Shaiel Ben-Ephraim @academic_la – Israel analyst [note, Shaiel is admittedly a Zionist]
3 August 2024
After my Tweet about Sde Teiman, two people who work at the military base there, one in the holding facility and one outside the facility contacted me. I verified their identity and have their permission to say what they saw. I will refer to them as holding facility source and IDF source. The IDF source is quite high up. The other source is not but works there every day. Here is what they had to say.
Facility Source: “Sometimes I wonder who this is worse for. Them or us. We are guarding the worst people in the world. The worst scum. We see them and we stew in hatred. Some people here lost family, loved ones on October 7th. Then you see the person who did it. Things happen. Bad things. People have been beaten. People have been killed. I saw one person die. People have been sexually assaulted. Yes. Nothing compared to what they did. But we all know we shouldn’t be doing it. They all tell us they are innocent. So we don’t believe any of them. But yeah, some probably did nothing wrong. It should end. There should be supervision. No one cares what we do. No one got arrested or disciplines until just now. Every day is a nightmare. For us. For them. We all want to get out of this hell. I am a soldier. Not a fucking warden.”
IDF Source: “I don’t even know where to start. The rot is everywhere and is systematic. It all starts with the office in charge of this. Prisoners should be under the prison service and not the army. But the prison service is making the rules and the IDF is guarding them. That is the worst of all possible worlds. The 100 unit has been assigned to guard the prisoners. Their job is supposed to be to intervene when there is disorder. They are roguth people. So they are guarding the prisoners. You are letting animals guard animals without supervision and in nightmarish conditions. When the army tried to create an oversight system, it was dismantled for political reasons. Just look at what happened with MK Zvi Sukkot. He brags that he is tricking the army and courts into torturing prisoners and is happy he makes this kosher with his political appointment. Its so bad. There is not a single security officer on sight to oversee. So that even if there is a major event no one is responsible. Everyone who served in Gaza is full of hatred. They have an urge to release the animal in them. Anyone who is put in a room with those who raped their girlfriends or killed their friends without supervision – will get whatever we got. The problem isn’t (just) our soldiers who are hurt and abused but that there is nobody to prevent this. On the contrary, many in the government see this as a blessing. This is the key. The soldiers are just a symptom. Another thing nobody talks about is all the bodies in fridges near the holding pens. There is no place to store them. Just containers full of dead bodies of inmates.”
The two sources paint a gruesome picture of a facility that is hell on earth. It must be closed. Now.
Israel now has its own Abu Ghraib. The investigations into the horrible state of affairs in Sde Taiman was instigated due to international pressure. Human rights organizations and the foreign media had amassed a large amount of incontrovertible evidence that detainees in the facility were being held in inhumane conditions and tortured by staff. The conditions there are no accident. Internal security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has made it an intentional part of his policy to keep the detainees there under bad conditions for political and populist reasons. That encouraged the soldiers, who understandably despise the Hamas prisoners, to pull out all the stops.
With the danger of international investigations in the ICC and ICJ hanging over the Israeli leadership, they ordered the IDF to clean house. The deciding factor was the British decision to suspend some arms sales to Israel. British diplomats told their Israei counterparts that the conditions at Sde Taiman are one of the main reasons. So doctors alerted their superiors that a detainee had items inserted in his anus, it was decided to launch a proper investigation finally.
My source in the Justice Ministry tells me that this is an incredible can of worms. There are hundreds of suspected cases of abuse at Sde Taiman. This latest one is just the tip of the iceberg. Netanyahu and Gallant have been aware of the problem and displeased with it. However, they did not want too get on the bad side of Ben-Gvir so they let it slide, with terrible consequences. What needs to happen now is clear. Sde Taiman must be closed. A new facility should be established with greater transparency and where Ben-Gvir has no jurisdiction. In addition, I hope they bring all the perpetrators to justice.
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