minister called the release of the video the most serious public relations attack in Israeli history.
Israel’s Knesset members have also openly condoned the rape of prisoners. In July 2024, Hanoch Milvidsky said that “everything is permissible to do” if a prisoner was a “Hamas fighter”
Despite the release of multiple reports that detail the brutality and sexual abuse in the prison, Israel has not been subjected to sanctions.
